Chapter 4 #2
Monroe uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “We’ve got your back. Don’t worry about SERA.”
We spent another hour hashing through details of the most critical issues before I headed back to my cabin.
I opened my laptop and found an email from Derek with his notes. On Your Six had run an investigation and found that Wolfe had registered a Mercedes Sprinter van to his San Francisco address.
The van had been purchased at an RV dealer in Los Angeles two days after I’d last seen Wolfe in Legacy. Two days after the kiss.
Did he even know how to drive a camper van?
He’s an adult, asshole. He’ll figure it out.
I took a breath and tried to calm the fuck down. Derek and Jude had asked for my help because I was good at what I did. A search and rescue expert. A well-known tracker.
So I framed it the way I always did: a job. A missing person with experience outdoors, familiar with search-and-rescue protocols by proximity if not by training. A young man with resources, not a kid who’d panicked and run blind into the big wide world.
That last part mattered. Wolfe wasn’t reckless. Even if he’d made an emotional decision, he wouldn’t have been stupid about it.
I quickly researched the dealership he’d used, the model of van, and every other piece of information Derek had sent.
The security team’s deep dive had discovered the van had been purchased by F.C. Rights Management LLC. I’d never heard of a company by that name, and neither had anyone else, according to Derek. But it was a start.
I spent the rest of the night trying to run them down. What was F.C. Rights Management? And why was Wolfe involved with any kind of rights management?
I thought back to his original dream of becoming a music producer.
There’d been a time years ago when I’d thought he might even become a songwriter one day.
But that fucking music school he’d gone to had scared it out of him.
Or something. I wasn’t exactly sure, but the look on his face when he’d come home—dejected and disillusioned—had been heartbreaking.
He’d thrown himself into his family’s charity work and seemed to have found a home there… so why had he suddenly run away?
Had it been because of me? My rejection? The kiss?
It had to be, right?
Jesus, what kind of egotistical bastard was I to center myself in this situation?
There were plenty of other things that could have prompted this.
Something with work or his personal life that had nothing to do with what I now knew with certainty had been the most passionate kiss of my forty-six fucking years.
My body reacted every time I thought of it. Of the way he’d felt. The way he’d taken charge of the kiss like a man possessed. Nothing at all like the insecure kid I’d tried to make him out to be in my mind.
His hands had held my face with an unexpected confidence that was hot as fuck. Enough to make pushing him away the hardest thing I’d ever done.
The wind picked up outside, blowing the branches of a nearby tree together in a familiar rhythm.
As I glanced at the window, I caught sight of the cluster of framed photos on the wall next to it.
There was one of me with my very first SERA class.
A shot of myself at the top of my solo climb of Maroon Bells.
A candid shot of Wolfe, Lennon, and Rosie all midair, knees tucked up and hair everywhere in the moments before splashing into Jude and Derek’s swimming pool during a cannonball contest when Wolfe had been around ten and the twins eight.
Jude was laughing on a nearby lounge chair with his arms partway up to block the splash.
Derek stood a few feet away with a small notebook in his hands, where Rosie had forced him to come up with a complicated score like it was an Olympic gymnastics event.
I’d chosen this shot out of all the others I had of them because it encapsulated everything I loved about the Marians. The fun. The laughter. The competition but also the cohesion. The picture-imperfect family that played together and stayed together.
Jude and Derek had invited me into that family. Had offered me the keys to the goddamned kingdom. And for the first time in my life, I’d understood what people had meant when they’d said the word family with that fond exasperated tone that meant love, stability, home.
That day by the pool, I’d felt an overwhelming conviction that now that I had finally found a real family, I’d never do anything to fuck it up.
Right below the cannonball photo was the photo of Derek with his arm around me in a bar, all wide smiles and almost paternal-like pride. The photo was over twenty years old. I’d just gotten my EMT license, and he’d taken me out to celebrate.
“Back where it all started,” Derek said. “Only this time, we’re ready for the worst with a bona fide EMT on our team.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hopefully no volatile subjects this time.”
Someone muttered, “He means meth heads,” under their breath.
Someone else added, “Just don’t let ’em have a beer bottle they can break and start waving around at people.”
Derek shook his head and tightened the arm around my shoulder. “This man saved my life. His quick thinking meant that my kids…” His voice broke on the word, and he took a beat to get control of himself.
Meanwhile, Jude patted the center of his chest and looked at him with stark affection. “We can never thank you enough for intervening that night, Trace. You’re officially part of our family now, and we couldn’t be prouder of your hard work.”
Derek nodded and swallowed. “Family’s everything. The reason we all do what we do.”
Everyone around the table, employees of On Your Six Security, nodded and cheered before clinking glasses. “To Trace and to family!”
A few minutes later, Jude had moved closer and lowered his voice. “If there is anything we can ever do for you, Trace…”
I remembered my incredulity that night. That anyone could be so generous. So welcoming and supportive. That these two strangers could have taken me into their family so quickly and offered me safety, employment, acceptance, and, eventually, love.
I’d been working a double as a barback, trying to impress the bar owner enough to promote me to bartender so I could afford more than a nasty sleeping bag in a back alley, when a man had come in from the street, raging.
He’d smashed a beer bottle on a nearby table and lunged for one of our customers’ faces.
After that, everything happened in a blur.
I’d managed to get a drinks tray between the man’s broken bottle and the back of the customer’s neck in time to block a deadly attack, and then I’d used the tray to shove the man back toward the door where he’d tripped and fallen on his ass.
Some of the customers helped subdue him while my boss called 911.
The guy I’d saved turned out to be a legit bodyguard. An ex-military badass out drinking with his badass bodyguard friends. He was also the husband of world-famous country-music singer Jude Marian.
I found out later, the only reason Derek and the other guys hadn’t pounced had been because they’d already been drinking for a few hours after a particularly stressful security job.
I’d simply been in the right place at the right time. But it had been enough. Enough for Derek Marian to practically adopt me. To offer me a place to live. A path to better employment. A fresh start. A chance at a real life.
My situation had changed overnight from exhausting and almost hopeless to wide-open and limitless.
I owed him everything. My search and rescue career, the entire existence of SERA, which had been originally financed by their family foundation, and unofficial membership in the largest, most supportive family I could ever imagine.
Now I finally had a chance to pay Derek back.
I continued researching and investigating until I finally couldn’t stand still being here in my cabin in Legacy while Wolfe was out there somewhere, presumably alone.
Derek hadn’t said it, but I knew he was worried about a worst-case scenario. That Wolfe was sick or injured. Lost or taken. It wasn’t unheard of for the children of celebrities to become targets themselves, even if they were almost thirty.
The need to get out there and start asking questions burned in my gut, so I slept just long enough to allow Jude and Derek’s plane to arrive to shuttle me down to LA.
Wolfe Marian was a gentle soul. Someone who’d never thrived in a big city.
I’d often wondered why he’d stayed in San Francisco with his family rather than moving somewhere less… overwhelming. Maybe even Legacy, now that his siblings and several of his cousins had settled here.
As a kid, he’d liked nature and quiet. Warm sunsets and curious animals. He’d been inspired by the world around him, no matter where he was, but he’d always seemed to come most alive during his visits out of the city, either to his uncles’ vineyard in Napa or his grandparents’ property in Montana.
I tried to imagine where he would have headed in his new camper van. Anywhere that would speak to his soul and help him find peace and quiet. Clarity. Inspiration.
Was that what he sought? If so, maybe I was the last person he wanted searching for him.
Before dawn, I hopped in my truck and made my way to the airstrip.
Within an hour of arriving in LA, I’d befriended the salesperson he’d worked with at the RV dealership and discovered quite a few interesting details about their conversation, including the exact adventure van he’d purchased and a suggested campground in Palm Springs for him to check out.
Maybe I could simply put eyes on him, appease Derek and Jude’s worry without approaching him directly.
But in order to do that, I had to find him first.