by AJ Quinn
“Me.”
“Yes. The simple truth is we can only guess at what’s motivating him. He could simply be angry, because SAR services failed to save someone important to him or because he tried for SAR and failed to make the grade. Both scenarios are equally possible and we’ve got people going through every documented search across the country covering the last ten years. Looking at cases where at least one victim died. They’re also combing through the records for SAR training programs across the country, looking at anyone who got cut.”
Kellen instinctively knew there was more. It was almost as if he was watching her. Waiting. Trying to determine the right moment when he had her off balance enough to spring whatever else he was holding back.
“Or maybe he’s someone from your past.”
Apparently the moment was now.
Grant spoke softly, but there was an edge of something—impatience maybe or anger—in his voice. “Because that’s where things get really interesting, in my opinion.”
“How so?”
“Everyone leaves a paper trail as they go through life. So would it surprise you to know that before you rescued a senator’s daughter roughly ten years ago, other than a student enrolled at the University of Colorado, there’s no record of a Kellen Ryan anywhere that matches your description? No birth record. No parking tickets. Nothing whatsoever. Kellen Ryan simply doesn’t exist before then.”
Kellen felt as though he had hit her with vicious blows rather than simple words. How strange that any reminder of the past could hurt and make her defensive. “That’s crazy—”
“Is it? Then why don’t you show up in any records? And here’s the thing. We all know if you have enough money or know the right people, anyone can buy a new identity. You can get forged documents as good as the real thing, have them entered into a computer system, and use the information that’s been planted to get a driver’s license. Credit cards. A passport. And if you use them long enough and nobody raises any flags or asks any questions, you have a new life.”
Kellen felt Annie’s hand, still on her leg, begin to shake. She swallowed hard and forced back a surge of questions of her own, hating the way her heart pounded against her ribs, leaving them bruised, battered. “Tell me, Agent Grant. What is it you want?”
“What do I want? I want to understand what the hell is going on. Maybe by understanding, I can identify whoever is out there killing people and trying to kill you in the process. The truth is people don’t appear out of thin air unless they have something to hide. So I need to understand. Are you running from something? Is someone trying to hurt you? I know you’re not in witness protection because I checked. Tell me who you are and who’s after you and I’ll do everything I can to help.”
No.
Her head hurt, throbbing and pulsing as cold reality seeped in. She narrowed her eyes against the pain. “Will you answer one question for me?”
“Of course. I need you to know, I’m not your enemy.”
Kellen shrugged, not certain if she believed him. Not certain it mattered. What was important, what she needed to ask was, “Are any of my…my colleagues…are they at risk if they’re around me? Near me? Is there a chance that any of them could get hurt if this person tries for me again?”
“Can they become collateral damage? Is that what you’re asking? Out in the field, on a rescue, where even a slight shift in the wind can alter the direction of a bullet? I’m sorry, but the answer is yes.”
Kellen closed her eyes, guilt trickling through her.
Annie chose that moment to speak. “Then we won’t let her go out in the field.”
Nearly simultaneously, Dana added, “We’ll ground her until this is resolved.”
Kellen’s eyes flew open again. “You can’t do that.”
“I’m sorry, Kel, but yes, she can,” Annie said gently. “In her role as medical lead, Dana can ground anyone she feels isn’t in peak condition, mentally or physically. Anyone who could be a danger to themselves or the team. And if it was needed, which it isn’t, I would back her on this one.”
That was all it took.
One moment Kellen felt ready to fight, in the next she went very still. Completely shut down as something deep inside—maybe the trust she’d managed to build—shattered like shards of ice. Running her hands over her face, she pressed her fingers hard against her eyes.
“All right, then. I’m grounded.” She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to. Keeping her emotions on a very short leash, she turned away from Dana and Annie, squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin to face Grant, using up her last reserves of energy. “I also have nothing to say to you. All I want is to be left alone. And since for now this is still my cabin, you can all let yourselves out.”
“Kellen—” Annie pleaded.
“Bogart.” The word was soft, but carried unmistakable strength. The dog immediately issued a low growl in his throat as he stood by her side.
Annie and Dana looked at her a moment longer, then quietly followed Grant out of the cabin.
Chapter Eight
Well into the evening, Dana struggled to understand what had happened and tried to determine the best course of action. With no success. She couldn’t stop seeing Kellen, how devastated she had looked when they’d left. Rage and grief had burned equally in her eyes. And with her skin flushed with fever, she’d also looked more fragile and more vulnerable than Dana thought possible.
What Grant had disclosed—it was simply unthinkable, and somewhere there had to be the truth. Answers. But she knew finding them was going to be the challenge. And there was always the possibility that some questions would never be answered.
Cody and Ren clearly knew something was wrong. Anytime she saw them over the remainder of the day there had been no shy smiles. No laughter. They simply went about their business and made no eye contact with anyone other than each other, before disappearing altogether.
In the meantime, she still had no answers. Only questions.
Ignoring the debate raging in her head, Dana turned her depleted energy to finishing the work on the medical center, overseeing construction and working until she was too tired to think. She then spent the rest of an endless night tossing and turning. Wishing she’d done things differently. Wishing she understood how someone could simply not exist prior to ten years ago.
But outside the realm of fiction, she had no frame of reference for how someone could simply change their identity and become someone else.
Dana considered the similarities with her own situation. She too had ended up in Haven hopeful of a new start. But that was where the similarity ended. She hadn’t wanted to disappear. Not exactly. Rather, she’d been looking for a place where people would actually see who she really was.
She’d never been comfortable around people who thought they were better than everyone else because of their socioeconomic status. She’d encountered the breed often while growing up and had always been angered by people whose innate arrogance made them believe they could claim her as one of them. Simply because she came from wealth. Because her father was a highly respected and sought after cardiologist. Because her mother was a partner in a prestigious law firm.
They failed to see those things didn’t define her. Just as her parents failed to see her move to New York and then to Haven wasn’t intended to punish them or eradicate her past. Instead all she wanted was some distance. Some breathing room. A place to sink roots of her own and be all the things she hoped to be. A doctor. A friend. A lover. A soul mate.
Long before the first light of day bled through her bedroom window, she gave up any pretense at sleeping. She quickly showered and dressed, then headed to the office, not surprised to find a hollow-eyed Annie struggling to make coffee.
Placing a gentle hand over Annie’s, she said, “Go sit down. I’ll finish this.”
She cleaned up the grounds Annie had spilled, rinsed the pot, and finished making the coffee, waiting as the water ran through the machine and the
aroma of coffee filled the air. Once two mugs were filled with fresh brew, she brought them to the desk where Annie sat, mindlessly toying with a carving of an eagle that had previously sat on her window ledge.
“Kellen made this for me, the first Christmas we were business partners,” she said. “I knew she had no money, that everything she had she’d been pouring into making Alpine a success, and I wasn’t expecting anything. So I was stunned when she gave it to me. It was so incredibly beautiful and I hadn’t known wood carving was something she liked to do, let alone did so well.”
“It’s amazing.” It also explained the web of scars she’d noticed on Kellen’s fingertips. Fine, pale white scars.
“Yes, it is. She told me that when she’d lived on the streets, she hadn’t wanted to panhandle. She didn’t like to ask for anything. But she could make carvings—large and small—and sell them, make enough money to survive. It was a business transaction, in her mind, rather than a handout.”
Dana tried to process what she’d just heard. All the disparate pieces that made up the whole story. “You knew.”
“That Kellen had lived on the streets? Yes. She told me, very early on in our friendship. Not a lot, just that she’d been a runaway. That she’d celebrated her thirteenth birthday under the Golden Gate Bridge. She never said why and I didn’t press. But I should have.”
“Why?”
“I’d seen some of the scars she has. I knew someone had hurt her. Hurt her rather badly. But I didn’t put it all together, that she might still be hiding from someone. I didn’t know she’d changed her name, her identity. She should have told me.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No. I know for a fact my father had Kellen checked out, around the time we became business partners. But all he would tell me was she posed no threat to me and, in fact, he thought we would be good for each other. I wish he had told me more. Maybe then I could figure out how to help her.”
“Does that mean you still want to help Kellen?”
Annie’s eyes widened with surprise. “Of course. Don’t you?”
There was no hesitation. “Yes.”
“Good.” Annie surprised her and grinned weakly. “I’d hate to have to fire you instead of making you a partner.”
Dana stared at her as the words filtered into her tired brain. For an instant, their eyes locked. And then they both started to laugh.
“Could I ask you something? Grant said—”
“He said Kellen saved my life.”
“Yes.”
“She did. That’s how we first met.” Annie’s focus visibly faded a little as she remembered. “I was here with a group of friends from college. We’d gotten together because we were all turning the big three-oh and for some unknown reason, we decided we needed to do something adventurous to commemorate the event.”
Dana laughed. “Let me guess. The decision was made over drinks?”
“Of course. Then someone—I can’t remember who anymore—suggested since we were here, our adventure should involve something outdoorsy, like hiking in ice and snow. None of us had any real experience beyond things we’d done in college, but we all agreed and set out the next morning. Except none of us had bothered to check the weather forecasts, and as luck would have it, we somehow got separated just as a storm hit.” Annie shrugged as the memory sent a visible shiver through her. “Lesley and I had just gotten together during that trip. Finally admitted our feelings for one another. And when everyone got back to the lodge and they realized I hadn’t made it back, Lesley decided she wasn’t willing to take any chances.”
“What did she do?”
“She called my father.”
“Oh Lord.” Dana bit her lip. “Have I told you I’ve met your father?”
Annie smiled. “Then you can imagine the kind of stir the senator created when the SAR team called off the search for his only child, saying conditions were too dangerous and they needed to wait until the weather improved. He was in the midst of threatening hell and damnation when this skinny twenty-two year-old kid volunteered to go and find me. Everyone thought she was crazy, but she told my father she knew these woods like the back of her hand. She said she’d bring me back and then she just wandered off into the storm.”
Dana shook her head. “She hasn’t changed much, has she?”
“No. It took her a while to find me. I’d sprained my ankle badly and the storm was rather fierce, so she dug a snow cave just big enough for the two of us. We shared body heat, trail mix, and dreams until the winds finally let up. We were almost all the way back, with Kellen bearing most of my weight, when a couple of rangers found us. They quickly bundled me up on the back of a snowmobile, but Kellen refused a ride. Said she’d make it back on her own and then disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared.”
“I don’t understand. She didn’t come back with you?”
“No. And you should have seen my father when he discovered the rangers had left Kellen behind to return on her own. He had the secret service combing the woods, looking under every rock and tree until they found her. It turned out she’d been living in the woods while doing her degree at the University of Colorado, which is how she knew the territory so well.” Annie sat for a minute, thinking, remembering. “But she wouldn’t come back with them. Said knowing I was safe was all the thanks she needed. So the secret service kept an eye on her until my father could get there to meet with her. And as it turned out, he got there just in time.”
“She was getting ready to take off, wasn’t she,” Dana stated softly.
“You got it in one. She’d just finished packing and was none too pleased about doing it under the watchful eye of my father’s entourage when the senator got there. She also wasn’t too keen to come back to town with him, but my father didn’t get to where he is without learning a thing or two about persuasion.”
“What happened next?”
“He asked her to stay with us for a few days, and although it was clear she wasn’t comfortable around so many people, she agreed. On her last morning with us, my father suggested she should be passing on her backcountry knowledge and rescue expertise to train future generations. She said it was something she’d dreamed of doing. And then he offered to back the endeavor, on one condition.”
Dana frowned. “What condition was that?”
“He said she needed to take his wayward daughter on as a business partner and keep her out of trouble,” Annie said with a laugh. “I happened to think the idea was terrific. I had a degree in business I wasn’t using, and Lesley had found a cabin near town, the perfect location for a mystery writer to settle down in and write.”
“So all’s well that ends well.”
“Yes,” Annie responded with certainty. “Dana, I don’t give a damn what Grant said. It was Kellen Ryan who saved my life and Kellen Ryan who helped build this business. I don’t care who she was before that. I only care about who she is today. But I worry that on some level, she’s always just a step from running. Disappearing.”
“What do you mean?”
“She once shared that she keeps a backpack in her front closet, filled with essentials in case she needs to run. I may not like it, but I do understand having it there helps her feel better, so I don’t interfere. Because it’s simply a part of who Kellen is. And that’s the same person I’ve known and loved for the last ten years.”
Dana felt momentarily stunned by Annie’s revelation. That after all these years, Kellen would still keep a go bag ready in case she needed to run at a moment’s notice spoke of a level of fear she couldn’t begin to understand. She also wasn’t certain what it would take to turn things around.
Whether it mattered or not, they still had no idea who Kellen had been prior to meeting with Annie and her father. And there was still someone out there, hunting her. Wanting to finish what he’d started a year earlier.
There was also one other question that remained critical. If Kellen’s pattern was to disappear, would she do that now? With a
clear threat, would she run? Or would she stand and face whoever was coming after her, knowing she’d established strong bonds of friendship here, built a community. One that was prepared to stand by her. Fight with her and for her.
*
Kellen stretched and sighed as she awoke. The stretch pulled at a tube attached to her arm, and it took a handful of frustrating seconds for her to orient herself and for her eyes to focus. That was when she found herself staring at an IV.
What the hell? The realization came at the same instant she discovered two girls and a dog gathered beside her.
Bogart immediately drew near and nudged her hand with his nose. He then looked at her with where the hell have you been? in his eyes. Good question. How long had she been out?
Kellen scratched his head and looked at the girls. “What’s going on?”
“Please don’t be upset, but you’ve been really sick,” Cody said.
Before she could think of an appropriate response, Cody pressed her palm on Kellen’s forehead, then pressed it against her cheek. “I think your fever’s finally gone down. But it was really bad and when it kept getting higher, we had to ask the doc to come and take a look at you.”
“Oh?” Kellen struggled to remember. “When was this?”
“Um…three days ago. Please don’t scare us like that again.”
Letting out a resigned sigh, Kellen sank back into the mattress. She sifted through her memory, but her thoughts remained foggy. Disjointed. Like a flickering movie. Slowly, vague recollections took shape. She remembered the failed rescue. Holding the boy in the river. Flying the boy’s body back to his parents.
And then she remembered Calvin Grant.
Damn. He’d talked about the man who had shot her. Speculated he was coming back after her. That she was a danger to her team. Worse, out of nowhere, he had raised questions about her past—or lack of one. In front of Annie and Dana.