A Wanted Man (Cold Case Detectives Book 1)

by Jennifer Morey

  Instead of torturing himself with that vision, he focused on Vanessa’s file. He’d already read through the information once, but sometimes the second pass revealed something meaningful.

  Penny leaned in to read with him. “She talked to a boy the night she disappeared?”

  “After school.” Kadin flipped that page over so that Penny could read on. “He went missing the next day, after he stopped at a convenience store. That’s where he was last seen.”

  “The two have to be related.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He tapped to a line farther down in the report. “The boy was found in Dallas, Texas, a few weeks later. Returned to his parents and ran away again. He comes from a broken home where the mother has been in and out of jail for DUIs. He himself has been arrested a handful of times for theft and once for hitting a girl. He denied ever seeing Vanessa or knowing her whereabouts. Her family seems pretty normal, but her sister claims Vanessa didn’t get along with her mother.”

  “What teenager does?”

  He waited while Penny read the rest of the report.

  When she looked up, he said, “The boy was last seen in Houston three months ago, but the police there have been unable to locate him.”

  “Or Vanessa. She’s been gone what...?”

  “Almost a year.” He felt sure the girl had run away and also sure that she wouldn’t have if not for the boy. She’d listened to the wrong person.

  Penny reached into him with her eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  “Well.” He turned the page and showed her the last paragraph. “I was just about to call the lead detective and ask him why he hasn’t talked to anyone at the tattoo parlor where the boy was seen.”

  “He hasn’t?”

  “Nope. The detective said a girl reported seeing him after she realized he was reported missing. She asked him about a tattoo.” Kadin pointed to the paragraph.

  According to the girl, the missing boy had gotten the tattoo the week before.

  “I’m going to fly down there as soon as we have time.”

  Penny fell into thoughtful silence and then reached to put her hand over his. “You’re a good man, Kadin Tandy.”

  Needing a dose of humor, he said, “With that coming from a corporate shark like you, I’m humbled.”

  Just as the moment turned warm again, the sound of a buzzer going off intruded.

  Someone was at the back door downstairs. Kadin stood and went to the door. Down the stairs, he stopped at the back door. He always wore his guns, and if he didn’t want to see whoever was at the door, then he wouldn’t respond.

  Peering out the window, he saw Lott and almost didn’t answer.

  “Open up, I know you’re in there,” Lott said in a raised voice.

  Chuckling, Kadin opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “You stood me up for our fishing date.” He stepped inside.

  “I called.”

  “Yeah, and gave me a work-related excuse. You know that doesn’t fly with me.”

  Kadin didn’t argue. He led Lott upstairs and into his apartment, where Penny still sat. She stood when she saw them.

  “Hey, I remember you,” Lott said, his gaze going all over her the way it had done when he first met her.

  Kadin had warned Penny about his friend when he thought nothing would develop between them. While he still thought nothing would—or could—something in him rebelled against Lott staking any kind of claim on her.

  “Is she a client of yours?” Lott asked him.

  Kadin had no choice but to answer honestly. “Yes.”

  “I’m not paying him,” Penny interjected with annoyance. “I gave him information. The only reason I’m here is someone is trying to kill me.”

  “Ah.” Lott surveyed her again. “Then today is my lucky day.” He strode over to Penny, but then he stopped and turned to Kadin. “Unless...” He moved his index finger back and forth between the two of them.

  “No,” Kadin said, seeing Penny fume with anger as she glanced up at him.

  What made her so mad? She was the one who didn’t commit. Her words.

  Lott sat down on the sofa and patted the space next to him. “Who’s trying to kill you?”

  “We can’t discuss the details of the investigation,” Kadin said a little too sharply, going over to sit beside Penny.

  “Oh.” Lott stared at him a long few seconds. Then he sat back. “Nice try, bro.”

  Penny turned her head from Lott to Kadin and back again.

  “There is something going on between the two of you.”

  “No, there isn’t,” Penny retorted.

  Lott glanced at her but kept his attention on Kadin. “Yeah, there is. You’re different.”

  “Why are you here, Lott?”

  His friend chuckled. “Okay, I won’t make you uncomfortable. I met this girl.”

  “Another one?”

  “Her brother was murdered ten years ago and the killer was never caught.”

  And he thought Kadin would solve her mystery?

  “She’ll pay you,” Lott leaned to remove his wallet. “Here’s her card. I said if you were interested that you’d be in touch to meet and discuss the case.”

  Kadin took the card. “Does this mean you’re going to be my marketing director?”

  Lott chuckled again. “I actually like the sound of that.”

  “I’ll look into it and give her a call,” Kadin said. But he sensed the new case wasn’t the only reason Lott had come to see him. “Okay, you could have called me with this. Why are you really here?”

  Lott sat back. “Wow.” He crossed one leg over the other and stretched an arm out across the back of the sofa, drawing a look from Penny. “You’re good.”

  “I just know you. Talk to my mother again?”

  “She called me. I’m never the one to call her. She said she’s been trying to reach you.”

  His mother would ask how he was doing in that soft, sympathetic, sad voice and then she’d try to get him to talk about his tragedy.

  “I’ll call her.” Maybe next year.

  Lott frowned as he realized he’d get nowhere once again. He stood. “I’ll tell her. But only because I consider you my friend.” He turned to Penny with a slight bow. “Penny, if you weren’t his, I’d ask you out on a date.”

  She smiled and laughed at Lott’s easy charm. “I might have accepted the invitation.”

  “Might.” He put a hand to his heart. “You wound me.”

  Still smiling, she said, “Something tells me that would take more than rejection.”

  Facing Kadin, who stood during the exchange, he shook his hand and gave him a firm pat. “Next time I come here, we’re going fishing.”

  “Deal.”

  After Lott left, Kadin came back to the living room to find Penny drifted off in thought. Hearing him, she looked up at him.

  “Why haven’t you talked to your mother?” she asked.

  That couldn’t have been what had her thinking so intently. “I don’t want to talk about Annabelle. My family talks about her and my wife whenever I’m around or on the phone.”

  “Have you told your mother that you don’t want to talk about it?”

  “Yes. A hundred times, but there’s always her careful tone.” He scowled. “She treats me like I’m different, like she pities me.”

  “You are different. No one could go through what you did and not change. And have you ever considered that she might be mourning the loss as a grandmother? You should support each other.”

  “I guess I can add you to the list of people who force me to talk about their deaths.”

  She put her hands up. “No forcing from me. And I don’t pity you, either. In fact, I think you�
�re being selfish.”

  “Selfish. That’s great. So I suppose I deserved to have my daughter kidnapped and killed and my wife unable to live with it.”

  He heard her draw in a sharp breath the instant he realized he’d been unnecessarily cruel. “I didn’t mean that.” She stood up. “I do think you should talk about what happened, though, especially how you feel.” She walked toward him. “Keeping that bottled up won’t help you.”

  At the risk of saying something else he’d regret, Kadin turned and headed for the door. “I’ll be downstairs.”

  * * *

  If Kadin reacted that way to simple talk of his daughter, would he react the same if she told him she was pregnant? Again she clung to foolish hope that she wasn’t having his baby. Finding herself next to the table where Kadin had worked on the files of the missing and murdered girls, she sat down and saw that he had some electronic files, as well. The one on Vanessa was open on the screen of his laptop.

  Seeing the folder open where he stored everything, she gave in to curiosity and clicked to see the contents. One caught her eye right away, titled with the name, Penny Darden. She opened that electronic folder and found it full of documents and correspondence from someone with the NYPD. As she went through some of them, the detailed information gathered seemed more appropriate for a security investigation.

  She skimmed through some basic information that she’d expect from a background check. But then she came upon something unexpected. Another background on a man she didn’t know. Alias Cochrane. He worked at an environmental engineering corporation and lived in Bismarck, North Dakota. Married with three kids. Two boys and a girl. Scout leader. Humane Society volunteer. Junior league baseball coach. Athletic.

  She stared at pictures of Alias’s kids and wife. And then came to one of him. Reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes, features that resembled hers.

  With trembling fingers, she scanned through the document some more, finding a pedigree of Alias’s ancestry, a pasted copy from a website. The time that the document had been saved coincided with the time Kadin would have received the background information. Listed at the bottom was Alias Cochrane, and beneath that were four names. Alias’s three children...and hers.

  Penny Darden.

  Shock jolted her into numb disbelief. She let go of the mouse. Kadin had investigated her biological father? Why? And more important, why had he kept it a secret from her? She felt invaded, one of her most private struggles in life laid bare to a stranger’s eyes.

  She flipped to the next page, not caring that the one she held floated to the floor. A more detailed report of what had been itemized in the previous pages sliced her privacy into a gaping exposure.

  Her father had a family, a good job and hobbies. He seemed normal. Happy. Did a day pass when he thought of his other daughter? Didn’t he care?

  The shock began to lighten its icy grip and anger began to settle. How dare Kadin do this? Work history, home address and criminal background check she could understand, but details about her estranged father?

  Penny dropped the report and marched out of the upper-level apartment. Down a narrow stairway, she pushed open the door leading to Kadin’s office. He sat at his desk and turned when he heard her.

  “Alias Cochrane?” she said.

  He swiveled his chair and stood. “You went through my files?”

  “If I hadn’t, would you have told me what you discovered?” She walked to him, bursting with indignation.

  “I asked you if you ever wanted to find him and you said no.”

  How unfair of him to use that lame excuse. “I might have changed my mind if you’d have told me you found him.”

  “You said you didn’t want to find him.”

  “What are you, God? You know all about him. Scout leader?” She scoffed and folded her arms, feeling vulnerable. Vulnerable. Where had this insecurity come from? She’d never given her deserting father more than a fleeting thought and now suddenly it hurt that he existed and thrived in a family unit. He had multiple interests like her. She hated how that made her wonder if she’d taken after him that way. She hated wondering if she should try to meet him. Hated even more doubting that he’d want to see her.

  “Penny...” Kadin said after a while. He reached for her hand. “I didn’t think you’d—”

  She swatted away his hand. “Do me a favor, let me do my own thinking.” Pivoting, she marched back up the stairs and would have slammed the apartment door shut if Kadin hadn’t stealthily followed her and put his hand on the wood.

  He stood close behind her and took in the anger radiating off her with a little too much amusement.

  “There’s nothing charming about this.” She stepped into his apartment, going to the window overlooking the western town’s main street. Clouds had rolled in and a light sprinkle had begun. The forecast called for rain.

  “I’m sorry,” he said thickly. “I asked and thought you didn’t want to know anything about your father. I thought I’d impose on you if I did tell you.”

  As if digging deep into her personal affairs wasn’t imposing enough?

  He moved closer, too close for her frazzled emotions. When he put his hands on her shoulders, she sidled away and walked back across the open, high-ceiling room. The window off the dining room offered a view of a parking lot and another building.

  “I would have told you if I’d have known it was this important to you.”

  She turned. “You found him. That forces me to care, Kadin. You shouldn’t have looked. Not without asking me first.”

  His head bowed and he stuffed his hands into his jean pockets. “In my line of work, I look for character traits that might give me insight into a case, especially in relationships. Sometimes they’re tied to the victim.”

  “You could have told me when the conversation came up.”

  He walked toward her. “Would that have changed your reaction?”

  So much hurt coiled and twisted in her she could barely catch her breath. How could she have been so sure she preferred to never know her father? Maybe his abandonment had a lot to do with that, even though she hadn’t felt abandoned. Feeling this emotionally unstable deviated far off her usual demeanor. Would Kadin’s telling her what he’d learned changed anything?

  She had to be honest and admit, at least to herself, that nothing would have changed. She still would have been upset, which boiled up more confusion. Decisiveness came easy to her, not this overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Penny voiced her next thought out loud. “You didn’t have to pry to the extent you did.”

  “You’re right. I did pry more than normal.” He moved closer.

  That he’d admitted such a thing impressed her and led to other curiosities.

  “I thought you weren’t interested in marriage and children,” she said before thinking first.

  Her loaded implication didn’t pass by Kadin. Standing so close, he looked down her body. An involuntary action or had she tipped him off?

  “I—I didn’t mean,” she stammered. “It’s just that if you were that curious, it could...i-it could lead to...that.” Damn, what was the matter with her? She never stuttered. She hung one arm down and rubbed up and down with her other hand, unable to hold his direct gaze. More dichotomies to her character.

  Well, she reasoned, she’d never faced pregnancy before. Unplanned pregnancy. Secret pregnancy...

  “Does that happen to you a lot?” she asked.

  “Does what happen?”

  “Curiosity.”

  “No,” he admitted. “You’re the first.”

  Really? Since his wife passed, no other woman had moved him to find out more about her?

  “And it’s not that I’m not interested...in those things. I just don’t think I can invest in them again.”

  Hearing him essentially reiterat
e what he’d already told her, Penny grew disconcerted. They’d wandered into another area that had set her life off balance. Why did all these things have to come hailing down at her all at once? The Sara Wolfe case and Jax’s involvement, this crazy attraction between her and Kadin, the prospect of being pregnant...

  Give her numerous obstacles at work and she’d tackle them without faltering. But outside of that, a real hot mess had erupted.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning, Penny rolled over and the motion was enough to upset her system. She threw the covers off and ran to the bathroom, hanging onto the edge of the claw-foot tub as she bent over the toilet. Kadin’s room was just down the hall. She hoped he didn’t hear her retching. Only the outer wall was brick.

  When the nausea eased, she sat against the bathroom wall and leaned her head back. She needed some distance from Kadin. Some time to sort her feelings out and her situation. Going back to Salt Lake City might be too dangerous, and Kadin would only follow. She could go home to see her mother, but she didn’t want to lead any trouble there.

  She could also go and see her father. He’d abandoned her so she felt no obligation to be sensitive to his feelings. Knowing about him and where he lived would plague her the rest of her life. He didn’t deserve her sympathy.

  Never the kind of woman who put off facing problems, Penny would resolve two of them right now. Getting up, she paused in the hall to make sure Kadin hadn’t awakened and then went into the guest room to pack for a quick trip to Bismarck. He didn’t need her to solve Sara Wolfe’s case anyway, and they were still waiting on DNA results.

  She snuck out of the apartment, down the stairs and out the back door. Walking through the warm summer sunrise to the street, she nodded a greeting to a man who’d just opened the doors to his hardware shop, sweeping the concrete in front. The town had a real western feel, taking her back in time, far away from big-city bustle.

  A short walk later, she reached a small car rental office and waited until they opened. An hour later, she couldn’t help worrying Kadin would catch up to her as she drove away. Not seeing him on her way out of town, she breathed a sigh of relief and drove ten miles an hour over the speed limit toward the next town.