by Sheri Landry
I had always hoped Travis was Zane. In my heart, I wanted Jessa and I to be part of a larger family, but I just lost him all over again, and Zane’s identity is still a secret.
Our present situation hits her as she makes eye contact with me. I stand here crying like the helpless person I’ve always been.
The screen on my phone lights up, catching my attention. Both men look at the message on the locked screen, but I don’t care. The details are hidden unless I unlock the phone and access the app.
This is it. This is our ticket to freedom.
Zane must have everything he needs, and he’s cutting us loose. In my excitement, I forget my surroundings, and I glance into the room to look at Jessa’s phone, but it isn’t lit up with a notification.
“Why isn’t your phone lighting up, Jessa? You said Zane would let us go together or not at all. That was the deal. We did it, right?”
Jessa looks like she’s frozen in time. It takes me a few seconds of silence before I recognize her expression, and my heart sinks.
Regret.
“Dana, I’m so sorry.” Jessa’s face drops, and with a deep breath she turns back to her laptop and types.
Jack and Logan lower their heads to concentrate, and I realize Link must be updating them on something.
Without warning, Jack lunges at the window, yelling for Jessa to stop what she’s doing. Pain is etched across his face, and I catch Logan’s attention to ask what is going on.
“Jessa has started an aggressive shutdown of our systems. She’s routing gas into the rooms she and Hunter are in. I’m sorry, Dana. It will kill them both.” Logan has gone pale as he finishes speaking.
Sound dissipates around me as his last sentence tears my heart out. My only friend is about to die, and I can’t stop any of it. She’s just going to kill herself in front of me.
“JESSA!” My own voice screams through my eardrums as I bang my tear-covered fists on the glass.
Everything is ending, and Maxwell is now asking her about Zane’s real identity. Words flow together, and I can’t concentrate on any one thing as panic shuts me down until—
“I’m Zane.” Jessa’s voice is the only sound that breaks through my panic, and as I listen to her explain everything my body becomes numb, overcome with emotion. I can’t reconcile the lies and secrets with my breaking heart, and I need to shut it out. I need to figure out a way to get Jessa out of there.
She has everything she needs. She can just unlock the door and leave. We’ll find a way out of here together. I’ve got my payout; we’ll live off of it together, off the grid. No one will find us. That’s the only plan I have, and I need to act fast. I need to get her attention.
I do the only thing I can from out here: I yell for her. I know she can hear me, because she cuts me off before I finish telling her my plan.
“Dana, I love you. Thank you for always being with me. You never let me down. I won’t let you down.” She sways in her stance as she speaks, and my panic takes hold.
“You’re letting me down now, Jessa. STOP IT. STOP THE GAS! PLEASE!”
She leans over, taps a couple of keys, and excitement surges through me. She’s listening. She’s going to turn off the gas, and I step back to wait for her. She lifts her gaze back up to us, but she’s not looking at me. She’s looking past me.
“Grizz, the outside door is locking in twenty seconds. She shouldn’t see this.”
Before I understand the weight of her last words, strong arms wrap around my waist and I’m instantly lifted off the ground, being moved toward the door with my phone clutched tight in one hand and grabbing wildly at anything with the other as I kick out my legs, hoping to be released before those twenty seconds are up so I can stay in the room with her.
My last effort lands solidly on the doorframe, and I grip it as tight as I can with one hand. I’ll lose my fingernails before I let go of Jessa now.
Wrapping his fingers over my own, Grizz wrenches me free from the door just as it shuts in place and the latch clicks locked. My hope drains out of me in a painful sob as he continues to carry me down the hall and into the dim light of the dawn.
Grizz takes his last few strides into the middle of the compound, and in that time I break everything down in my head. Jessa once told me, when she came back from Maxwell’s custody, it helped her to block out what was happening and focus on what steps she needed to take to save herself. She said the rest would fall into place.
Grizz shifts to lower me from his arms. As my feet touch the ground, I wipe away my tears for Jessa. I’ll cry later. I can’t have these thoughts in my head now. Jessa’s voice from the afternoon we were taken from the farmhouse plays in my mind. She told me to run if I could, saying, You know if I can make it, I’ll be there before you. If I’m not, just go.
Grizz’s lips move, and I can’t hear a word he’s saying, but I nod every few seconds so he continues, and it buys me some time to think. I scan the area while I list my steps in my head.
Step one. I have the phone. It’s the only thing I need. Everything else is disposable.
Grizz continues as he touches my arm, and I allow it. I’ll allow him to assume I believe whatever he’s saying, but I know the truth. When the dust settles, Jessa will be dead. They’ll take my phone and I’ll be hauled in and turned over to the authorities. They just took everything away from me. There is nothing left.
Step two. I need to find a way out of here.
I continue to nod at Grizz’s words and glance around as I choke on my sobs. Just in front of the gate sits a Jeep, and it’s running. Logan said Jessa started shutdown procedures, so there’s a good chance the gate is no longer working, but I might be able to manually open it.
Step three. I need to get away from Grizz.
I need to face it. There was no Michael. My heart is going to get me killed if I allow myself to believe I could have trusted anyone but Jessa.
As Grizz stops talking, I listen to the world around me. The weight of my situation sinks in. Jessa will be dead by now, and I squeeze my eyes shut at the thought. Grizz offers me the last piece I need.
My out.
“Dana, I’m so sorry. We should be online soon. I need to go help the guys. Grey will be back from his security check any minute. I need you to stay out here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
And that’s it. I have a window. There are only minutes between Grizz leaving, Grey returning, and the security gate coming back online.
I look at the ground and nod quickly. He leans in to offer me a hug, and I allow it but I don’t return it. I’m going to miss the Michael I thought I knew. Then he turns and runs back through the doors to help his team.
The door hasn’t fully closed yet, and I spin on my heels to take off across the compound with my phone in hand. I’m already plotting step four in my mind.
Open the gate, get to the Jeep, and just drive. Figure out the rest when you see the first road sign.
I was right. System shutdown has left the gate unlocked but closed. Shoving the phone in my pocket, I unhook the emergency latch and push the gate on its wheels, then turn and run for the vehicle.
As I pull open the door to the Jeep, the rumble of a motorbike engine registers in the distance. Grey is close, and it sounds like I only have a couple of minutes.
Good thing that’s all I need.
Bright rays break between the mountains as the Jeep carries me down the dirt road in front of me. I’ll slow down once I hit a main road, then I’ll check the phone and disappear just like Jessa taught me.
Jessa.
The last of the buildings on the edge of the compound get smaller in the rearview mirror. As the road descends off the mountain, the base slips out of view, taking my life as I knew it along with it.
1
Michael
Present Day
“And that wraps up last week’s tactical training. I’ll have more on the applications and background checks for the new hires in a couple of weeks. Link, does your te
am have anything to add?” Logan thrums his fingers on his file folder as he finishes his update into the speakerphone while all seven of us shoot glances at each other around the conference table.
The news that Hunter was Maxwell’s mole hit our team hard, and I’m not sure if any of us have really gotten over his betrayal. We trust each other with our lives, and knowing he worked among us while he was prepared to sacrifice one of our own at any time is distressing.
Hunter’s position unofficially opened up, but no one else wanted it. Most of the guys here are happy keeping their heads down and doing what they do best, so the added responsibility didn’t appeal to them. I threw my name in and ended up taking on the role, mostly because it gave me more access to locating Dana.
While Charlie, Grey, Waldo, and Tex are invited to these calls, they usually sit them out. It’s mostly dry stuff, but today is different. Today they are joining us silently around the table, waiting for one agenda item in particular to come up.
“I—no, I think we’re good. Anything to add—Penny?” When Link says the name, I watch Jack’s lips twitch at the corners.
Penny is the new code name for Jessa. To the outside world, Jessa died last year. She died a hero among those of us who fought to end Maxwell for so long, but she also died a target in the eyes of the Sparr family and their allies.
Since then, she’s been working with Link and his team under the table, and we are lucky to have her. Her presence opens Link up to provide more tactical support to our teams, and there is no one who knows computers like she does. I’d be lying if I said those are the reasons I’m happy she’s here. No, I’m happy to have her on our team because she has chilled Jack right out. Knowing she’s safe and nearby has settled his demons.
We’re currently experiencing the downside of having her around. The hesitant glances are obvious, and the unspoken apprehension hangs thick in the room. Everyone knows why we’re on this call. Everyone except Jessa, and the anxious tone in Link’s voice is unnerving all of us.
“I closed up the security issues on your bank project, Logan. Other than that, I want to confirm I have the next few days off, but I’m available through regular channels.” Jessa requested a break a day ago, and it was quickly granted. She’s put in more than enough time with our team and has earned a short vacation—if you can call it that. It’s more of a staycation, as there is nowhere for her to go where she won’t risk exposing herself.
As far as we know, no one is looking for her, but all it takes is for some face recognition to tag her and her lie would be discovered.
“Affirmative.” Logan pauses before exchanging looks around the table. “We all wish you luck in finding her this time, Penny.” He looks uncomfortable as the white lie spills from his mouth.
It’s a half-truth. Jessa has been spending all her spare time searching for Dana, and I’m grateful for her hard work. We did hope she’d find her.
The part that’s a lie: we’ve received intel. We might have found Dana ourselves, but we need to talk about it before we involve Jessa.
This whole situation is bittersweet.
Jessa and Dana have a deep friendship, and I’ve watched the pressure Jessa placed on herself this past year to find her. She carries all the responsibility on her own shoulders. Her need to protect her friend drives her.
While I haven’t shared this with anyone, I understand the guilt she lives with. Dana went missing on my watch. My focus was on helping my team that day, and I failed to take into account she had nothing left to keep her with us, so she took the first chance she could to run. It was a knee-jerk reaction she and Jessa had ingrained into themselves for years.
If Jessa learns of Dana’s location, she may take off blindly after her, and we can’t allow her to put herself at risk. Jessa’s skills make her an invaluable asset to those who would go to great lengths to use her should they find out she is still alive—including Maxwell.
He’s been able to stay under our radar since barely escaping the situation Jessa put him in a year ago. Word on the street is Matteo Sparr is out of retirement and working to repair relations with as many associates as he can to protect his only son, who has gone into hiding.
“Thank you.” Jessa’s response cuts through the speaker, and Logan continues as if everything is normal.
“Okay then, the only item left is our team budget for the next month.”
“Jekyll, may I end my call? I’d like to get a few things wrapped up before I leave for the day,” Jessa asks from her end, and the tension we held is released in smiles and movement as a few of us shift in our seats.
After a couple months of team budget talks, Jessa has consistently asked to skip this part of our biweekly calls. I don’t blame her—they’re boring as hell, but we need to do them. Logan moved them to the end of the meeting a few months ago so those who didn’t want to listen in could leave early.
“Yes, that’s fine, Penny. Send me an email when you’re clocking out.” A beep on the phone indicates a line has disconnected. The room is silent as we wait for Link to confirm we are now secure.
“Okay, she’s left her area. She’s off the phone. I’m locking channels so no one else can join. I’m showing only two lines on the call now. Yours and mine. We can speak freely.” Link speaks in an excited whisper.
“Link. You okay?” Logan raises his brows in concern.
“Yeah. It’s just—she makes me nervous. Nothing gets by her. Playing it cool is freaking me out over here.” Everyone around the table chuckles at his confession, and I don’t envy him.
Link is right to be on guard. She’s smarter than all of us, and we underestimated her once.
“Let’s make this quick then. Tell us what you know.” Logan lifts his pen to his notepad and all seven of us follow suit.
This conversation just went off record. There will be no recording of it anywhere, and Link will destroy his written notes.
My body hums with enthusiasm as Logan shuffles papers on his end of the line. This is what I’ve waited for.
Dana’s identity and location.
I’ve set my guilt aside and focused on finding her. I’ll deal with her and everything else once we have her in our custody.
Link picks up the conversation, and seven pens scribble in silence as each of us write our own version of what we understand. We’ll compare notes later.
“Okay. This is such a fluke. I can’t believe I found it. So, how Jessa set up the alternate identities was really brilliant, but not helpful. She programmed at least one hundred different names and included backgrounds for each of them. When the system was prompted to let them go, it would give them a random identity, along with access to cash and some other things, including a basic backup of Zane in case Jessa might need it, but Dana doesn’t know she has a copy. It would look like an ordinary file to her. Knowing Dana’s new identity wouldn’t help anyway, because Jessa taught her how to ditch it and create a new one. So after trying to find her on the grid for so long, I began to search offline, which was no easy task considering my search area was all of the continental United States.” Link’s words come out at a rapid pace, and my shoulders lift with a growing tension. He hasn’t given us anything yet.
“Link? We know all of this. The point.” Jack curtly cuts into his long, drawn-out thought, and Link pauses a second.
“Right. Sorry, Phoenix. Jessa made a comment in passing last week that it was her deathday. It had been one year since she died to everyone else, and it made me realize I was treating Dana like someone on the run, but she wouldn’t think like this. As far as Dana’s concerned, it’s all over. Her best friend is dead, and we aren’t looking for her. So I thought if Jessa remembered her own deathday, then a friend as close as Dana would be mourning that day too, so I began to look at ways Dana might honor her friend. The farmhouse where we picked them up has since been swept, cleaned, and sold to a retired couple through a management company, no doubt set up automatically by Jessa. So that was a dead end. On a hunch, I check
ed Jessa’s family’s gravesites, and there was a delivery of flowers on the anniversary of Jessa’s death. I contacted the groundskeeper, who confirmed the delivery and gave me the florist’s name. I contacted them, and they told me the flowers were bought with a credit card belonging to a Stan Teckler, last name is Tango-Echo-Charlie-Kilo-Lima-Echo-Romeo, age forty-six. He’s living outside a little town in the Rocky Mountains, on the Montana side of the border.”
My heart thuds rapidly into my rib cage as I scribble down this information. It’s more than we’ve gotten in a whole year, but at the mention of a man’s name I become frustrated. I don’t know if I’m prepared to weather another impasse.
“How is a middle-aged man a lead?” Unable to mask my annoyance, I catch the attention of Logan and Jack.
They know Dana and I talked when she was with us last year. There isn’t much else to do on a base up in the mountains. I let her down, and I lost her. Her friend is alive, and I owe it to the two who gave up so much to attempt to take Maxwell down. I have my own horse in this race. Ruining Maxwell and Matteo Sparr settles a score for me too, so I owe Dana and Jessa both for putting everything on the line like they did.
“I’m getting there. I decided to start searching the area based on what we know about Jessa and Dana, and I think I found something. About nine months ago, a little coffee shop opened up in a small town about thirty miles away from Teckler’s listed residence. The company who owns the shop is listed under a numbered name. Being up in the mountains, the area is cut off from the internet, and cell service is spotty at best. It’s a good place to go if you don’t want to be found.”
“This lead is the best we’ve had, but it’s still really weak. Tell me you have something else.” Jack cuts in, glancing in my direction as he speaks. He knows we need something tangible before we deploy.
“Okay, here is the rest of it. Let me finish. I don’t know if Jessa will be back soon. No internet is tough to track online, but I’ve found some reviews of the coffee shop. All of them refer to a female owner. One has a picture of the inside of the shop. You can see here that there isn’t anything to it.” An image comes up on our monitor, and my eyes scan the blurry photo before returning to my notepad. “The person who posted the review indicated the woman behind the counter is the owner.”