by Becki Willis
“Honor has always been the cornerstone of my entire life. The one constant that I could depend on. The orphanage where I grew up was run by a church, one with a very strict moral code. That same strict sense of honor and duty was drilled into me with the Corp at A&M. And of course the Rangers have their own high standards of honor and integrity.” His dark eyes were begging her to understand.
A week ago, Kenzie would have bristled at his words, taking offense at the subtle message behind them. But that was before she knew the kind of man he was, the kind who took duty and honor and respect to impossible heights. It was part of what irritated her the most about him, yet a part of him that she loved the most. She made certain he could hear the smile in her words as she asked, “Are you implying I have less than honorable intentions, sir?”
Travis ignored her attempt at humor. “No. I’m saying that no matter how badly I want you – which God knows I do –” this, muttered under his breath, as his traitorous eyes slid over her bared skin, “now is not the time to make you promises.”
“I’m not asking for promises, Travis.” She stepped forward, but faltered when he shuttered his eyes.
“There’s the other problem.” Again his wry smile. “I don’t do casual relationships. Call me old-fashioned, a freak, a total nerd.” He had heard them all before. “You may not want promises, darlin’. But I do.”
Kenzie’s breath caught, suspended somewhere between the ragged beats of her heart. “Are you- are you talking about promises in general?” Hope slipped into her whispered words. “Or promises from me?”
Travis offered her another of his rare smiles, this one sad. He stooped to pick up his shirt and carefully wrapped it around her shoulders. His hands trembled slightly as he pulled it together in front of her breasts, the backs of his fingers brushing against her flesh ever so softly.
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he told her with regret. “All that matters is keeping you safe.” His words were blunt but honest. “Darlin’, you have information that could get you killed. We have to find the rest of the evidence and then we have to get it to the proper authorities. Even then, you might not be safe.” He looked down at her, capturing her eyes with his solemn gaze. “I think it’s time you consider WITSEC.”
“No!” Her outburst was adamant.
“Darlin’, you don’t realize the scope of this situation.” His fingers slipped into her hair as his dark eyes probed hers. “Things are about to get very messy.”
“I refuse to go into the witness protection program.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t under-”
“No,” she interrupted him. She shoved gently on his bare chest, hating her hand for wanting to curl inward. With steely resolve, she pushed away from him, breaking his hold around her waist. “You don’t understand. I spent my entire childhood running. I swore that when I moved to Texas, I would never run again. And I meant it.”
“Even if your life is at stake?” His eyes begged her to reconsider.
Kenzie was slow in answering. When she did, her words were low but concise. “You were raised with a deep sense of honor and integrity instilled within you. I respect that. But my upbringing was totally opposite. No one taught me about ethics or integrity. I learned them on my own. I created my own set of morals, my own sense of honor. You may not like my particular brand of values, you may not approve of my twisted set of morals, but I am asking that you respect them. Mine are as important to me as yours are to you.” She held her head high, daring him to challenge her.
“There’s nothing twisted about your morals. And I think you have an amazing sense of values and integrity. You are an amazing woman, Kenzie Reese, and I admire you greatly.”
Now was not the time for her heart to curl up in a warm, fuzzy ball of pleasure. “Then you have to respect my wishes,” she insisted softly. “Even if my life is in danger, I refuse to run.”
“But-”
She lifted her chin. “No. End of discussion. I respect your decision not to sleep with me. Now you have to respect my decision to refuse witness protection.” She turned away from him, effectively ending the conversation.
“Kenzie.” Her drawn out name was a plea upon his lips. “I’m trying to do what’s right here. I’m trying to keep you safe. And I don’t want to start something we can’t finish.”
She continued to walk away. “Silly Ranger,” she muttered softly. “It’s already started.”
Chapter Sixteen
Travis was pounding away on the computer, his long fingers flying over the keys with impressive speed.
“I’m trying to sleep over here,” Kenzie grumbled.
When he continued to tap on keys, she raised her voice. “Excuse me. Some of us in the room are still trying to sleep.”
“And some of us are already up and being productive.” This, he called over his shoulder without looking her way. “And what did I tell you about your tongue?”
“I swear, that man has eyes in the back of his head!” she muttered. She buried her head in the pillow, trying to ignore the insistent tap of computers keys. A glance at the clock told her it was barely seven-thirty. On a weekend, no less.
“But it’s the weekend.”
From a far-away memory, she heard the wheedle of her own ten-year-old voice.
“Why do you have to work today? Can’t you take the day off? We could go to the park.”
“Can’t do that, Lady,” her father said, tapping on the computer keys. “I’ve got work to do.”
“What is it you do, anyway? My teacher asked me what kind of job you had, but I didn’t know what to tell her.”
That got her father’s attention. He turned away from the keyboard and focused on the little girl in front of him. “What teacher?”
“Mrs. Anderson, my Social Studies teacher. We’re studying the United States and she asked how many of us had ever lived in other states besides Arkansas. I was the only kid in the class to have lived in at least five or more states.”
“Why would you tell her that?” Her father looked stricken. He put his hands on her shoulders and gripped them, none-too-gently. “Why would you do that?”
“She-She asked.” Her eyes were huge with fear. What had she done wrong?
“I’ve told you before; you mustn’t talk about our family life. Some things, like family, are private. You don’t share private things with strangers.”
“But she’s not a stranger. She’s my teacher. My favorite teacher.”
“What else did you tell her?” her father asked sharply.
“N-Nothing. I didn’t tell her about the different names. I only raised my hand when she called off the different states. That’s when she asked me what kind of job you had that made us move so much.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you worked on the computer all the time, punching in numbers.”
Relief washed over her father’s features. “Good. Good. That’s good, Lady.” He patted her on top of her blond head and turned back to his keyboard.
“Daddy? What kind of work do you do?”
“I work with numbers, just like you told your teacher. Investments. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I might. I’m really good in math. My math teacher, Mr. Grover, wants me to join the Numbers Team. We would go around to other schools and compete in competition. Can I join, Daddy?”
“No, I don’t think that’s for you, Lady.” He was already distracted, lost in his world of numbers.
“But I’m good,” she whispered.
To her surprise, he father was listening. “If you’re so good, help me find this number I’m looking for. I’m looking for this one right here.” He pointed to a string of numbers on the screen. “I need to see if it’s repeated anywhere else.”
After just a few seconds, the little girl pointed her finger to a column further down on the page. “There it is, Daddy! I found it!”
“Well, that you did, Lady Girl, that you did.” Her father smiled as he stud
ied the computer screen. He patted her hand distractedly. Not the pomp and circumstance she had hoped for, but it was better than his disappointment. She had finally done something right in his eyes!
“You can count on it every time, Lady.” He was back tapping at the keyboard, making the lines of numbers shift. “Life is nothing but a cycle. Everything repeats itself, sooner or later. It’s the one thing in life that is certain.”
“So can I join the Numbers Team, Daddy? I need to know by Monday.”
“Numbers Team? What are you talking about?”
“The competition team, Daddy, the one Mr. Grover wants me to join.”
He frowned. “I’m not very pleased with your school, young lady. You need to concentrate on your studies, not traipsing around to other schools and answering questions for nosy teachers. I need to have a talk with your mother. I hear there is an excellent school system over in Pine Bluff. We may just have to check it out.”
Kenzie jumped from the bed, oblivious to the fact that she wore no bra under her tank top. Her hair was in wild disarray and her eyes were glowing with excitement. She looked a little like a mad woman, possessed by demons as she threw her arms up and shouted, “I think I’ve got something!”
Travis’s mouth hung agape. He finally pulled his mouth shut, his eyes away from her, and his thoughts together. “What?”
She did not notice the hoarseness in his voice or the way he swallowed compulsively. She did not even notice how his eyes kept darting toward her revealing top, even though he tried to keep them trained on her face.
She shoved her hands through her hair, adding to the disheveled sight. “Several things, actually.” She tried to focus on which held the most meaning. “I just remembered that my father always called me Lady.” Seeing his confused frown, she continued, “You know, as in little lady or young lady. Lady.”
It was suddenly her turn to frown, as she made another realization. “I used to think it was a nickname. Now I realize it was probably because he couldn’t keep up with my changing names.”
Travis tried to look sympathetic, knowing that to her, it was an important memory. It did not add to the case, only to her heartache, but it was important to her. Sympathy soon gave way to exasperation.
“For Heaven’s sake, put some clothes on!” he burst out. “How am I supposed to concentrate when you’re standing there half-naked?”
“Half naked? I’m completely dressed!” She propped her hands on her hips, ready to give him her best glare. Then she followed his line of sight, and discovered her top was all askew and revealing way too much of her ample breasts. To make matters worse, the thin pink material did nothing to disguise what little was left covered beneath the tautly stretched cloth.
She grabbed the first thing she saw; his shirt from last night hung on the back of a kitchen chair. She tried to ignore the scent of cologne and sweat that clung to the material as she jerked it on. Great, now the sensual spice encircled her body. A body still wound tight from last night. “Do you want to hear this, or not?” Her tone was testy.
“Now that I can concentrate, yes.” His eyes dropped along the shirttail, which hung almost to her knees. “Not sure seeing you in my shirt is much better,” he muttered, “but go ahead.”
“Look over that list of towns again. Was Pine Bluff, Arkansas on there?”
He searched through the papers scattered across the table until he found the right one. “No.”
“We lived there. We moved because one of my teachers in Dumas started asking questions about where my father worked and why we moved so much. I don’t think we changed names, though. I was still Lisa at that time.”
“So you’re saying that your father may have deviated from this list.”
“I guess. I don’t really know what it means, but I remembered that he said we would have to move.” She frowned again. “And it was because of me.”
“No, Kenzie, it wasn’t because of you. None of this was your fault. This was all your father.”
“Okay, but here’s the other thing I remembered. I remember my father telling me that life was a cycle. He said everything repeated itself, sooner or later. I know that we lived in Nashville when I was around fourteen. I also think my parents may have been living there again about six months ago. What if he’s recycling his identities? If dividends were still going into his accounts and he still had the aliases set up, what would keep him from going back after a few years? There’s only one more town on the list after Fayetteville, but he would never stay there for nine years. He said the cycle of life was the only thing you could be certain of, so it stands to reason he would cycle his own lives, all bazillion of them.”
“You may have something there,” Travis agreed, his mind already working. “It would make sense. What was your name when you lived in Nashville? What was your father’s name?”
“Um, Adams. I was Hannah, and my father was-” she searched her mind for the right alias. “I think his name was Stanley. Stanley Adams.”
“Kenzie, we need to share this information. We can put out a BOLO for Stanley Adams in Nashville.”
“He’s not there anymore.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Not for certain, but I’d be willing to bet on it. When he called me about six months ago, he said he was in Dallas. He made some mention of my mother and the weather in Nashville, so I assume that’s where they were living. But I’m telling you, he wouldn’t let that little tidbit slip if he knew he would be there much longer. And you can bet he’s not in Dallas, either. He’s too smart and too cunning to give even me an inkling of where he is.”
“So… what? He just calls you every few years? What if something happened and you had to get in touch with him?”
“You mean like what if the mafia was trying to kidnap me? How would I contact him then? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. That’s the whole idea.”
Travis ran his hands up the back of his neck in frustration. “To be such a brilliant man, your father is one stupid parent.”
“You get no argument from me on that one. I’m headed to the shower. Then you can take me for breakfast.” She tossed the last over her shoulder, along with a sassy grin. And his shirt.
***
“I think I may have something,” he announced shortly after breakfast. “These are from the small slips of paper under the foot pedals. They are numerical, but the format and spacing seems odd, especially on this one. 77.2 269 116-22 03765. It looks almost like an address.”
“What’s the decimal point for?”
“Maybe it’s not a point. Maybe it’s a period, as in an abbreviation. As in Rural Route 2.”
Kenzie glanced down at her cell phone. The seven translated to an ‘r’. “Same code used for the account numbers, just reversed?”
“Yep. Meaning this would be Rural Route 2, Box 116-2A. Zip 03765, wherever that is.”
“Let’s find out.”
Kenzie tapped the address into her computer. Nothing came up. “Well, this may have been a good address back in the day, but rural routes are no longer being used in –” she waited for the zip code locater, “Haverhill, New Hampshire.”
“New Hampshire.” He almost gloated. “Told you all roads lead back to there.”
“So what about the other piece of paper? Another address?”
“I think so. I think 374 3. 53666 could be 374 E. Lemon. Where’s zip code 03229?”
Still on the screen for zip codes, she typed in the seven-digit code. “Let’s see… Hopkinton, New Hampshire.” She switched screens and typed in the full address. “It looks like a street address for… a bank! First New Hampshire Bank. I’ll bet that’s where the safety deposit box is!” Her eyes glowed with excitement.
“Good possibility,” Travis agreed with a thoughtful nod.
“Why don’t you look more excited? This is the first solid lead we’ve had!”
“Sorry. Just trying to wrap my head around all the codes and secret lists.” He hesitated before confiding
his suspicions. “This could be bigger than we originally thought.”
“Wh-Why would you say that?” The wary look in his eyes frightened her.
“I keep thinking about that list of names, written in code. What if this whole thing is more about that list, than about money?”
Kenzie nodded thoughtfully. “It never made sense that my father had to go back to New Hampshire to collect money he hid in a Swiss bank account.”
“Exactly. And I’ve always suspected that not all those government grants and contracts could have happened without a little inside help. Someone from the Department of Energy was either turning their head or turning the wheels. Either way, they were padding their own pockets. And they wouldn’t want that fact known.”
“You’re saying that list of names might be of corrupt politicians?” She did not know why, but the thought surprised her. Never a big fan of politics to begin with, she nonetheless hated to think of corruption on such a grand scale.
“It’s a theory I’ve been considering. What if the conglomerate that created Modern Power was made up of politicians? In the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, green energy was a relatively new trend, but politicians would have known about it, and they would have known what grants and subsidies were available. It would have been like insider trading. And your father would have known who was involved. He helped create those shell companies, after all.”
“I did wonder how the government could award contracts and grants to companies that didn’t exist.”
“The right people could have pushed it through.”
“So where does the mafia come in? Are you saying those politicians are part of the mob?”
“Hard to say. All we really know is that the Zaffino family had business dealings with Modern Power. There’s no hard evidence of them being directly involved, unless we find it here. Maybe those are mob names on the list and have nothing to do with any politicians; or maybe they’re all one and the same. I don’t know yet. We do know that some of the Zaffino’s known associates, like Raymond Foto and a few others, have shown a marked interest in you and your father. We assumed they were working for the mafia, but there’s a chance they were hired by someone other than the Zaffino family. Maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong.”