Chapter 28
Jenna licked the deliciously sweet chocolate from her fingers. To save time Ty had gone out early and hit a neighborhood donut
shop before they met up. He’d bought her favorite: Boston cream. She wiped her fingers on a napkin and stowed it in the empty
bag.
The morning had dawned sunny and beautiful. This bustling area of DC was a far cry from their quaint little island. Traffic
was challenging, but they were less than ten minutes from Gordon’s house. It had been just enough time to polish off the donut
while making small talk with the man she’d made out with last night.
She shook away the thought—and the remnants of those amazing kisses. Time to focus on their mission.
It was six forty-five when they stopped at the red light just before Gordon’s row house. She zeroed in on the porch, three
houses from the end of the block. All seemed quiet.
Movement pulled Jenna’s attention to the porch, where a woman emerged from the shadows.
“There she is!” Ty said.
“She’s leaving.” The fortysomething woman had short auburn hair and wore business-casual clothing. She was already down the
porch steps and striding across the strip of lawn. Then she was heading down the steps toward the sidewalk. “She’s getting
away.”
The cross traffic at the intersection still flowed. A car waited in front of them for the light to turn. Jenna glanced at the traffic signal. They were stuck. Hurry, hurry!
Rosalind approached a car parked at the curb across from the house. If they didn’t stop her, they wouldn’t have another chance
to confront her.
Jenna flung off her seat belt. “I’m going after her.”
“Be careful!” he called before the door shut.
She dashed toward the corner. There was no time to wait for the Walk signal. At the first pause in traffic she darted across
the street. She lost sight of Rosalind behind a group of tall shrubs. But when Jenna reached the other side of the street,
she glimpsed Rosalind getting into a car.
No, no, no!
Jenna booked it down the sidewalk. But as she neared, the woman took off in her white Toyota, heading toward the light where
Ty waited.
Jenna started to run back toward Ty’s truck, but she only got a few yards. The light had turned and his truck advanced quickly.
He pulled to the curb near Jenna and she jumped in. “Let’s go after her.”
Jenna buckled up while Ty waited for a break in traffic. When it came he whipped the vehicle in an illegal U-turn. Jenna couldn’t
even complain. Rosalind had already gotten a head start. They’d have to hurry if they had any chance of catching her. “If
we follow her to work, we can approach her there.”
He accelerated until he came to a slow-moving SUV and navigated around it. “What will we say?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have all day to figure that out if we can just find out where she works.”
“There!” Ty pointed out the windshield.
She glimpsed a white car about ten cars ahead. “Has to be her. Maybe she’ll get stopped at the next light.” Please, God. A face-to-face meeting was their best chance of figuring out who she was.
A break in the right lane allowed Ty to shoot ahead a few cars before he jogged back into the left lane. The white car was
only half a block ahead now. But they were momentarily stuck behind two slow vehicles, and Jenna feared they would be the ones caught at the next light.
She held her breath as they approached the signal, but they made it through just as the light turned yellow. Jenna craned
for a view of the white car. “The next light just turned red. She has to stop.”
They slowed for two cars turning into a plaza and Ty switched lanes. They would be coming up alongside the vehicle at the
stoplight. But as they approached, Jenna got a better view of the car. It wasn’t even a Toyota. Her heart sank. There were
no white cars ahead at all. Rosalind must’ve turned off somewhere.
Jenna’s sigh seemed to come from the soles of her feet.
When Ty’s gaze met hers, his expression echoed her feelings. “We lost her.”
Ty made another turn, glancing this way and that for the Toyota. They’d been driving around the area for ten minutes. The
futility of the situation had already settled in for him, but he didn’t want to give up the hunt until Jenna was ready. He
hated disappointing her. He should’ve whipped the car around at the intersection near the row house once the light turned
green. But he hadn’t wanted to leave Jenna standing on the sidewalk by herself.
At this point, though, that’s probably what she wished he’d done.
A minute later she sagged into her seat. “She’s long gone. Probably at work by now.”
He hated the surrender in her voice and body language. “Maybe we can figure out where she works some other way.”
“How? We couldn’t even find her online.”
“We could look some more. We could even do a background check on her. Or we could delay our return tonight.” He had to be
at the B and B by 5:00 a.m., but he was willing to do about anything to erase the disappointment from Jenna’s eyes.
She stared out the passenger window for a while. “We already know a woman’s living in his house. And it’s not his daughter—Mom
showed me a picture of her. Maybe this is God’s way of telling us to go home. I can have a talk with Mom, tell her what we
found out. Surely that’ll be enough for her to confront Gordon about it.”
“And if he lies?”
“Why else would someone named Rosalind Smith be getting mail at his house? We saw her. There’s no getting out of this.”
He noodled on that for a minute. “I know we only saw her from a distance, but didn’t she seem a little young for him?”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Pretty typical, though. Seems like men often marry women half their age.”
He nudged her playfully. “Hey.”
“Present company excluded, of course.”
’Cause, yeah, the woman he’d married was actually a couple years older. Although that hadn’t worked out so well.
He drove in silence for a minute, leaving Jenna to sort out her thoughts. He knew just how to cheer her up. The neighborhood sported a lot of restaurants and retail shops, so he wouldn’t have to look too far. A few blocks ahead he pulled into a coffee-shop parking lot.
She tossed him a grateful smile. “You read my mind.”
They exited the shop with steaming cups of their favorite beverages. Jenna already seemed a little less disappointed. The
coffee had lifted her spirits, but he knew exactly what would refresh her mind and body. “Do you still want to head back to
the island?”
She nodded. “I’ll just have a talk with Mom when she gets home from work, and hopefully I’ll be able to get through to her.”
“She’ll have to take you seriously now.” He glanced at his watch. “We have plenty of time before we have to head back, though.”
After they returned to the truck he glanced her way. “What would you think about taking a little hike?”
“Um . . .” Jenna made a show of glancing around them. “You know we’re in DC, right? One of the most densely populated cities
in the US?”
He offered a furtive smile. “It so happens I know just the place.”