by Jodie Bailey
The chief closed his notebook, shoved it into the pocket on his belt and leaned closer to the desk. “Jenna, we need to talk about something.”
Her chin rose, defenses rising at the gravity in his tone. Whatever he was about to say, it wasn’t good.
“The FBI and DHS suspected Logan Cutter and Grant Meyer of trafficking for quite some time, but they never had proof, not until someone at the El Paso location approached a local team with information. This witness had found a paper trail, evidence the federal government needed to build a case.”
The ensuing silence spoke loudly. Pride and grief rose in Jenna’s chest, nearly cutting off her words. “My sister turned them in.”
Wyatt’s fingers tightened on her shoulder as Arch nodded. “They’ve long believed her death was no accident, had a belief somehow either Cutter or Meyer figured out who the leak was and they retaliated.”
Jenna stiffened and turned her head away from the chief. Her sister. Murdered by a man she’d trusted. A man who had been murdered as well. “I don’t...” Her tongue was heavy and thick. Everything seemed to run together in a sick shade of lifeless gray. “My life is not a movie.”
“We know.” Wyatt’s voice cut through the goop in her brain, but barely.
It felt like a movie. A convoluted, twisted thriller with a plot spinning out of control. Her brain had detached, deciding to watch everything from the outside. How had she landed in a place where revenge killings, snipers and mistaken identity marked her? To the FBI and Homeland Security standing inside her shop, scrolling through her computer?
Chief Thompson sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “We need you to consider some sort of protection detail, some place to hide. FBI and DHS aren’t ready to move you into a safe house, but after what’s happened here this morning, I’d like to get you out of sight.”
Jenna shoved back her chair and turned on Wyatt, a pent-up tornado of emotions unleashed. “You said you’d protect me, and you’d keep me safe. You said I wouldn’t have to leave.”
He held both hands out between them. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Chief Thompson stood as well. He towered over her, although he likely didn’t mean to look as intimidating as he did. Without turning away from her, he addressed Wyatt. “Stephens, give us a minute.”
He stiffened, clearly wanting to argue, but with a curt “Yes, sir,” he stepped out of the room. The back door slammed a few seconds later.
There was no questioning why the chief had sent Wyatt out. Jenna stared at her shoes. “You know.”
“The Feds briefed me. They’ve known for a while who you really are. It didn’t take much to connect you to your twin sister.”
“Does Wyatt know?”
“I’m the only person in town who does, and I’ll keep it that way for as long as you want. The Feds are willing to as well.”
“Why?” She should feel relieved, but she didn’t. What she and Anthony had done to forge her new identity had to be illegal. How could they ignore it?
“I have no idea, and I’m not asking. It’s worked to keep you safe this far, so I suppose they intend to go with the status quo. I’ll be ordering Wyatt and the others to stop any investigation and to focus on protection alone. He’ll be in charge of moving you out of town.”
“But—”
“No arguments. We’ve had three incidents happen in downtown now, Jenna. Last night here and at your apartment, now today... I’m not comfortable with snipers firing off rounds in the middle of the busiest week of the year, when we’re packed with locals and tourists.”
Jenna sank into her chair, defeat dragging her low. He was right. As long as she was in the open, she was a danger to everyone in the town she loved. What she wanted no longer mattered.
Once again, the life she knew was obliterated.
* * *
“If you need anything, let me know.” Christa Naylor hovered in the doorway of her small studio, watching Jenna with a practiced eye. Dust danced in the harsh overhead fluorescent lights, which cast shadows on Christa’s weather-worn face yet somehow made her long gray braid glow with a silvery light. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
It was easy to tell the older woman had been a criminal psychologist before she retired to Mountain Springs, bringing her pottery wheel and a full store of empathy with her. She’d seen more than enough of the evil in the world while working with the State Bureau of Investigations, and she’d likely never dreamed she’d be called into action again, even briefly. While Jenna had never told Christa the truth about her past, she’d unburdened herself to her friend on more than one occasion, always sticking to feelings over facts. Jenna had sought refuge at Christa’s many times, borrowing quiet time at the pottery wheel in an attempt to recapture the essence of the real Genevieve Brady, who still lived inside her.
Now, this refuge might save her life.
Christa had planted her pottery wheel inside an old fallout shelter sliced into the mountain behind her house. The rough stone walls of the small room offered a hiding place few people knew existed, but one that Chief Thompson viewed as a natural place for Jenna to seek shelter.
If only he knew this shelter might also save her sanity. Familiar, warm... Maybe God was still looking out for her after all, placing her in the one place on earth that could protect her and even bring a sliver of peace to her weary soul.
“Jenna? I asked if you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.” Well, there was a whopper if she’d ever told one. Her hands still shook from the strike of the bullet against the antique brick in the alley. Her mind still whirled through the horrors of traffickers, betrayal, murder...
“It’s not every day someone gets put in the crosshairs, you know.”
“I know.” Jenna ran a finger along the lump of clay she’d placed in the center of the pottery wheel. Guilt gnawed at her stomach. Look what she’d brought to a tiny town that was still adjusting to a growing tourist trade. She’d brought more than petty crime. She’d brought men who cared nothing about collateral damage on their hunt for a woman who was, tragically, already dead.
“I’m fine,” Jenna repeated. “Being here might do more for me than anything in the world.”
“Anytime.” Resting a weathered hand against the door frame, Christa glanced over her shoulder. “You’re in good hands with Officer Stephens outside watching out, so I’ll head inside. This can’t be easy for you. I’ve talked to too many victims who thought they were okay when they weren’t. If you want to talk, my door’s always open.” With a two-fingered wave, Christa ducked out, pulling the door shut and sealing out the natural light.
Victims. The connotations of that word were too frightening to dwell on. Instead, Jenna exhaled and glanced around the stark room. It wasn’t the most creative space, but it was quiet and cool. There was only one way in, through the door Wyatt currently guarded.
She’d asked him to stay outside, to give her time to process. Even one of the events of the past twenty-four hours would have sent her into a freak-out. Added all together? She was scared to breathe for fear something would change before she could exhale.
Jenna adjusted the stool and inched closer to the wheel, eyeing the wedged clay she’d lumped into the center. There was no vision in her head, no idea of how to form the shapeless mass. All she knew was it would be a gift to have her fingers coated in water and clay, to pretend the world outside this hollowed-out crevice in the side of Casey Mountain didn’t exist.
She flipped the switch to set the wheel spinning slowly at first, dampened her fingers and let them run along the clay, shaping nothing, simply getting the feel of the material, letting her fingers sink in where they wanted, easing the pressure when it felt right. Jenna lost herself in the glory of creation, of the moment she got to feel a fraction of what God must have felt when He shaped Adam. Jenna was lost in prayers focus
ed on her Lord and thoughts focused on her work.
A tap at the door sunk her thumb in too deeply and she jerked, then flipped the switch beneath the wheel.
The door slipped open, revealing afternoon sunlight and Wyatt. “Is it okay to come in?”
Her heart drove harder at the shock of seeing him. He wasn’t supposed to come in until dinnertime. She glanced at her watch and her eyes widened. She’d been deep into her work for almost an hour.
All she had to show was a formless something, a deep gouge working a ring around the center. It didn’t really matter. The clay was an overworked mess, wet and soggy.
Wyatt shut the door behind him, eyeing her work. “Well, I’m no art critic, but what you’ve got there is definitely...different.”
“Yeah. Sometimes it’s more about the feeling than the art.” Jenna pressed her palms against the small of her back, suddenly aware she’d been hunched for too long. Her shoulders ached, a reminder that she didn’t do this every day anymore. Muscle memory might be a real thing, but so was fatigue.
Wyatt hefted a white paper bag. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry, so I called Erin to see what you liked. Officer Early was off this morning, but he brought this out with him when he returned from checking on Nina.”
“Is she okay?” Jenna didn’t know Brian Early well, but his sister often came in to the shop to paint.
“She was sick so he went to check on her.”
Jenna started to say more, but her stomach stopped her. She hadn’t considered food before and really didn’t want to now. The spicy scent of a burrito from Enrique’s would normally have her reaching for the bag, but it wasn’t working today. “Not hungry right now, but it was nice of you to bring me something, Stephens.” Her words held light bravado, but the truth was his actions humbled her. Clearly, she’d read him wrong from the beginning. He wasn’t a self-centered, arrogant, by-the-book cop.
He was the opposite... Well, except for the by-the-book thing. He’d been nothing but kind, selfless and giving ever since he’d rescued her. Jenna wanted to apologize for every sharp word said in the past, but he turned and set the bag on a table in the corner, severing the moment. “I can leave it here until you’re ready. I’ll be outside if you—”
“Can you stay?”
Wyatt turned slowly, looking as if he needed her to repeat the question.
Yeah, she’d surprised herself, too. “If you need to be outside where you can keep an eye out, I understand, but...” She waved a hand coated in rapidly drying clay. “I’ve been by myself for a while. I could use a friendly face.” Wow. She’d never imagined she’d consider Wyatt’s face a friendly one, but here they were.
Well, here he was.
He hesitated before he grabbed a metal chair. Settling it across the wheel from her, he straddled it and crossed his arms on the low back. He didn’t look at her but kept his eyes on the clay she’d been working. “Is this the first time you’ve done this?”
The first time? Jenna laughed. The release felt good. Honestly, she had no idea why the question was funny, but it tickled something inside her and gave her a moment in the purest sense of who she was. This afternoon had been good for her, had run a sense of self through her hands along her arms and into her soul. “No.”
“This is funny because...?” The question at the end of Wyatt’s sentence lifted right along with his right eyebrow.
It was adorable.
Jenna swallowed, then wet her hands and smashed the clay into a shapeless lump again. Maybe she’d leave it the way it was and fire it as a giant blob. It was already overworked and useless, but it sure was representative of her emotions. Someday, it could be a good reminder of...
Never mind. She didn’t want or need a reminder of any of this. Except maybe of Wyatt’s new friendship.
Her brain felt unsatisfied. If she walked away from the wheel without some release of her creativity, she’d be restless and anxious for the rest of the night. Jenna scraped the clay from the wheel and centered a fresh mound of clay, then turned the wheel on slowly at first, letting the noise and the rotation draw her in. She let her fingers work, easing the speed on the wheel as the image in her mind took shape. Still, it never really overtook her awareness of Wyatt’s question in the air, or his eyes on her hands.
Even with his scrutiny, Jenna felt not one iota of self-consciousness. Wyatt watching her work seemed to be the most natural thing in the world, like something they’d shared a million times.
He let his earlier question slide, and Jenna couldn’t calculate how long they sat in silence, her shaping, him watching, before he spoke again. “You’re making a coffee mug.”
“Yes.” Their first real, personal and friendly conversation was on her mind, the night he’d admired her work without knowing it was hers. Genuine admiration, not fake because he had no idea she’d made it. The candor made his comments precious. “I am.”
He leaned closer, avoiding the splashes of clay and mud thrown out by the wheel, and studied the piece as it spun between them. “It’s familiar.”
Easing the pressure so her fingers lightly rested on the clay, Jenna forced her breathing into rhythm. There was something about him watching, about breathing the same air. His presence crept under her skin and thrummed in her heart.
Wyatt cleared his throat and eased away, keeping his eyes on her hands.
The air was instantly easier to breathe. It was also much colder.
“Those mugs at your apartment... You made those?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Jenna didn’t trust her voice or her hands. She was overwrought and emotional. There was no other reason for her heart to stutter. She shifted and tilted her neck to one side, then returned to her work, narrowing the neck of the mug slightly before fanning out the lip.
“Why not tell me?”
“Because the person who made those mugs is who I used to be. Who I’ve had to hide all this time. I’ve not been able to let anyone know Jenna Clark is really an artist.” It felt good to tell the truth, to remember out loud some of the real self she’d left behind.
“You’re an artist? Like the folks around town? You made pottery and people bought it, even recommended their friends buy it?”
“Sounds funny to say it the way you did, but yes. I had a studio in El Paso, but I did business all over the state. Custom designs and such.” She frowned and watched the lip of the mug roll under her fingertips. Once she escaped, Logan’s generosity in building her a studio in his sunroom made too much sense. It had kept her close, inside, tied to him.
“Hmm.” Wyatt gripped the chair’s back and stretched his arms, his eyes finally finding hers. “So if I couldn’t sleep one night and I got bored and I did an internet search for you—”
“If you searched for Jenna Clark, you won’t find a thing.”
Her heart drummed, pounding a rhythm from her chest into her fingertips. The electricity in this conversation was about to make her hair stand on end. She was dancing in a place she hadn’t danced in years, around the thing she’d buried and assumed she’d never speak of again.
The truth.
“You specialized in word of mouth?” Wyatt’s eyes sparked with amusement. He was enjoying this, though Jenna had no idea why. It wasn’t like he really cared. “I get it. You were one of those mysterious artists who used a riddle to build their brand. You don’t find Jenna Clark. Jenna Clark finds you.”
Mouth dry, Jenna scratched her cheek on her shoulder. She kept her focus on her hands and the delicate finishing work she was doing, but her fingers shook so much she stopped and reached down to flip the power switch. If she kept going, she’d ruin the piece that spoke her heart, a coffee mug that had sparked in her imagination, one that would burn from fiery red at the bottom to cool in ocean blue at the lip.
Was she really going to do this?
One glance at Wyatt, one shot of his expressi
on, which was slowly shifting from amused to concerned, and she knew. Yes, she was. She owed him. After all he’d done for her, she owed him the truest part of herself.
“You won’t find anything under Jenna Clark.”
“Okay...”
“Jenna Clark is not my real name.” She sniffed, turned her gaze to the ceiling and traced the cobwebs there. It was too late to turn back now.
And she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
EIGHT
Wyatt watched Jenna as she scanned the ceiling. She was either sorry she’d said too much or was searching for answers in the rock above her head.
Either way, his mouth wrestled with his mind. She was about to tell him something with the potential to blow her case wide open and he wanted to urge her on, stop her silence before she changed her mind and retreated. His entire being strained toward her, but he forced himself to be still and wait for her to come around to the words for herself. If he pushed, she’d retreat behind the wall she’d built around her life, the one he had managed to crack at some point in the past twenty-four hours.
When the wall had cracked, it had also shattered nearly every preconception he’d held about Jenna. Yes, she was hiding something and his subconscious had rankled about it since the day he met her. But she wasn’t malicious. She was brave, tenacious and determined to survive.
There had been so much for her to have to survive, and she spoke of her life as though her past was normal.
She was stronger than anyone he’d ever met.
As his admiration for her grew, however, he couldn’t forget she was an assignment. His job was not only to keep her safe from whoever believed she was her sister, but also to find out everything she knew so the federal agents could continue with their investigation.
Guilt ran a thread through his conscience. He wasn’t being completely honest with her, but he couldn’t be, not if he wanted the truth. Not if he was keeping the bigger picture in mind, bringing traffickers to justice and stopping them from infiltrating his beloved hometown.
