by Barb Han
The ploy wouldn’t work.
“Mind pouring me a cup of coffee before you go?” Jaden asked his wife.
Daniel laughed.
“I won’t stab you if you turn your back. Pour your own damn cup.”
Lauren flashed nervous eyes at Daniel but her smile was genuine and warm. She was telling him that she was grateful for the confession.
It was true. He hadn’t show up to fight with Jaden. He could think of one place he’d like to shove the picture on Jaden’s anatomy, but Daniel hadn’t come to stir up trouble. He’d come to tell his old buddy that he was barking up the wrong tree.
Deep down, Daniel knew his friend had shown up in Cuba out of concern. Hell, he probably thought this mission would be therapy. Jaden needed to know that his intentions were misguided. Daniel also realized that on missions he’d always been the go-to guy for locating a target. He had an uncanny ability to anticipate people’s moves and locate an ideal interception point.
He also knew how to hide and that was one of the many reasons he’d chosen Havana. No one would look for him there. He hated hot, underdeveloped crime-ridden cities. Daniel’s mistake had been sticking around too long.
“Thanks for coming,” Jaden said before walking over to the pot and pouring a cup of black coffee.
He joined Daniel at the island, sitting across the large slab of white granite from him.
Daniel slapped his palm onto the table, leaving the picture behind when he picked up his hand. “What the fuck is this about?”
“You must have some idea.” Jaden glared right back at Daniel.
“Why me?” He wanted to hear the reason from Jaden.
“You’re the only one I can trust with this,” Jaden said. Daniel didn’t like his friend’s expression. Those creases on his forehead and worry lines bracketing his mouth should’ve made Daniel turn around, hop into his rented king cab pickup truck and stir some dust up on the road out of there.
“Call Gabriel or Bear,” Daniel stated. “Bear does this for a living now.”
Jaden just looked at him.
“You already tried.”
“No. You’re the only one I contacted,” Jaden said plain as day before taking another sip of coffee. “But calling Bear is a great idea.”
Before Daniel could protest, Jaden had his cell in hand. He sent a coded text first. Then, he phoned Bear and put the call on speaker.
“For a ghost you sure have popped up on my radar a lot lately,” Bear teased. Damned if he didn’t sound the happiest he’d ever been.
“Hey, bro. You’re on speaker and I have a surprise. Daniel Damon is here with me,” Jaden said.
There was a moment of silence followed by, “How the hell are you, man?”
A former D-Force soldier, Bear had lost most of his men when an Iraqi informant double crossed them. The situation was hauntingly familiar. If not for the close air support that had been called in, Bear wouldn’t be alive right now. He’d had a long road to recovery after taking a hit to his leg. Daniel didn’t want to admit to himself or anyone else just how good it felt to hear his former friend’s voice.
“I’m taped together all right.” Daniel wasn’t ready to unpack how he really felt.
“It would be okay if you weren’t,” Bear’s voice went church-service quiet.
Damn.
“I hear you’ve become a mountain man.” Daniel needed to change the subject.
Bear chuckled, conceding the new direction. “I can breathe out here. Fresh air is good for the soul.”
“You’ve become quite the handy man,” Damon continued, keeping the focus off himself.
“I shouldn’t be surprised you know that.” Bear lowered his voice. “You can call anytime, Damn. You know that, right?”
“You can’t fix me, bro.” Daniel turned and then walked outside.
After a few deep breaths meant to keep his blood pressure from exploding, Daniel returned to the kitchen.
“I get that your wife is about to pop and that means no work for you.” He’d put that much together the second he set eyes on Lauren. Daniel even admired his onetime friend for putting his family first. God knew Daniel should’ve been there for Naomi. He’d regret that decision for as long as he could breathe. “But I’m the wrong person.”
“I disagree, which puts us in a stalemate.”
Jaden locked eyes with Daniel. The challenge in the air was the first one to look away lost. Jaden might not realize it yet but he already had.
There was no way Daniel planned to take on this mission and Jaden needed to know it so he could find someone else.
“You came a long way for nothing three days ago.” Daniel intensified his glare.
“Really? When did you renew your passport?”
“I have other ways to get into the country. You of all people should know how to get around customs,” Daniel shot back.
“I worked for the wrong team once.” Jaden looked down at his mug. The staring contest was over. Daniel had won.
So why did he feel like an ass?
“And now you own an orchard. What’s up with the peaches?” Daniel changed the subject.
Jaden lifted his gaze and his left eyebrow shot up. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t. Humor me. Why a peach orchard?”
“Because peaches do well here.” Jaden’s tone was flat like everyone should know that tidbit.
“Excuse me for skipping 4H Club in high school.”
Jaden took a slow sip of his coffee. He set the mug down and clasped his fingers. “She’s thirteen-years-old, man. She’s missing. And I can’t help her.”
Daniel turned away from the pained look on Jaden’s face. Showing emotion was deadly in their old line of work. Daniel had done an excellent job of shutting his down in order to nail a mission. It had made him a little too good at turning his emotions off with his wife and child, too.
Now all he ever did was fucking feel. The only emotion he could touch was anger.
“She a relative? She doesn’t look like you,” Daniel bit out.
“No.”
“Tied to an ‘organization’ I don’t want anything to do with?”
Jaden’s irritation rolled off him in waves. “Told you, I don’t work for governments anymore. I got a new gig going here and I help the good guys now. And, no. We’re not related but that doesn’t mean I don’t care or don’t want to do whatever it takes to bring her home. She’s a kid and she deserves to be found.”
“Sounds like a job for a city cop if you ask me.” Daniel kept up the calloused asshole routine.
“This is an international case. The family isn’t getting much cooperation from the government here. The tourist destination doesn’t want a blot on their tourism record, so resort employees are making up stories about her.”
Daniel had heard about dozens of cases with sweet-looking make-up free faced teens who’d gotten mixed up in the wrong things or with the wrong crowd and ended up drugged-out runaways. The parents always offered up the sweet pictures, the ‘befores’ to the media and people ate up the sad stories. The real pictures of these kids, the ‘afters,’ were unrecognizable. “You said she’s thirteen? Maybe she wants to be lost. Decided the beach was better than coming back to the states with her lame parents.”
Kids did stupid stuff. He knew. He’d been one of them once.
“Who really wants to be lost?” Jaden asked and then let the comment sit.
Daniel issued a sharp sigh.
“Kids go missing every day. Why are you looking for this one?” he asked.
“My agency has been hired by her aunt to find her,” Jaden said.
“Your agency?” Daniel stated. “I thought you ran a peach farm.”
“It’s an orchard.”
Daniel shot another stiff look at Jaden.
“Did Bear talk you into this?”
“No. But I did consult with him before taking the leap. I take projects on a case-by-case basis. I’m a lone wolf and my wife is due to
give birth at any minute.” Jaden looked away from Daniel when he said the last part.
“Why not her parents?” Daniel cocked an eyebrow. “Divorced?”
“Mom is remarried. If I’m honest, I don’t like the stepdad much. I’m not saying that I think he’s involved in the girl’s disappearance but he’s a jerk,” Jaden admitted.
“You’ve interviewed the family?”
“It was the condition I had before signing the contract,” Jaden said.
“Let me see if I can sum this up. Mom and Dad are divorced. Dad’s alone. Mom has moved on with another man. She wants a fresh start. Stepdad and her kid don’t get along so great. It’s creating tension. Maybe Mom wants the kid from her last marriage out of the way,” Daniel stated.
“Look at that,” Jaden countered. “Problem solved. We can all go home.”
“Why did you sign a contract on a job you couldn’t take?” Daniel folded his arms.
“I didn’t sign it yet.” Jaden walked over to a drawer in the adjacent room and pulled out a stack of papers. He returned to the island and dropped them onto the granite.
“You don’t think the mom’s involved.” It was a statement.
“Neither do the cops,” Jaden said. “Although, with this being international and considered a runaway not much is being done to investigate.”
“Why do they think she’s a runaway?”
“The best friend she was vacationing with said she kept swearing she wasn’t going home. You can imagine how many resources a city gives to chasing down runaways on foreign soil,” Jaden continued.
Daniel didn’t need to be in law enforcement to solve for X on that equation. “What about news organizations? Surely, there’s media pressure.”
“Stepdad made it clear he thinks she made the choice not to come home.” Jaden stabbed his index finger into the stack of papers. “It’s all right there.”
“What about Mom?”
“She went along with what her husband said.” Jaden shrugged.
“I’m assuming there’s a biological father,” Daniel said.
Jaden nodded.
“Where does he play into the hand?”
“He seemed distraught. Admitted life hasn’t been great for the kid since the divorce and especially in the last year with Mom getting remarried. Said there’d been a lot of tension and the kid has been acting out. He was quick to say that none of it was her fault and that he couldn’t say for sure that she didn’t decide to sneak off while everything cooled down with her mother,” Jaden answered. “Said he overheard a conversation with her and a friend where she said she needed a break from all the drama going on at home.”
“But the aunt doesn’t agree.”
“Bingo.”
It made sense considering she was the one who’d hired Jaden.
“And Mom?”
“I would’ve thought she’d be more concerned,” Jaden admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, she put on a good show, waterworks and the whole gambit.”
Daniel stared at the papers in front of him. “You don’t think she cares about her daughter?”
“Not as much as she fears her new husband’s reactions to what she says,” Jaden confessed.
“That makes him suspect in my book,” Daniel said.
“He was here in the States at the time of her disappearance.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t hire out the job.” Daniel nodded toward the file. “What else’s in there? What about school?”
“Straight As. Expensive education. Prep-something-or-other. All on Dad’s dime,” Jaden continued. “But that came to a screeching halt. With child support payments, he and Mom decided to switch her to public this year.”
“At that age the kid most likely felt like losing her friends would be the end of the world,” Daniel surmised. He couldn’t help but wonder how much Ruthie’s life would’ve changed if Naomi had gone through with her threat of leaving him if he didn’t get his act together. He couldn’t blame his wife. He’d needed the shock in order to check back into life. Haiti was supposed to be his kick-start.
A knock sounded from behind, jarring him out of his revelry.
Daniel’s gaze bounced from the door to Jaden. His friend didn’t seem surprised by the interruption. Daniel half expected Jaden to wait for Lauren to check to see who it was. Instead, he shouted, “Come in.”
“This turning into a party?” Daniel scanned his friend’s face.
Jaden shot him a look.
The door opened and a blond with legs for days walked in. She wore a button-down blouse and skirt with a slit that revealed a peek at toned thighs. She was beautiful, and it felt like someone punched him in the gut when she entered the room.
“Thanks for coming on short notice,” Jaden said to the tall woman with just enough curves.
She acknowledged Jaden but her gaze quickly locked onto Daniel as she strode toward him. Her high heels clicked against the wood floors.
“I’m Clara Robins.” She extended her hand.
Daniel stared at it. Physical contact was a bad idea based on his body’s initial reaction to the blond beauty. Up close, she looked remarkably similar to the girl in the photo. It wasn’t hard to make the leap that this was her aunt.
He turned to Jaden, turning his back to her. “What the hell is this about?”
“Ashlyn, the girl in the photo, is her niece,” Jaden informed.
“Why is she here?” Daniel asked, feeling like he’d just mistakenly walked into an intervention only to realize it was his.
Clara took a seat beside Daniel. Interesting choice considering there were others to choose from that didn’t have her so close that he could inhale her perfume—a mix of flowers and sunshine on a spring day. He didn’t want to notice that about her, or the fact that she was beyond beautiful with a body made for sinning on Sundays.
“I want to be actively involved in finding my niece. We’re losing time and she’s already been missing two weeks. I asked to be informed of any developments in her case and I can’t thank you enough for signing on to help,” she said. Her singsong voice traveled over his body, eliciting a physical reaction that caused his danger flares to fire.
“Whoa. Hold on right there. I never agreed to anything,” he countered. “And I sure as hell won’t be railroaded into taking on a case.”
Clara’s river-blue eyes shot toward Jaden with a shocked look.
“You said he was onboard,” she stated with obvious disappointment.
“I said he was here. That’s not the same thing,” Jaden corrected.
Daniel pushed to his feet.
“This meeting is over.”
Chapter 6
“Hold on,” Clara said to Daniel. She put her hand on his muscled arm to stop him from walking out of the room. He paused and his muscles chorded after she made contact. He spun around to face her, his gaze zeroed in on her hand where her fingers gripped him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” His voice was a low rumble of a growl that sent ripples of inappropriate shivers across her skin. Her reaction to him was out of line.
“Please hear me out.” In one snap, he shook free of her grasp and stalked out the door.
Clara spun around to Jaden, who was standing.
“Do something,” she pleaded. “Stop him from leaving.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll see if I can contact someone else,” was all Jaden offered along with an apologetic shrug. “I told you we might be stabbing in the dark with him.”
“The minute I got Lauren’s text that he was here I had a feeling he was the right person for the job. He came,” she said, snatching the photo of her niece from the island. “That says he wants to help.”
“It’s complicated with Daniel,” Jaden said as she bolted out the door.
Clara didn’t care. She was desperate and he might be her only hope to find Ashlyn.
Daniel was already in the driver’s seat of the truck. The engine roared to life.
“Wait,” Clara shouted
. The windows were up and she doubted he could hear her. The ex-soldier didn’t so much as glance in her direction.
“Please,” she begged. Jaden had been clear that he couldn’t leave his pregnant wife in order to find her niece. Clara respected his decision but she was losing hope. Ashlyn had been missing for two weeks already. Everyone seemed content with the explanation that she was a runaway and would turn up. Clara knew better. There was no reason for Ashlyn to run away from her aunt. Besides, Clara’s birthday had come and gone two weeks ago and the two had a sweet ritual—a series of texts they sent every year without fail—that Ashlyn wouldn’t have missed on her own accord.
As her best hope for finding Ashlyn started backing out of his parking spot, Clara panicked. Instincts kicked in and she bolted around the back of the truck. She thumped her balled fist on the tailgate as it came dangerously close to knocking her in the chest.
Thankfully, brake lights flicked on.
Daniel’s dark angry eyes glared at her through the rearview mirror.
“Hear me out,” she shouted. She was losing all sense of dignity but she no longer cared. The American Embassy could only do so much for a girl they seemed to believe didn’t want to be found.
Ashlyn’s social media account had played against Clara’s hand. Documenting every emotion that came with being forced to leave her friends after her life had been turned upside down with a divorce gave the impression Ashlyn wasn’t coming home. The fact that her mother had remarried almost immediately after the divorce didn’t help, either. Ashlyn made her frustrations clear. There were too many posts venting about how awful her life had become and that she wasn’t coming back from vacation.
Even though Clara had convinced investigators to talk to her, they seemed to have little hope of finding Ashlyn until the girl was ready to turn up. The investigators started mentioning their caseload being too heavy but Clara sensed that they’d checked out of what they figured was a lost cause. Ashlyn’s disappearance on the last night of vacation had been one of many indicators to them that she would turn up when she was darn good and ready. Authorities had claimed to interview a resort worker who’d said that Ashlyn and her best friend, Makayla, had had a fight and the blond girl had said she wasn’t going home.
