“Let’s see where Alanna is headed next,” Peter muttered. He was normally good at stakeouts, at making sure no one spotted him or his vehicle in a town full of naturally suspicious residents. It was a skill he’d learned as a reporter, when he’d sometimes go on scouting missions with soldiers. When he’d needed to keep up and keep quiet. But apparently the Altiers had taught Alanna to be hypervigilant and wary of strangers, and to run at the first indication someone might have noticed her.
It was ironic, really, that she still lived by that credo. After being plucked out of her front yard by a stranger as a kid, she should have been hypervigilant in a totally different way. Crowds should have been a source of comfort—more people to notice if something went wrong. Instead, she was still following what she’d been taught by the couple who’d kidnapped her and hidden her away from the world.
All of those things told Peter where her allegiance still lay. It was obvious to him that when it came to a choice between helping bring Darcy in—the line she’d given the police—and helping her escape, she’d choose the latter. Most likely, she’d do it regardless of the cost to others.
His hand was halfway to his left ear before he realized and yanked it back down.
“We need to be objective here,” Tate said, somehow sensing what Peter was thinking.
Peter hadn’t told Tate about his experiences overseas, but his last assignment as a war reporter was something few people in and around his hometown had missed. It had made national papers—along with a picture of him, blood dripping from his head, a cloud of dust covering his entire body and a stunned look on his face. The cameraman who’d caught the shot had done so seconds before the horrific aftermath of what Peter had just seen, what he’d just experienced. Only later would Peter realize most of the hearing in his left ear was never going to return.
“What we need to do is keep her in our sight,” Peter grumbled, following the tire tracks in the loose snow. This far on the outskirts of Desparre, the roads saw minimal traffic. People who lived out this way all had snowmobiles for days when the snow got too deep for driving.
“It didn’t look like anyone had been at the Altier house in a long time,” Tate continued, unperturbed or indifferent that Peter was annoyed. “Don’t you think if Darcy and Alanna had been in touch, Alanna would have known where to go? It seems like she’s guessing as much as we are.”
“Well, maybe they haven’t been in touch. Or maybe they have and all Alanna knows is that Darcy is coming back to Desparre.”
“If Alanna really wanted to help Darcy, why would she stop by the police station and offer us her help? Until she did that, no one was looking for Darcy here.”
Peter let up on the gas slightly as Tate’s words sank in. The search for the kidnapped boy—and escaped felon Darcy Altier—was making national news, but the search itself was centralized in Oregon. If anyone in law enforcement had reason to think Darcy was coming here, no one at their station seemed to know it.
Peter frowned and pressed down on the gas pedal again, hoping he was still following the right tire tracks but not willing to get within visual distance of Alanna’s vehicle. Not willing to risk scaring her off again. She might have left five years ago, but when it came to the most remote part of Desparre, she definitely knew it better than he did.
“Where’s she going?” Tate asked, his quiet tone suggesting he was talking to himself more than Peter.
“No idea,” Peter answered anyway. “A second meetup point maybe?”
Tate shook his head and Peter could sense he was rolling his eyes. “I know Desparre isn’t exactly a hotbed of crime and no one is likely to be missing us right now, but I seriously doubt Alanna Morgan came all this way, knocked on the police’s door and gave us a heads-up she thinks Darcy is here, then headed right to her.”
“Maybe not,” Peter conceded. “But she’s obviously searching for Darcy. And no one in Desparre knows her better.”
“Okay,” Tate agreed. “It still seems unlikely that Darcy would run back to Desparre, but if she is here, Alanna has a better shot at finding her than any of us.”
“Glad you’re seeing it my way,” Peter said with a grin as he wound around another steep bend, taking them farther up the mountain. He cranked up the heater, feeling the temperature dropping as they climbed.
“If Alanna actually does find Darcy, she might need our help,” Tate said.
“Why’s that?”
“She’s the reason Darcy Altier spent the last five years in prison. She’s the reason Julian Altier died in prison.”
“I don’t think we can pin all of that on Alanna.” Despite his suspicions about her motives now, she wasn’t responsible for their actions or what had happened to them. It must have taken enormous fortitude to eventually turn them in. He had to give her that.
“I’m talking about Darcy’s perspective, Peter. Alanna might think the woman who raised her will be happy to see her and will hand over this kid, but honestly? I think she’s just as likely to take a shot at Alanna like she did at her sister five years ago.”
Peter frowned, the idea of Alanna Morgan facing down a shotgun making him push the gas pedal harder. But when he rounded another bend, the road ended. A big wooden sign half-buried in snow announced it a dead end.
He hit the brakes hard and the SUV skidded to a stop, the four-wheel drive groaning. He glanced around, searching for a trail that snaked off somewhere, but saw nothing. “Where did she go?”
Tate shook his head, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I think she’s a lot savvier than we gave her credit for. We lost her.”
Chapter Three
“Hey, Chief, have you talked to Colter Hayes lately?” Peter asked as he strode back into the police station’s bullpen the next day, Tate on his heels.
Chief Hernandez frowned back at him, disapproval in the lines between her eyebrows.
Peter had met Keara Hernandez when he had applied for the police officer position but knew little about her. In a town where people respected others’ right to privacy, she hadn’t shared much of her background with her officers. All Peter knew was that she’d come from somewhere in the Lower 48, where she’d been a detective. The move to the remote town of Desparre was a chance for a promotion, sure, but they didn’t see much crime here. Undoubtedly, she was running from something—like so many of their civilians—but Peter had found her to be a fair boss. Her one shortcoming was her tendency to cut off ideas she didn’t like, shutting them down fast.
He could see it coming before she opened her mouth, so he preempted her with another question. “When’s the last time Colter was in Desparre with Alanna’s sister?”
Colter Hayes was a Desparre transplant, a soldier who’d seen his entire unit die and decided to spend the rest of his life in the solitude of Desparre. Then he’d met Kensie Morgan and eventually followed her back to Chicago. But first, he’d helped Kensie track down Alanna—and in the process, uncovered the Altiers’ kidnapping scheme.
The chief crossed her arms over her chest, turning to face him from where she’d been standing in front of the station’s overworked coffeepot. “I’ve had some contact with him. He hasn’t been back in about a year now. His wife is pregnant. Actually...” Chief Hernandez’s eyes lifted upward, then she nodded. “No, by now, they’ve had the baby. I’m guessing they’re pretty busy back in Chicago.”
“Because—”
She cut him off with a single dismissive word, spoken with authority. “No, Peter.”
Despite the fact that she was only six years older than his twenty-nine years, she said his name the way his mom had when he got in trouble as a boy. It made him feel like a kid and he scowled. He might have way more experience as a reporter than a police officer, but he knew how to follow a lead. And Alanna Morgan was a lead.
“Alanna Morgan was a victim,” Chief Hernandez said. “It’s sad that she can’t let go of h
er past, but it’s not our problem. I’ve talked to the federal agents handling the investigation back in Oregon and there’s no reason to suspect Darcy Altier came this way.”
“Is there a reason to suspect she went anywhere else?”
Chief Hernandez gave him an exasperated sigh, her gaze darting once to Tate, who stayed silent, then back to Peter. “What is this fixation with the Altiers? I didn’t assign you to look into this. Alanna is on a mission for herself, Peter. She probably feels guilty for everything that happened, even if it wasn’t her fault. She wants to help, but she’s out here guessing. It’s our job to make sure she’s safe while she’s here. But she’s not a lead worth following. Leave her alone.”
“What if she’s right?”
“I already—”
“Alanna didn’t fly all this way for nothing. Sure, maybe she does feel guilty, but if she thought Darcy was still in Oregon, wouldn’t she go there?”
“Peter, this woman isn’t law enforcement. She doesn’t have any insight into this case that we don’t.”
“She does have insight into Darcy Altier that we don’t,” Tate contributed.
Peter glanced at his partner, who was leaning against the wall, looking unruffled by the argument with the chief. But Tate didn’t feel as strongly about Alanna being a lead. He definitely didn’t have as much to prove as Peter.
Giving him a quick nod of thanks for the support, Peter turned back to the chief. “Maybe Darcy Altier isn’t here. But maybe she’s on her way. I’ve read through the case information and Desparre is the only place the couple stayed for more than a year. Darcy got comfortable here. If anywhere is home to her, it’s our town.”
Chief Hernandez’s forehead creased and her eyes narrowed, like she was thinking over his argument. Then she shook her head. “Whatever we don’t know about the Altiers’ motivations or mindsets, we can say this—those kids felt loved. The Altiers raised them like they were really their own children. That couple created a makeshift family for themselves. She and her husband got away with it for eighteen years, from the time they kidnapped that first boy until they were caught. They’re not stupid. They know their house was searched and ultimately seized. She’s not coming back here, Peter. And I won’t waste your time—or Tate’s time—following Alanna Morgan around.”
“This isn’t five years ago, Chief,” Peter insisted. He thought of Alanna racing to the street to get a look at his SUV back at the Altier cabin. The expectation on her face, the hope that had shifted into wariness as he’d reversed at high speed.
Alanna believed the woman she’d called mom for fourteen years was returning to Desparre. That meant Peter believed it, too.
“That image of a happy family was all an illusion,” Peter reminded her. “I’m not saying they didn’t love those kids, in their own messed-up way. But Darcy and Julian made Desparre their hideout. In the end, this place destroyed them. Darcy spent five years in jail. Her husband died there. She watched all her ‘kids’ being taken away. This time around, do you really think she’d repeat those mistakes?”
The chief’s arms dropped from where they’d been crossed over her chest for most of the conversation. Reluctant interest sparked in her eyes. “Wouldn’t coming back to Desparre be a mistake, then?”
“That assumes she’s thinking straight. She could be operating on pure emotion. Wanting what she had, where she had it. Or wanting something else, something stronger. Maybe this time, her goal isn’t to steal herself a new family.”
“Except she’s already started one, with that little three-year-old boy in Oregon,” Tate argued. But even he had pushed away from the wall and stepped closer, looking more interested in the conversation.
“Maybe the plan isn’t to start a new family with this little boy. After all, where’s the rest of Darcy’s ‘family’? Dead. Or back with their real families. Maybe this time, she’s out to prove something.”
“What?” Chief Hernandez asked, but the question was less hostile now.
“That she can outwit us all. Maybe Alanna’s right, in a way. Maybe Darcy is coming back here to get revenge on us. The town that gave her up.”
Chief Hernandez’s lips twisted upward in the corners, but she was nodding slowly. “Except it wasn’t really Desparre who turned Darcy in. It was Alanna.”
“Exactly,” Peter said. “Which means if Alanna isn’t in on Darcy’s escape, she might be a target.”
Tate stepped a little closer. “So, you think we need to keep following her, to keep her safe?” he asked, probably assuming this was Peter’s roundabout way to keep chasing that lead.
“Sure,” Peter said. “That’s one reason to keep following her.”
“What’s the other?” Chief Hernandez asked, eyes narrowing like she already knew the answer.
“She’s our bait to catch a kidnapper.”
* * *
“ALANNA?” THE HIGH-PITCHED voice gained volume and then a hand gripped Alanna’s arm hard. “Alanna Morgan?”
Reluctantly, Alanna turned to face the woman with long blond hair and perfect makeup who’d stopped her as she and Chance stepped out of their truck in the parking lot of Jasper’s General Store. The store where Alanna had left her fateful note five years ago.
“I thought it was you,” the woman said, her voice too cheery, her eyes too bright. Her breath swirled between them in the cold, doing nothing to obscure the raw ambition in her gaze.
No doubt about it. She might not have a microphone or a camera crew, but she was a reporter.
Alanna had been here for twenty-four hours and already a reporter had found her.
From the way Chance let out a low rumble—not quite a growl, but not friendly—when she reached her hand toward Alanna, he knew it, too.
The woman withdrew her hand quickly, her too-huge smile slipping just a bit, and Alanna felt herself being transported back five years.
The flight home had seemed to take forever. She’d been heading to a suburb outside of Chicago, to a home she’d never seen because her parents had long since moved out of the place where she’d been kidnapped in the front yard. Clutching Kensie’s hand too hard on the turbulent flight, having never been on an airplane before. Nerves churning her stomach as she prepared to greet parents and a brother she hadn’t seen in fourteen long years.
The drive from the airport to her parents’ house, where she’d soon be living, had gone by in a blur but the moments afterward were the ones Alanna would never forget. She’d expected her parents and brother, had known their extended family was waiting to give them a private reunion first. They didn’t want to overwhelm her, they said.
But she hadn’t expected the reporters. The news vans had made it nearly impossible for their driver to pull up to the house. The bursts of light from camera flashes going off all around her had made it hard to see. The reporters and their crews had pushed in on her from all sides, making her feel claustrophobic. Their questions screamed at her from all directions. What’s it like being home after all these years? Do you remember your real family? Did the Altiers hurt you? Why did you leave that note? Why didn’t you come forward sooner?
Trying to shake off the memories, Alanna leveled the woman with a hard stare and pulled her arm free. “No comment.”
Five years ago, Kensie had snapped those words at the reporters, pulled Alanna protectively into the crook of her arm and propelled her forward into the respective quiet of the house. Inside, Alanna had immediately been folded into hugs by her parents, while her teary-eyed older brother stared at her in wonder.
Of course she’d known they would have changed in fourteen years. Just as she’d changed from a curly-haired five-year-old into a young woman.
Still, it had been a shock to see the streaks of gray in her mother’s dark hair, the worry lines on her father’s forehead and at the corners of his eyes. The scents of her father’s aftershave and her mother’s
perfume had swirled around her, subtle but still making her eyes water—she was used to the outdoorsy scents of the Altiers when they hugged her. Her parents had looked older than their years. Alanna had been struck with the guilt of realizing it was probably from having their youngest child ripped out of their lives, from the years of searching and always coming up empty.
Then there was Flynn, standing stock-still, his lips trembling as his tears started to spill at the corners of his eyes. It had been hard to reconcile the twenty-three-year-old man staring at her with the nine-year-old brother she remembered. He’d been thinner than she’d expected and there was something desperate in his gaze she realized only later had come from years of bad decisions and addictions he’d fought hard to break. He had started when he was a teenager, feeling neglected by parents who’d been constantly looking for the daughter they’d lost, forgetting the two children they still had left.
All of it, ultimately leading back to her. To all the small moments over the years that were chances she might have had to reach out sooner, but hadn’t taken. There hadn’t been a lot, but she’d definitely had opportunities. In the beginning, she’d been far too afraid to take them. As she grew up, as she grew to love the family she lived with, she’d been scared of what it would mean for all of them.
In the early years with the Altiers, she used to squeeze her eyes closed tight and hold the images of her family in her mind, desperate not to lose them. As she’d grown, those images had blurred around the edges. Memories had faded, leaving behind only vague images and the feeling of having once been loved by a totally different family. With fourteen years between them missing, the homecoming she’d expected to be joyous had been happy but awkward. At that moment, the idea of rebuilding a life she barely remembered with a family she’d only known as a young child had seemed overwhelming.
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