Chapter Twelve
Day Two
Kala groaned as they started up the hill. “She gave you an F.”
Cooper snorted behind her. He’d been the one up early this morning, waking her with coffee and protein bars and kisses. And she hadn’t even karate chopped his throat or anything. She’d known it was him.
She hadn’t dreamed the night before.
“I think I probably deserved it. Also, she let me make up that paper.”
Why had she ever broached this subject? All of her sins were, as Shakespeare put it, remembered. “Mrs. Teacle was cheating on her taxes. You didn’t even cheat. You just didn’t understand The Scarlet Letter.”
“I watched the Wishbone version. They left things out.”
“And Mrs. Teacle left out forty thousand dollars’ worth of winnings from Vegas.”
It was a case closed in her head.
“You’re a menace.”
Day Three
Cooper knew he should be irritated that Joyce Reed was nowhere to be found. They walked from known campsite to known campsite, stopping at Ranger stations to ask around. Other than that, it was the two of them, and they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
Definitely should be irritated, and yet he couldn’t work up the will. All he could find was this weird sense of contentment when she didn’t hesitate to allow him to give her a hand up a slippery rock surface. “So Jimmy. Mrs. Teacle, who gave me a valid F and wasn’t expecting a group of teen hacker vigilantes.”
Her nose wrinkled, and she looked adorable. “It wasn’t a group, per se. It was me and Lou.”
Lou had helped her get revenge on anyone who Kala vaguely believed hurt him, and the last two years of high school, Cooper had been her accomplice in some shady shit she pulled on people who hurt Lou. The first time she’d asked him had felt like sunshine coming back in his life. Now he could see it had been a test to see if he could leave a little of his Captain America, right-is-right and wrong-is-wrong mentality behind. His baby was on the morally gray side even back then. “You don’t need more than you and Lou. I’m only trying to get a full accounting of all the villains my personal Batman took out.”
“Black Widow, please,”
she corrected as she moved along the tree line. Above them a gloriously blue sky shone down.
She was happy here. Relaxed and in her element in a way he hadn’t known she could be. She was a mystery, and he loved uncovering new facets of her.
“Black Widow,”
he agreed. “So we have Jimmy, who got a smack down. Mrs. Teacle got a couple of weeks in prison.”
“Minimum security,”
Kala pointed out. “And she had to sell that Porsche that made her look like a douchebag. You’re welcome.”
He wasn’t done. They’d been spending a lot of time going over her list. When they weren’t fucking. They’d done a lot of fucking. She seemed to be making up for lost time.
He was her only lover. He intended to keep it that way.
“Susie Clifton, who broke up with me right before prom, had some very nasty texts about her that her friends on the cheerleading team released to the school website.”
He was still surprised at that one. He shouldn’t be. She’d loved him back then. She just hadn’t trusted him. “My traveling team coach, my boss at the ice cream shop.”
She turned, her thumbs under the straps of her backpack. “There’s probably more. You’re lucky I didn’t keep up with you in college. And you know what? You’ve never once risked prison time to get revenge on someone who hurt me. Where’s the love, McKay?”
Oh, she’d started using that word. Maybe not exactly the way he wanted her to, but it was creeping into her vocabulary in non-ironic ways. He moved in, standing over her. When she wasn’t in fuck-me heels, he had a good half foot on her. He let his hand caress her cheek. “Point them my way and I’ll take ’em all out. I promise.”
Her lips curled up slightly. “What are you going to do? Give them a good talking to?”
Oh, she thought he was soft. Luckily, he knew how to speak Taggart. “I promise you if I get my hands on Manny Huisman, I won’t talk to him. I don’t know. Maybe I will. We can have a conversation about internal organs while I feed him his. He’s a doctor, right?”
There was a hitch to her breath that got his cock hard. “A bad doctor. A doctor who should definitely be experimented on. Tell me more.”
He whispered in her ear and knew they were camping right here tonight.
Day Four
“What do you mean he wasn’t there?”
Kala held the sat phone to her ear and thanked the universe her dad was better equipped than the Agency. He’d sent this brand-new state of the art baby with them, and her sister was coming in perfectly clear even though they were miles and miles away from the nearest cell tower. It didn’t matter because this sucker was pinging around space.
Her twin sniffled. “They said he was on another mission. But I know he was in Toronto before I got there.”
“How would you know?”
She was a menace? Had Cooper met her twin?
“I make friends. I might have made friends with a couple of Canadian analysts we’ve worked with. You know, the ones you haven’t met.”
That was fair. She could be hell on an analyst. It was best to let her twin deal with the admin stuff. Or Coop. He was good with that. If they ever managed MT, she would be the big-picture chick and Coop would deal with the day-to-day stuff.
Was she actually seeing a future where she was married to Cooper and they took over McKay-Taggart? It wouldn’t happen. It was far more likely Tash would take over. Tash could do it all.
Although it wasn’t like her dad was some easy to get along with dude, and he’d managed. Of course, he tended to be more open to therapy than she was. It might be time to think about why it worked for the old man.
For now, her sister was really better at parts of this game they played. “So you got some Canadian analyst to betray her country and tell you where their very valuable assets are?”
Kenzie huffed over the line. “It’s not like that. We were talking. I took her out to lunch and I mentioned how sad I was to have missed Ben.”
The sniffling started again. “She said he took off right after the meeting where they informed everyone the Agency was coming in. She wasn’t sure he knew it would be me, though. Do you think he was trying to avoid Dad? He hasn’t been particularly nice to Ben.”
Because Ben was an asshole, but that was Kenzie’s type and she was trying to be more magnanimous. Her sister couldn’t help her terrible taste in men. “I think he’ll be more polite from now on since Ben did the whole save-me thing. I’m surprised. Carys told me you made up in the hospital.”
“Babe, what are you doing?”
Cooper strode into their camp, two big fish dangling from his line. “You know that’s for emergencies only. Is that Kenz?”
Yum. Trout. They were eating well tonight. And she knew what the sat phone was for. “It is an emergency. Kenzie got to Canada and Ben fled before they were supposed to meet.”
Coop’s eyes went wide. “Damn. Continue, but can’t you put her on speaker?”
Yes, she was totally in love with this man. She put her sister on speaker. “Tell us everything.”
“Is that Coop? Are you still doing him?”
her sister asked. “Tell me, is he as good at oral as I’ve heard?”
“And I’m out.”
Cooper walked away.
“Who the hell did you hear that from?”
Kala asked. “But for the record, yeah.”
Day Five
Finally they were using the sat phone for what it was meant to be used for. Intelligence. Cooper sat with Kala between his legs, lying back against his chest as her father’s voice could be heard coming from the sat link.
This was why he’d refused to bring a laptop along. Oh, he’d said it was because of the weight and delicacy of the thing, but he hadn’t wanted visuals. If they’d had this meeting coming in on a screen, he wouldn’t have been able to get Kala to relax against him.
Just a couple of days and she was already so much more affectionate.
“Lou, what did you find out?”
Big Tag asked over the line.
“I spent three days in the lab with the Swedish police, and there’s zero question in my mind the bomb placed on Dr. Walsh’s car was made by the same person who created both the Jakarta bombs and the London bombs from a couple of years ago,”
Lou explained.
“But they aren’t the same as the ones Huisman used to blow up his own house?”
Kala asked.
He ran his hands over her arms and wrapped one around her, just below her breasts. He didn’t want to think about that day. He dreamed about it far too often. Lately he’d been the one with nightmares and Kala the one to soothe him.
She would smooth back his hair and kiss his forehead even when she was half asleep.
“No,”
Lou replied. “Those were much more rudimentary. And I probably shouldn’t use that word because they weren’t. I only mean by comparison. It’s obvious Huisman has some arms dealer connections. The bombs he used in Toronto are what one would expect. This one is something else. A leap ahead.”
“So we believe Zach is working with the mysterious bombmaker,”
Tristan asked. “I don’t want to believe it, but it would explain why he did what he did with The Jester.”
“You think he killed The Jester because he was going to out the bombmaker?”
Cooper asked. He didn’t want to believe it either, but the evidence was stacking up against his friend.
“What other reason can you think of?”
TJ asked. “He knew Tris had found The Jester and was going to bring him in for questioning. Zach got there first. He hired the assassin to take the fall for him, but I would bet anything he did the deed himself.”
“Yeah, I don’t buy the whole the assassin got scared off and came back thing. It was a sloppy story in the first place,”
Kala said. “But I also don’t think we’re being very creative. There could be several reasons he did it. He could be protecting someone.”
She was such an enigma. He would bet she would be the first to go all paranoid about a team member who’d obviously betrayed them. But when she cared about a person, she had a lot of rope to give.
He hoped Zach didn’t use it to hang them all.
“Well, that’s why you’re in the middle of the wilderness.”
Charlotte Taggart’s voice came over the line. “Any word on his aunt yet?”
“We’re talking to some rangers this afternoon,”
Cooper replied. “If we don’t find her in a day or two, I’m afraid we’re going to have to get transport to another part of the park.”
Rocky Mountain National Park was four hundred and fifteen square miles of wilderness. They’d searched from where Joyce had left her van, but now he had to consider she’d gotten some kind of transportation to another part of the park.
“If you don’t find her soon, I’m pulling you,”
Big Tag said. “The Canadians think they have a potential line on where Huisman’s hiding. They know he’s left Canada. They have a private jet flying out a few hours after he blew up his house, and it seems to have flown directly for Russia.”
Nice. “Non-extradition treaty. Of course that’s where he went. Does he still have millions of dollars?”
“Of course he does, babe,”
Kala said, and he could practically see the expression on her face. It was her dumbass-said-what face. “He would have prepped for all of this. He’s an asshole but a prepared one. I assure you the fucker has cash everywhere.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“What is he planning on doing in Russia?” TJ asked.
“Probably make it his base,”
Kenzie replied. “We know he’s interested in shaking up Southeast Asia. There are some soft targets that would disrupt western supply chains if they were hit. And we always have the threat of losing Taiwan and the supply of semiconductors. The Canadians are specifically worried about that.”
“But not worried enough to send Ben Parker,”
Tristan quipped.
Tris was an asshole. “I’m sure he was on an important op.”
Kala snorted. “Sure he was. It was super important that he avoid my sister. He’s still butt hurt because he thinks Coop has the hots for her.”
“For Ms. Magenta,”
Kenzie corrected.
“Well, he can’t tell the difference, and Coop lost his shit,”
Big Tag complained.
Her hand came up, covering his, and her head tilted so he could see her shake her head.
“I thought she was dead. Damn straight I lost my shit,”
Cooper said as she winked at him and resettled. He was going to murder Huisman.
And he wished he could murder Julia Ennis and all the bastards who’d worked for her. Maybe in the next life.
“Well, I’m her dad and I didn’t lose my shit,”
Big Tag shot back.
Charlotte snorted. It was funny that he knew exactly who’d made that sound.
“Well, it’s for the best,”
Kenzie said, and he could practically see her chin come up in that “I’m going to martyr myself for the sake of the team”
way. “It’s done and we don’t have to worry about him anymore. So now that we all have our assignments, let’s talk about the important thing. There are bets at The Hideout that Cooper’s going to come back from this assignment as Kala’s sub.”
“I’ll take that bet,” TJ said.
And they were done.
Day Six
Cooper was almost sure they hit paydirt when they saw the small cloud of smoke coming over the ridge. “Maybe the hiker was right.”
They’d met with a hiker early this morning. She was walking the Continental Divide trail and had been more than happy to join them for a coffee when she’d come across their camp. She’d told them about the older lady she’d met the day before about four hours walk to the west in one of the remotest parts of the trail. She’d called herself Joyce and had given the young woman some granola and filtered water and a place to rest for a couple of hours.
And she’d mentioned the woman’s handsome son, who’d shown up at the end of their visit. Though she hadn’t been introduced, she’d gotten a glimpse of the man before Joyce had hustled her off.
Tall. Dark hair. When they’d questioned her she’d said she couldn’t be completely sure it was Joyce’s son, but she’d given her impression of his age—roughly thirty.
Zach. Zach was here.
Or someone Joyce met in the mountains. One of the things her dossier included was her penchant to make new friends wherever she went.
It also mentioned she might be developing early stage dementia.
“You think she was talking about Zach?”
Kala asked.
She’d lost her relaxed humor the minute they’d realized the mission was truly starting. He was dealing with the operative part of his baby, and she could be intimidating. This wasn’t the woman who’d spent a shit ton of money on a sat call comforting her sister because her Canadian crush hadn’t met with her. Big Tag would try to send that bill to the Agency. Good luck with that. No, this was the woman who’d once left the very same agent her sister was in love with on a plane filled with people who wanted to kill him while she’d used the last parachute.
The trouble was he was attracted to both the kind, loving sister and the deadly operative. “I think we need to be ready in case it is. Our main objective is to bring Zach in.”
A brow rose over her blue eyes. “It is?”
She frowned. “You called my father.”
Worse. “I couldn’t get hold of him. I talked to Drake. Baby, you know we’re supposed to report in. This could go wrong, and the guys in Bliss need to be ready for an evac if we need it.”
“I would rather have had the option, Coop,”
Kala argued. “This isn’t a military op. I don’t need instructions.”
“We do need guidance.”
“I don’t. I need to have some flexibility in the field.”
She sounded irritated.
He stood by his action, but he maybe should have kept it to himself. The truth of the matter was Kala would do what she thought was right, and damn orders. But they needed backup if bad shit went down. He moved into her space, putting his hands on her hips. “I wanted us to have backup. Forgive me.”
She sighed. “That’s not fair, McKay. You know I can’t say no to puppy eyes.”
He curled his lips up. “Excellent. Then let’s take a break right here.”
She went on her toes. “Horny bastard. And no. She could move. We’re going in. But later.”
He was worried there might not be a later and they would lose this easy companionship they’d found here in the woods. “Fine, but I think on our next vacation I want you to take me to the cabin.”
She turned and started down the trail that led into the valley where the smoke was coming from. “You hate the cabin.”
He followed her, keeping his voice low. He’d noticed she’d moved her SIG into her shoulder holster. “I don’t hate it. I didn’t like it when we were teens because you ignored me the couple of times we came to visit. You would be off hanging with other kids, and I wasn’t allowed. I actually think a couple of those dudes talked about dating you. Like together. Like Aidan and Tristan together.”
She snorted, an oddly sexy sound, but then he found everything about the woman hot. “You’re talking about Charlie and Zander Hollister-Wright. They were not truly interested in me. They were interested in making my friend Paige jealous. Gosh, I haven’t been back in forever. I didn’t even ask about them. The last time I saw her, she was going into college, and they had decided to keep the relationship friendly. Her dad was so cool. He talked about his balls a lot. Fun guy. Well, one of them. You know when it comes to identical twins there’s always a fun one.”
He was pretty sure that was open to interpretation. In his mind, she was the fun one and Kenz was a little much with all the drama. If Kala had been in love with Ben Parker, she would have simply kidnapped the man and given him the choice to love her or die.
Actually, that would be a fun scenario. “Hey, baby. How open are you to fantasy play?”
She turned, her eyes lighting up. “How open are you to pointed ears and wings?”
Touché. “Definitely something to talk about.”
“Who the hell are you?”
a feminine voice asked. And then he heard the sound of a rifle cocking.
He held his hands up, turning. A woman with steel gray hair cut in an almost military style stood a few feet down, right inside the tree line. “Just hiking, ma’am.”
Joyce Reed wore cargo pants, the legs stuffed inside sturdy boots. She had on a threadbare sweater and glasses held together by tape, but there was a steady look in her eyes that let Cooper know she saw him just fine. The rifle was held with a firm, practiced hand. “You hiking, too, young lady? I’d like to see your hands.”
Kala wasn’t holding hers up. She simply watched the woman with a wry smile. “I think you see them fine, Joyce. And no, I’m not hiking for fun, though I will admit I’ve had a good time. Name’s Taggart. Kala Taggart. My dad sent me.”
Could she not follow a damn plan? They were supposed to be honeymooners. Drake had sent them their cover. It was very thorough, including all the documents they would need, but did Kala use it? Nope. She told the target her name like it wouldn’t send her running.
The rifle stayed on her. “You Big Tag’s kid?”
“Yep,”
Kala replied.
“Prove it,”
Joyce challenged.
He wanted to turn to Kala and ask her how she planned to do that since they were literally traveling undercover. He hadn’t brought along his real passport or driver’s license. Only Henry Flanders knew who they were, and he was hours away.
“My father’s favorite piece of advice is to wear a condom,”
Kala deadpanned.
The rifle came down, and Joyce grinned. “Damn, Big Tag forgot his own advice and has a kiddo. I mean, I heard he did but here you are. You are way too pretty to be that big bastard’s kid. Who’d your momma cheat with?”
Kala moved down the small hill they were on, holding a hand out. “According to my dad, the UPS guy. It’s nice to meet you. I work with Zach, too.”
Joyce shook her hand. “With my nephew? He’s in the Army. He’s a captain.”
Shit. His aunt didn’t know about Zach’s Agency work? “Yes, we’re both in the military.”
Kala’s head turned slightly and she frowned his way, but when she turned back to Joyce she said, “I’m in Army intelligence. He’s a grunt. He’s carrying my stuff around, if you know what I mean.”
Oh, if she could be snarky, so could he. “I’m also ensuring my charge stays loose, if you know what I mean.”
Kala laughed, the sound booming through the woods. “Good one, babe. Joyce, this is my…boyfriend, Cooper McKay. He really is Navy.”
“And I would bet you go by Mrs. Black.”
Joyce proved she was astute.
“I prefer Ms. Magenta,”
Kala corrected. “But you can call me Kala because this isn’t some Agency operation. This is about Zach.”
“What has my boy gotten into now?”
Joyce asked with a sigh. “Or the better question…what has my sister dragged her son into? Come on. I’ve got some whiskey back at camp. Zach’s not here right now. He comes and goes, but you can at least tell me what’s going on.”
Kala began to follow her.
“Baby, you know we’re not supposed to… You’re going to tell her.”
It was inevitable. He hoped they had cells for couples wherever the Agency was going to hold them.
Kala smiled and followed.
* * * *
Kala sank down on the bench Joyce had placed in front of the firepit someone had dug. Given how perfectly precise and deep that sucker was, she was betting it hadn’t been Joyce. She noticed the way Joyce held her rifle. She was firm and had a steady hand, but she hadn’t held the rifle above the middle of her chest even though she’d been below them. The older woman also avoided shifting her left shoulder when she’d set down her pack and welcomed them into camp. She had an old shoulder injury according to her records—yes, she’d read them—and it looked like it definitely still bothered her. She wouldn’t be able to lift the shovel enough to dig a pit as deep as the one in front of them.
Zach was here somewhere, and she had to pray he didn’t run.
He saved Lou and Aidan when he didn’t have to. He talked to Lou. Maybe he would talk to her.
But first she was going to work Joyce for every bit of intel she could, and she would use the woman’s obvious love for her dad. “This is nice. I haven’t spent a lot of time in this park, but I did go hiking and camping in the national forest land around Bliss.”
Joyce sat down on an old camp chair across the pit from Kala and Coop. Cooper had immediately taken the seat beside Kala, his big presence reminding her she wasn’t alone in this op. Nope. She had a keeper, and he might not like the way she played this game.
“Oh, I love that town. I sometimes work in Creede. Just temp jobs where they need me. And sometimes the lodge on Elk Creek Pass has seasonal work.”
Joyce sat back. “I love it here, but it’ll be too cold soon. I’ll have to move on to Arizona and California. The desert is beautiful, too.”
“I bet it is. How long have you been on the road?”
Kala asked.
Cooper turned his head her way and gave her a grin and a wink that said you’re doing great, babe.
She was pretending to be her sister. Everyone loved Kenzie. Everyone talked to Kenzie. Kenzie cared about people.
Although it wasn’t like she hated the woman in front of her. Not at all. Joyce seemed kind. Kala cared about Zach, and this woman had been his rock. Was she pretending to be Kenz or was she simply uncomfortable with the part of herself that actually wanted to know Joyce’s story? If she knew Joyce’s story, she would probably like her for herself and liking people…it was hard.
Cooper had said she felt deeply. Cooper knew her. Was he right and she was being a coward because caring about people meant opening herself up to hurt? Because the truth of the matter was, she did want to know Joyce’s story, the one beyond what was in her file. She wanted to know why she roamed the way she did when once she’d had a place to live and roots.
She also wanted to know why she kept staring at Cooper like he was some golden god of a man deigning to visit her home. Joyce wasn’t even trying to take her eyes off him.
The older woman seemed to realize she was staring and shook it off, moving her attention back to Kala. “Oh, I started van life years ago. I never liked to stay in one place too long. It was what I loved about the Army. Never stayed at a base more than a year or two and then we moved out.”
“You had a stellar record,”
Cooper pointed out. “I’m surprised you left.”
Her eyes were back on him, concentrating in a way that made Kala uncomfortable. Like she was looking for something in his eyes.
Or Cooper was a work of art and she could still see and appreciate him.
She needed to tamp down her jealousy. Tolerance was more of a Kenzie trait. She could do it. She didn’t have to plant a flag and defend her territory from an elderly woman who in all other ways seemed super sweet.
“I didn’t want to. I had to. My sister got into some trouble,”
she said quietly. “Shannon was ten years younger than me. Our momma called her an accident, and not a happy one. I’m afraid I was more of a mother to her than our own. By the time she came along, Mom was bitter and angry all the time. She would tell Shannon that she only had her to spite her biological father.”
Sometimes she was reminded how lucky she had it. Her parents were all kinds of awesome.
And weird. Not normal. Not normal did not mean bad.
She’d picked up another inner voice lately, but it was kind of at war with the others. With the ones that told her not normal wasn’t bad, but she was. Her sessions with Lena had concentrated on how useful she was to the Agency since she didn’t have much of a moral compass. Lena had even made some reference to her father Dextering her—putting her talents to good use since it would be so easy for someone like her to go bad.
It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before, but lately it bugged her.
She’d had all the love she could have gotten, so why was she still the way she was?
“What kind of trouble?”
Cooper asked.
Joyce’s gaze moved back to Kala. “He likes to pretend, doesn’t he?”
See, now she liked the woman again. “It goes with being as hot as he is. He thinks he’s a good liar. Obviously, I’ve read a dossier on you. So has he. We wouldn’t be here without all the intel we could find.”
She nodded. “Good, then maybe you can explain what’s going on with Zach. He won’t say a damn thing beyond he’s on leave, but I don’t believe him. Something’s gone wrong. I have to wonder if his damn father ain’t back in the picture. Or if it’s… Well, the fact that he’s here tells me a lot.”
Oh, she was interested in all of those words. She wasn’t sure what Zach being here told Joyce since she’d asked Kala why he was here, but she’d become confused a couple of times already. Kala zeroed in on what seemed the most important thing. “Zach’s dad is in the picture? From what my father discovered, it was a boyfriend who got Shannon in trouble. She was a chemistry student, right?”
“She was the smartest person I ever met,”
Joyce said with a sigh. “Sometimes I think her life would have been easier if she hadn’t been brilliant. It’s hard to know so much more than the people around you and to still be stuck in a dismal existence. Our mom put food on the table but not much else. I would work after school so we could buy clothes. Momma spent all the extra money trying to find some new man who would take care of her for more than a night. When you grow up like that you often react one of two ways. It put me off any kind of relationship, and my sister only wanted someone to love her. Wanted to prove she was better than Mom gave her credit for. That girl got a full-ride scholarship to Stanford University. Do you know how hard she worked for that? I still…I don’t know why she gave it all up for a man. She could have been something.”
There was a lot of nuance left out of her dad’s report. “So Shannon gets out of Iowa, goes to California and meets Zach’s dad.”
Her eyes slid away, sorrow on her face. “Raymond White. He was older than Shannon. At the time she was a senior, and she worked in a lab. I don’t pretend to know what she was working on, but I know Ray targeted her because she worked in that lab. He was a low-level drug dealer at the time. He convinced her to use the lab to make some designer drugs that bumped him up a level in his organization. She proved to be excellent at creating drugs. If she was a bartender, she would have been called… What’s the name for it now? It’s real fancy.”
“Mixologist,”
Cooper provided.
“Did she stay with Ray?”
Kala prompted. “I know he was arrested a couple of times.”
Joyce nodded. “I was already in the Army then. I didn’t know what was happening. She would write letters to me. About her classes and how she was up for a big internship, and then one day they stopped. It was a long time before I could get leave, and when I finally found her, she was pregnant with Zach and fully in Ray’s world. I tried to get her to go back to school, but she loved him. She had a nice house and said he treated her real good, and they had a baby on the way. I didn’t know better. I had no idea how they were making their money.”
“She was still cooking drugs?”
Cooper asked. “Did she take them?”
“No. Never. She never did her own drugs,”
Joyce said like that was some kind of virtue.
Kala didn’t get that. Shannon had actively harmed the world for money and love.
“She certainly didn’t when she was pregnant. I was in Germany at the time. I thought she was like our mom. She found a man and didn’t need her family anymore. I was hurt, but at least I thought she was happy. She sent pictures when Zachary was born, and everything seemed fine. Then it all went to hell. That’s when I got out.”
“She was arrested.”
Kala knew this part of the story.
Joyce nodded. “The cartel they worked for decided Ray was cheating them, and he went on the run. Shannon was left holding the bag. I came and got Zach, and that was when I found out she was pregnant again. And she was facing seven to fifteen years in prison.”
“Zach told me he wasn’t sure why you didn’t give him up for adoption. He knew about his sibling,”
Kala said.
“About his brother,”
Joyce corrected. “Shannon had a boy. As for Zach, Ray knew about Zach. The cartel knew about Zach. We decided it was better that I watch over him, but we had a shot at hiding him.”
And that was the moment she looked at Cooper and Kala’s world shifted.
Or if it’s… Well, the fact that he’s here tells me a lot.
Joyce hadn’t been talking about Zach. She’d been talking about Cooper. She’d been staring at Cooper like she knew him.
Which she did.
“Joyce, I’m going to need you to tell me where your sister stashed her second son.”