Undercover Protection

by Maggie K. Black

  “What about the name of that imaginary land he told stories about,” Jay asked.

  “Cymbafalls?” she asked. She spelled it out slowly on the keypad, then futilely jiggled the handle. “Nope, doesn’t open. You want to try?”

  “Sure, but I doubt I’ll do any better,” he said. He took it from her and started entering all the dates and names he could think of related to Franklin Vamana and the Phantom Killer case, but nothing budged the lock.

  She turned the small book of pictures over in her hand.

  “I haven’t seen an actual photo album like this in years,” she said. “My dad had a really big one with all our family photos in it. You know the kind where you stab your fingers on the little clear sleeves when you slide the picture in and then they get stuck in there and meld to the plastic?”

  She flipped through the pages and, as he watched, her smile faded.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Baby pictures,” she said. Her frowned deepened. “My baby pictures to be exact.”

  She tilted the page so he could see it. There sat a tiny infant, wrapped in a blanket, no more than a few days old in her mother’s arms. Walter stood in the background, leaning over her shoulder, grinning ear to ear.

  “It’s odd to see them looking so young,” Jay said. “They’re younger than we are.”

  “No, what’s odd is the Easter basket with my name on it on the table,” she said, and pointed. “And the fact there’s a copy of this exact same picture on the family album with the basket cropped out.”

  “What am I missing?” Jay said. “So they made you a basket for Easter when you were tiny.”

  She pressed her lips together and didn’t answer. But he could tell from the worry in her eyes that whatever it meant it wasn’t good. She kept flipping through pictures. There was baby Leia in Annie’s arms standing outside the family farmhouse while purple crocuses poked through the snow. In another, she was in Walter’s arms and he was holding a bouquet of daffodils in his gloved hand.

  “When were these taken?” she asked. Something urgent rose in her voice. “Tell me. What month is this?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I have no idea.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “You grew up in Ontario. When was this?”

  “April, I’m guessing,” he said. The whole thing felt like a trick answer with very high stakes. “Maybe the Easter picture was taken sometime around the end of March, depending when the holiday was that year. Snow like that could be April. It’s very rare we have any snow as late as May. And I’d say those flowers definitely bloom sometime around then. I think the purple ones bloom first and daffodils are around Easter. Why?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, her shoulders dropped and her hands fell to her sides. He tried to gently pry the photo album from her fingers, but her grip had almost frozen around it. Her chin began to shake and he watched as tears filled her eyes.

  “Leia,” he said softly.

  She shook her head.

  “If I start to cry...” she said. Her voice quavered. “Please don’t hug me. I don’t want to be held right now.”

  “Got ya,” he said. “But if you need a hug, or if there’s anything else I can do, let me know. I’m here.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  As she turned and he saw her face, he realized with a jolt that anger filled her face, mingling with the grief.

  “My birthday is in June,” she said slowly, as if making her way across a bridge that might collapse at any moment. “Late June. But I was born at home in this very farmhouse. My dad delivered me. He said it was because I came quickly and there was no time to get Mom to the hospital, and maybe that’s true. But I know that meant they traveled into Kilpatrick one day in December to register my birth with the province and get my birth certificate. When it’s a home birth, you’re allowed to wait awhile.”

  Tears swamped her eyes. She blew out a long breath, as if trying to calm and settle her voice.

  “But I wasn’t born in June, was I?” she asked, her voice cracking. “My parents lied about my birthday. I was really born in late March or early April probably. Not ten months after my parents got married but seven or eight.” She shook her head, and tears rolled from her eyes. “Because my dad’s not really my dad, is he? Because my mom was already pregnant with me when she ran away in the middle of the night, when my dad... I mean, when Walter came to save her. Because my real father is Franklin Vamana.”

  NINE

  “You can’t know that,” Jay said, the words flying from his mouth as the full implication of what she was saying hit him. “It’s possible you were born early, your parents met up secretly that summer or the pictures are misleading.”

  “I know,” Leia said. Her voice rose. “But think, Jay. What makes the most sense? What fits all the evidence? I don’t look anything like my sisters. They’re all blonde, and I’ve got this really dark hair. I’ve always known I didn’t look like I belonged, and you said yourself Franklin’s mother had purple eyes. My father was paranoid of someone coming to kidnap us. Doesn’t that make sense if he knew I was actually another man’s child? They changed my birthday. They only went after Franklin anonymously, and my father took these secrets to the grave. He loved me and never wanted me finding out that my biological father was a serial killer.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “He was faithful to the man he was to the very end and did it to protect me.”

  Jay swallowed hard. “For all you know, he promised your mother never to let anyone find out.”

  She slid the photo album inside her pocket and ran both her hands through her hair.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Probably. I can believe that. But that still means my biological father is a criminal, and the man who raised me like a dad lied to me my whole life.”

  Not to mention, she’d almost gotten involved with me. A man incapable of giving her the love and life she’d deserved.

  A deep ache filled Jay’s chest. Everything inside him wanted to gather her up into his chest, hold her to him, kiss away the tears from her eyes and take away the pain. Even though he knew he couldn’t.

  “Look, it’s your secret,” he said. “I can’t speak for whatever might be hiding in that box we still can’t open. But the pictures of you as a baby are nobody’s business but yours, and you don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. As for your hypothesis about your birth father, you can’t even prove it without getting Franklin Vamana to agree to a DNA test. And if he refused, that could be an expensive legal battle you couldn’t even afford. What we talked about here doesn’t have to leave this room. Nobody has to know.”

  “But we’ll know,” Leia said. “I’ll always know that I’m not the person I grew up thinking I was. And you’ll always know that I might be the biological daughter of the man who you’ve been chasing. The man who might’ve murdered your father.”

  Something tightened in Jay’s chest like a cold fist gripping his heart. He crossed his arms.

  “I will never hold that against you or think anything different about you because of that,” he said.

  “You sure?” Leia asked. “Because you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. You told me you’re good at shutting down emotions you don’t want to feel. Do you really want to add this to the list of things you won’t feel?”

  Yes, he did, and he would. He had to. Something this terrible was just too much to bear. To his surprise, she stepped toward him until her body bumped lightly against his crossed arms.

  “Would it be okay if I got that hug from you now?” she asked. “Thanks for respecting the fact I really needed to process this a bit first, but now I think I could really use one.”

  “Of course,” he said. And yet his arms felt stiff as they unfolded, as if reluctant to move. As she stepped into his chest and wrapped her arms around him, his own hands didn’t seem to fit comfortably agai
nst her back anymore, as if they were two broken pieces of pottery with the edges so chipped that they no longer quite matched up and fit together. “I’m not saying it won’t be hard for me to forget but I’ll work at it.”

  “I don’t want you to,” she said, and pulled back. “If you go through life denying your feelings where does it stop? I don’t like knowing this about me. It feels disgusting, and I can’t imagine anyone ever choosing to love the daughter of the Phantom Killer. You deserve so much better than that. But an ugly truth is still true.”

  “Hey,” Jay said. He reached for her face and tilted it up until her eyes met his. “Listen to me. This doesn’t have to define you. You are brilliant and beautiful. You’re kind, caring and one of the bravest people I know. Anyone would be unbelievably blessed to have you as their friend, let alone anything more than that.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’re amazing, too. But we can’t keep holding each other like this, and once we get out of here I can’t be all alone with you this way ever again. You know that, right? You’ve been honest about the fact you don’t want a romantic relationship with me. I am a threat to your career and your future. And I need to figure out who I even am and I can’t do that with someone who’s not committed to being there for me.”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. He rolled his jaw slowly, trying to quell the bitter taste in his mouth. “You’re right. I don’t like it and I’m going to miss you, but you’re right.”

  “Turns out we’re a really good team when it comes to dealing with a crisis like this,” she said. “But I don’t want to live in a moment like this forever. I still want to throw myself into my job, my schooling and being a family with my sisters and baby niece. I want to create a happy and meaningful life and live it to the fullest.”

  And find a man capable of loving her and being there for her, the way he never would.

  Sudden screams rose from the window beneath them and he watched as all the color drained from Leia’s face. The sound of a small baby crying out in fear mingled with the sound of a woman bravely telling the criminals who were now shouting and swearing at her that they were not to lay a hand on her child.

  “Sally and Mabel are back early!” she said. He reached out his hand to steady her as he watched her legs begin to crumple beneath her. “And Vamana’s goons have them!”

  * * *

  A wave of dread washed over Leia’s heart with so much strength and power that for a moment Jay’s supportive hold on her arms was the only thing that kept her from crumpling to the floor. She’d failed at every turn. She hadn’t managed to escape, to get an email message out to the outside world or warn her sister not to come home early with her precious baby girl. Leia closed her eyes and tried to pray. But fear beat around her on all sides, filling her heart and mind with the worst possible questions, thoughts and images of what could happen next. She was drowning in the terror of what was and what could be. Then she heard the soft voice of Jay praying and asking God to help them; it broke in at the side of her mind, like a lighthouse beam calling her home.

  She opened her eyes.

  “Hey,” Jay said firmly. He pulled her away from the window. “As I’m sure your father taught you, the first few minutes after any kidnapping is the most crucial for survival and escape. We’ve got to act quickly. So, I need you to focus for me and tell me how we’re going to rescue your sister.”

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes,” he said, and somehow his tone softened slightly without losing any of the grit. “You have a whole lot of knowledge about both your sister and this house in your mind. You’re probably the utmost expert on it. So, let’s figure this out together and then take action.”

  “I can’t,” she said. A sob slipped her lips. Her head shook. “Maybe at another time or another day. But right now I’m exhausted. Both my body and emotions feel like they’ve been put through the ringer.”

  “Yes, you can,” Jay said. “Please, Leia, I need you.”

  But I don’t even know where to start.

  He closed his eyes and she watched as silent prayers moved on his lips.

  “Tell me, what’s the first thing Sally does after being kidnapped,” he said. “Does she fight? Try to escape?”

  “No,” she said automatically. “Not in the way anyone would think. Sally is smart in a very logical and almost mechanical way. She’s impossible to play board games with because she’s always thinking eight steps ahead. She’d try to find a way to maneuver herself out of the situation. I mean that literally. She’ll keep them talking to make them think she’s cooperative. She’ll try to manipulate them into putting her somewhere that she can easily escape from and keep them from locking her up too tight. Right now, she’ll be focused on keeping Mabel safe.”

  “So, let’s say she’s succeeding,” Jay said. “Where are they keeping her?”

  “Main floor,” she said. “Maybe living room. Somewhere with a lot of exits.”

  “Okay,” he said, and she watched as the slightest glimmer of a determined smile crossed his lips. He eased his hands off her arms and she realized her legs felt strong enough to stand. “Any other strengths?”

  “She’s a brilliant mechanic,” Leia said. “She met her estranged husband at the garage where she was working and ended up joining the pit crew for this car race he was into. She’d have figured out what was wrong with your truck much faster than you.”

  “Anything else?”

  Lord, my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

  “She can navigate this place in the dark even better than I can,” she said.

  “So, we cut the power,” Jay said. “I’m guessing there’s a fuse box and breakers in the basement.”

  “Yes, but we don’t need them,” she said. “This house is so old it still has an aboveground power line attached to the side of the house at the roof. It’s really weak, too. A tree branch falling on it, a windstorm and heavy snow or ice will bring it down no problem. We have at least one power outage every year thanks to downed power lines. All we need is for one of us to climb across the roof to where the power line attaches to the house and take it down.”

  “And considering that will then plunge the house into darkness,” Jay said, “I should be the one who takes the power line down once you’re in position.”

  He looked slightly queasy at the thought.

  “Just tie the valance curtain to a ceiling beam or around a loose floorboard and slide along the roof on your bottom like you’re sledding down an icy hill without a toboggan,” she said. “The drainage pipe should stop you from careening over the edge, but if not you’ll have the curtain for backup. Then it’s just a matter of downing the power.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” he said.

  “Do you want to switch?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Your sister needs you and you know the house better than me.”

  “Now, once the power is out,” she said, “we’ll still need to create a diversion.”

  “Oh, I think that’ll be pretty much covered,” Jay said. “If I succeed in tearing down the electrical line it’ll be sizzling, sparking and giving off a very pretty fireworks show. In a storm like this it’ll be even more noticeable.”

  “Not to mention that it could kill you,” Leia said, “even if it’s not giving off a pretty light show.”

  “I’ll be safe,” he said. “I promise. You stay safe, too.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “You’d better.”

  His voice deepened and an emotion swam in his dark eyes that she couldn’t risk letting herself put into words. He cared about her, and she cared about him despite every single thing that had happened since he’d come into her life. She was endlessly thankful that he’d been around. But caring wasn’t the same as being in love. And it wasn’t enough to build a future on
.

  “Do you want to take my gun?” he asked.

  “No, you’re still a better shot than I am,” she said, “despite a few good rounds I got off at the range. Plus, I’ll be completely in the dark and with a baby.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “At least take my knife and my truck keys. There’s also a tiny flashlight on the chain. If Sally can get it running and I’ve completely disappeared, then I expect you to run without me, and get her and the baby to safety.”

  “Will do,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He handed her the knife still attached to the key chain. She took it and their fingers lingered against each other for a long time, neither of them seeming to be ready to pull away.

  “Stay safe, okay?” she said. “Your story is not allowed to have a tragic ending. You’re going to stop the bad guys, unmask the serial killer and save the day.”

  Maybe one day he’d even open up his heart and get the girl, although it wouldn’t be her.

  “Got it,” he said.

  She tucked his key chain inside her jacket along with the locked mystery box and photo album. Leia leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss over Jay’s cheek. Then she turned around, climbed out the window and slid back down the roof.

  TEN

  Jay’s heart sat well and truly lodged in his throat as he watched the ease with which Leia slid down the slippery roof tiles and landed on the dormer window ledge over her parents’ bedroom window just as smoothly as a child on a plastic slide in the playground. She gave a little wave and then slipped around the side of the ledge, back through the window and was gone.

  Had she forgotten there was a hatch in the floorboards that opened onto a perfectly good but narrow ladder leading down to the second floor? Or had she assumed that sliding down the roof would be safer, faster or both?

  Either way, it was now his turn. He crouched down low, eased the attic hatch open an inch and looked down. Ross stood directly below him. If he dropped through, he’d land right on top of him. He eased the hatch shut again. Looked like he really was going out the window again, which would be the most direct route, after all, considering the power line was attached to the outside of the house.