by Lisa Harris
“We’ve been friends for a long time. Since junior high, actually. But there’s never been anything romantic between us. He’s more like a . . . brother.”
“I’m always playing matchmaker for my friends, but apparently I don’t know how to pick them for myself.”
“I’m sorry. I know this hurts. But you can’t let someone like Peter control you. Give yourself time, and when you’re ready, there are men out there who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. You’ll have to look, but they are out there. I promise.”
“I just feel so stupid. And my father . . . I know he’s angry with me.”
“He’s just worried about you. But we’re going to find Peter and make sure he can’t do this to anyone else. I promise.”
She nodded. “I didn’t tell him I spoke with you. I don’t know how he knew where I was, but I never told him.”
“He, or one of his men, had to have been following you.”
Or he’d overheard their conversation on the university campus earlier that day.
Aubrey felt her heart pound. It was the only thing that made sense.
She pressed her finger against her lips, motioning for Mei to be silent, then glanced around the room. The young woman’s purse had been set next to her on a small metal table.
Aubrey grabbed the purse and started pulling things out and laying them on the bed. “You know, let’s not talk about this anymore. I understand you’re studying marine biology.”
Mei nodded as she watched Aubrey work, but the spark of fear was back. “My parents have never been thrilled about my choice. They’d much rather I study to become a doctor, but the ocean has always fascinated me.”
Aubrey kept looking through the bag. She knew the agents had checked Mei’s phone and made sure she couldn’t be traced with it, which meant it had to be something else. “What do you want to do when you finish school?”
“Right now, I’m planning on going into research. This summer I’ve been accepted to be a part of an internship in Alaska, focusing on sea lion research.”
“I bet that will be fascinating.”
Aubrey paused. She felt something in the lining. She tore the seam and pulled out a small metal button, just barely bigger than a quarter. She quickly popped out the battery and laid it on the bed. Maybe the reason he’d let her go was that he knew he could always find her again.
“What is it?” Mei asked.
“A tracking device.”
“So he was tracking me.”
Aubrey paused before continuing. “I’m pretty sure this tracker was also monitoring your conversations.”
“So he heard everything I said to you.”
A chill ran up Aubrey’s spine. She nodded.
“Don’t tell my father.”
“Our priority right now is simply to keep you safe. And that means we will have to move you—”
“Because he knows where I am.”
Aubrey scooped up the tracker as Mei’s father came into the room with a Sprite and a cup.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” she said, nodding at Mei before slipping out of the room.
Aubrey held up the tracking device in front of Jack. “I’ve disabled it, but he’s been monitoring her. We can have an IT person confirm, but I’ve seen these before, and they can monitor conversations.”
Her mind raced through her conversation with Mei on the campus bench. “He heard everything, allowing us to play right into his hands. And it could have gotten her killed.”
Jack nodded. “There’s no way to know how long he’s been doing this, but he was monitoring to keep tabs on where she was and contact with her father, hoping to pick up information. There was also a larger tracker found on her car.”
“Do we have any idea where he is now?”
“He’s gone under for the moment, but I don’t think that’s the last we’ll hear from him. Like we talked about earlier, he sees this as a game. He won’t walk away until he gets what he wants.”
“So, what do we do?” she asked.
Jack frowned. “We find a way to give him what he wants.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AFTER TOSSING AND TURNING for an hour and a half, Jack finally headed downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to find something to eat without waking anyone up. A light was on in the family room that looked out over the pool. Maybe he wasn’t the only one with insomnia.
He stopped in the doorway, the lamp casting a yellow glow across the corner of the room. Bree sat in one of the comfy chairs, snuggled up with a blanket and an e-reader. But instead of reading, she was staring out at the blue lights dancing across the swimming pool.
He started across the room. “Hey.”
She looked up and smiled back at him. “Hey.”
He sat down on the ottoman next to her feet. “Can’t sleep?”
“No.”
“Looks to me like this running into each other after hours is becoming a habit.” He nodded at the half a piece of chocolate cake and empty milk glass on the end table next to her. “But of course, I also couldn’t get that cake out of my head either.”
She laughed. “Can I get you a slice?”
“I’ll get some in a minute.”
She set the e-reader on the arm of the chair. “I thought some cake and milk and maybe a chapter of the book I’m reading would finally make me sleepy, but three chapters in and I’m still wide awake.”
“What are you reading?”
“A suspense novel.”
He shook his head. “That’s the problem. You shouldn’t be reading something intense before bed.”
“Maybe I should have chosen something a bit more—I don’t know—low-key and dull.”
He reached out and felt the muscles on her shoulders and frowned. “You are tense.”
“I wonder why?”
“Touché.” He stood up. “Scoot down on the floor, and I’ll rub your shoulders.”
“Really?”
He pushed the ottoman aside. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
She scooted onto the floor in front of the chair, he took her place in the chair, and she settled down in front of him, her head down. “How many years have I known you?” she said.
“Fifteen . . . maybe sixteen? Why?”
“This is the first time you’ve ever offered to give me a massage. So now I’m thinking of all the back rubs I could have had.”
“Don’t be surprised. I might not have offered before, but I am a man of many talents.”
“Or a con man.” She looked back at him and frowned, but there was a sparkle in her eye.
“A con man?”
“Somehow you’ve got my chair, and I’m on the floor.”
“Very funny. Turn back around.” He moved her hair out of the way, then started working out the knots in her shoulders. “You’re going to regret you ever said that.”
She lowered her head. “Okay, I just might have to take that back. Your fingers are magic.”
“I’m also a good listener. Do you want to talk about anything? Today was a hard day.”
She hesitated before answering. “Sometimes I think there are too many days like this. Days when we take two steps forward and then three steps back.”
“I guess it’s part of the job. But Mei’s going to be okay. That has to count for something.”
She shook her head. “She wouldn’t have been in that situation if we hadn’t dragged her into it.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.” He started working slowly down her spine. “She was already involved with Cheng, and even if we hadn’t gotten involved, you know it wasn’t going to end well for her.”
“Maybe, but it’s still hard not to take at least some of the blame for what she went through.”
He let the comfortable silence settle between them as he continued to work out the knots in her back and shoulders. This was what he’d once imagined happening between the two of them but he’d let any chance of that slip away years ago.
“W
hy do you do what you do?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts.
“You mean my job?”
She nodded.
“Lots of reasons. It’s a chance to save lives. A hope to make the world a better place while I serve my country.” He paused. “Somehow that came out like an idealistic rookie was talking, but I’ve never completely shed my desire for a better world. What about you?”
“To see justice done in the world. At least my part. Though I was sharing my frustration with Papps on how we take one perp off the street and another one takes his place. He reminded me that my job isn’t to take them all down. All I have to do is the job I’m assigned to. I know he’s right, but that doesn’t always make it easier.”
“He is right. Because while we work for justice, I think it’s easy to forget that God never intended this world to be free from suffering or that justice would be served for every crime committed.” He moved slowly down her spine again, working out the knotted muscles. “Remember Job?”
“Of course.”
“He had a long conversation with his friends who pretty much said he must have sinned because of what happened to him. And yet God’s response was completely different. He showed Job what an amazing and intricate world we live in, but it wasn’t created—at this point anyway—to alleviate all suffering. Even though the Creator is good and what he created is good. Job saw God as unjust in his situation, but God reminded him that he wasn’t big enough to see the whole picture. Just like we aren’t.”
“It’s still hard not to get angry when people—like my father and Cheng—get away with what they’re doing. When people are hurt, I want to see justice in the end. I hate it when it’s not there.”
“Sometimes, all we can do is trust him.”
“I know you’re right. It’s just hard when it’s my own father involved in this. It makes me question why my mother suffered so much. Why Mei had to be caught up in this today. And basically, why life just seems so . . . unfair sometimes.”
“It is unfair. It’s not fair that what your father and Cheng are doing could in the end cost lives if they’re not stopped. It’s not fair when someone’s bad choices affect another’s life.”
Bree scooted around and looked up at him. “And when I doubt God for not stepping in?”
“I don’t have all the answers, but I don’t believe God gets frustrated at our trying to get to know him better. Even when it involves questioning what he allows to happen.”
“You’re right. Job did that. David did that in the Psalms.” She laid her arm on his knee and looked up at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re not the only one who needs the reminder.”
“I just wish I could let go of the anger I have toward my father right now.”
“You have to remember that you can’t change him, nor are you responsible for him. You can’t make his decisions. All you can really do at this point is pray that God will move in him. To show him what real redemption is.”
“And forgiveness?” she asked. “How do I do that?”
“I believe God can help you do that as well, even if it’s only for you. You’ve got to find a way to let go of it, because if you don’t, it will eat you up.” He pushed back a lock of hair from her eyes. “I’ve missed this. Us. Sometimes it seems like yesterday that the two of us were back here training for a marathon.”
“You could have called.”
But then you fell for my brother, and I did what I never should have—let that relationship put a wedge between us.
Her e-reader fell off the chair arm and onto the floor, and something fell out of the inside cover. She picked it up.
“What’s that?”
She held it up. “You’re probably going to think this is silly, but I always carry this with me.”
“A postcard?”
“From Italy.” She got up and nestled in beside him with his arm around her on the extra-wide lounge chair, then laid the worn card on her lap and ran her fingers across the handwriting. “I was nine years old. My father had gone on a business trip to Frankfurt. When it was over, he took a train south through Switzerland to Milan and then to Rome where he spent a week as a tourist.”
She turned it over to show him the photo of a gondola floating down one of Venice’s waterways. “I remember the day it came in the mail. My mom almost didn’t give it to me, but I was so excited, she finally did. I carried it around for weeks, waiting till he came back. I didn’t know much about Italy, so I checked out a book in the library, then spent my summer dreaming I was floating down the Grand Canal or standing in the middle of the Piazza San Marco eating gelato.”
“I don’t think it’s silly that you carry it around.”
“Somehow it seems . . . juvenile.”
“Why? Because as a child you wanted your father to be a part of your life? Because you loved him even though he didn’t deserve it? I don’t think it matters if you’re nine or ninety. It makes sense that you wanted to have him in your life.”
She tapped her fingers against the postcard. “When I was nine, it was the only connection I really had to him. A worn postcard of a beautiful place I could only dream of visiting one day. As the years passed, I just kept it. Wishing he’d take me and my mom on one of his trips. Wishing he’d finally come back home so we could be a family.”
“But he didn’t.”
She shook her head. “Eventually, I realized he wasn’t coming, and we’d never be a family again, but something made me hold on to it. There were times when I was so angry with him, I decided even if he did come back, I didn’t want him. But I still kept it. I guess it was a reminder of what could have been. That maybe my father would remember he loved me and come home. And now all these years later, I still have it.”
Jack felt the pain in her voice, knowing Charles Ramsey had never become the father she always wanted so badly. That she never went on any trips with him, or knew he was waiting up for her when she’d gone out. And the thought broke his heart.
“As much as he hurt my mom and me,” she said, “I’ll always be grateful that God put Papps in my life. He was the one who taught me what a real father should be like. Made me realize that not all fathers walk out of their children’s lives. Helped me understand what a loving father was. He helped me understand that I had a heavenly Father who loved me unconditionally.”
“I’m sorry. I know you lost a lot growing up.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Not really. And you didn’t need to hear all of that.”
“But I wanted to.”
He pulled her against him, letting her head rest against his shoulder. “You used to tell me everything. Or at least most things. I miss that. I’ve missed you.”
He wished he could bury his feelings for her again, but he knew he couldn’t. They’d somehow managed to resurface in the past couple days, something he wasn’t prepared for. He knew where she lived and had considered showing up more than once so they could catch up, but this . . . he’d never expected this.
But neither was this the time or the place to go there. The conversation about them—if it ever came—would have to be later.
“I’ve missed you too.” She pulled away and looked up at him. “You always knew exactly what to say, and never made me feel like I was crazy.”
“You did the same for me.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know.” He wanted to ignore her question because it reminded him of how he’d walked out of her life. He never meant to hurt her, but then neither did her father, probably. He always told himself he left because he wanted her to be happy, but the truth was his reasons were far more selfish. He didn’t want to see his brother marry the girl he was in love with. So he ran.
“I didn’t plan to stay away. But life has this crazy way of pulling you, and then you realize that a year’s passed, then two . . .”
“I guess life never turns out the way we think it will when we’re eighteen. But maybe that’s good
. I’m happy with my life and have so much to be thankful for. Even with all of this coming up with my father again.”
“You always were resilient,” he said. “And this situation . . . You’ll get through it.”
“All I know is that I’m glad you’re here with me.”
For a moment he was twenty again, sitting across from her in the cafeteria, wondering what life would look like if he told her how he felt. But life wasn’t like the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. It didn’t let you see what might have happened if you chose a different path. All you had was the consequences of your decisions.
She started to yawn and pressed her hand against her mouth.
He fought the sudden urge to kiss her. Wondered what she’d think if he did.
“You think you can sleep now?” he asked instead.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I don’t just mean the back massage. For being here through all of this.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek before grabbing her e-reader and standing up. “I can still get you some cake.”
“I think I’ll turn in as well.”
“Okay. Good night.”
He watched her walk across the room and head up the stairs, wondering what he was supposed to do with his heart now.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE SHRILL RING of her cell phone jolted Aubrey out of her dark dreams. She opened her eyes, then took the next few seconds to remember where she was.
And to remember that reality was just as dark as her dreams had been.
She fumbled for her phone on the bedside table. “Hello?”
“Miss Grayson?”
“Yes.” Aubrey worked to clear her mind. “Who is this?”
“It’s Wendy Masters, from River Oaks. I’m sorry to call you so early, but I’m getting ready to get off my shift in a few minutes and just found out that your grandmother had a visitor last night.”
Last night?
Aubrey glanced at the clock and frowned. It was ten minutes to seven. If her father had stopped by River Oaks last night, he’d be long gone by now.
She pulled her knees toward her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. “Was it my father?”
