Operation Reunion

It nearly ripped his heart out every time he looked at it. He’d done the right thing. Finally. He’d meant what he’d said—he couldn’t go on like this. Ten years was enough.

Too bad knowing that didn’t stop the urge to give in, to go to her and patch things up. Again.

But he’d meant it this time. He’d spent too long living with her obsession. She’d idolized her big brother, believed completely in his innocence and had never given up trying to find him. She’d traveled thousands of miles, going every time one of those damn notes arrived, chasing postmarks. And every time it came to nothing. She’d spent time, money and much of her energy on the quest, and there was no end in sight.

He glanced at the heavy dive watch Kayla had given him for his twenty-fifth birthday. She’d be at the post office even now; she went every Friday to pick up the mail for her counseling group, but in truth she was both hoping for and dreading the arrival of another communication from her brother. Dane himself was long past hoping; he was firmly in the dread category.

He needed to quit wearing the watch, he thought. Even though he liked the solid weight of it on his wrist, that Kayla had chosen it and given it to him—and the passionate night that had followed—was not something he wanted to be reminded of at every move.

“I had to do it,” he muttered under his breath, as if actually saying the words would be more convincing to a heart and mind that felt as if something vital had been torn away.

At this point, Chad Tucker’s guilt or innocence didn’t matter much to him. What mattered was that Kayla couldn’t seem to move on. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand—he did. He’d been there that night, in the bloody, awful aftermath. He’d been the one to hear her scream, the one to run to her, to pull her out of the room that held the nightmare. To this day he couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for the teenage girl to walk into that hell.

That it was a girl he cared about made even thinking about it difficult. And he had cared about Kayla since the first day he’d seen her, a slight, fragile-looking fourteen, sitting on a limb high up in the old tree between their houses. She had been staring downward, turning her head this way and that, and he’d realized after a moment what was going on.

“Stuck?” he’d called to her.

“Not yet,” she’d answered, making him laugh.

She’d been in his life one way or another ever since that day. Until now. Until he’d had to leave her, had to walk away. Even though it was like leaving a part of himself behind. But he knew—

“Dane?”

He spun around, a little embarrassed that he hadn’t realized his roommate and business partner Sergei was standing there. He needed to get his head back in the game.

“I need to go if I’m going to make it on time. Don’t want to speed out of here because our downstairs neighbor the cop is out washing his car. Is what you sent last night the final cut?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be on my way then,” his partner said.

But he stopped in the doorway and looked back. He and Sergei Kesic had built their small, digital video promotion company from nothing to a going concern, thanks to Dane’s knack for tailoring the product to individual customer needs and Sergei’s no-nonsense, bottom-line sales approach that appealed to companies in a belt-tightening era.

“You sent it at 3:00 a.m.,” Sergei said.

“Did I?”

“You’re keeping some pretty long hours, buddy.”

“Don’t be late,” Dane said. The last thing he wanted was to get dragged into discussing the reasons behind his late nights and lack of sleep. Sergei hadn’t asked why he’d suddenly taken to sleeping here instead of at Kayla’s, and he didn’t want that conversation to start now.

He had to put it out of his mind, he told himself as Sergei shrugged and left. There were decisions to make, plans to go over.

A sour laugh escaped him. Plans. Yes, indeed, plans. He’d had a lot of those.

He yanked the watch off his wrist, opened a desk drawer, shoved it in the back and slammed the drawer shut. One more step, he thought. And he should do it now, when he knew where she’d be, at the post office checking for another one of those damned notes. He would go over to Kayla’s and pick up the last of his stuff.

And leave his key.

He winced at the thought but shored up his determination and grabbed his key ring from the desk. He pried the ring open and worked the gold key off, fighting memories of the night she’d given it to him.

He shoved the key in the watch pocket of his jeans.

With a final glance at the photograph, he headed for the door. That picture was going, he told himself firmly. As soon as he got back.

This was crazy.

Kayla stared at the business card in her hand. It looked official enough, but anybody could churn out a good-looking business card. And there was no indication on the card of exactly what the “Foxworth Foundation” did.

They had walked across the street to the small city park and were seated on the stone wall that surrounded the kid’s play area, deserted now at this morning hour. The dog that had started all this was sprawled in the grass, basking in the morning sun and looking decidedly smug.

“Does he do this often?” she asked.

“Cutter?” Hayley said.

“Yes. Does he drag total strangers with a problem to you?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Kayla blinked. Hayley smiled.

“He has a knack,” she said. “I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to know when people are troubled.”

“And he brings them to you?”

“It’s not usually as…neatly as today,” Quinn said with a wry smile. “But yes, he does.”

Kayla glanced at the dog, who seemed blithely unconcerned about the entire situation. As if his job was done, she thought, even as she realized she was going a bit overboard with the anthropomorphism.

“And he makes it pretty obvious,” Hayley said, “that he expects us to fix whatever’s wrong.”

Whatever’s wrong, Kayla thought. And lost causes are their specialty?

I love you, but I won’t—I can’t—stay and watch you throw the rest of your life away on a lost cause.

Dane’s final words as he had walked out her door echoed in her mind, drowning out every other thought. He’d been upset with her before but always seemed to find a reserve of patience she marveled at even as she used it up. But this time had been different. She’d heard the finality in his voice, seen the sadness in his eyes. The man she’d loved since she was fourteen had finally had enough. His departure had left her bereft and a little stunned at how completely off balance her already damaged world now felt.

“Whatever it is,” Hayley said softly, “let us help. It’s what we do.”

Kayla looked up. “Lost causes?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?” She glanced at Quinn, gestured with the card, remembering his introduction. “You’re the Foxworth.”

“One of them,” he said.

“What’s this foundation do?”

“What should be done but isn’t,” Quinn said, with a warm glance at Hayley that made Kayla miss Dane all the more.

“They—” Hayley caught herself, smiled and went on, showing Kayla she wasn’t used to saying it yet, “we work for people in the right who don’t have anyone else to help them.”

Curious now, she looked at them both. “Who decides who’s in the right?”

Quinn grinned suddenly. Kayla could have sworn she heard Hayley’s breath catch; she didn’t blame her, it was a killer grin. Nothing on Dane’s, of course, but still….

“That’s the joy of being privately funded. We decide. We have a crack research team to help in that.”

“Research team?”

“You’d be amazed,” he said, his voice taking on a wry note, “how many people sound like they’re in the right until you look into the other side.”

Kayla sighed. “Then you won’t want to help me,” she said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the other side is the police, and when you look into it you’ll probably find some notes saying I’m delusional, disturbed or maybe just crazy.”

“Are you?” Hayley asked, sounding merely curious and not at all bothered by the mention of the police.

“No!” Kayla stopped, sighed. “I’m…determined. Dane thinks I’m obsessed. But he and Chad never got along anyway.”

She realized she was starting to sound a little mental, talking to total strangers about people they didn’t know. She should get out of here. Whoever these people were, they couldn’t really do what they said they did. People didn’t just help strangers like that. Did they?

And even if they did, what she’d said was true. If they looked into this they’d find all the evidence the police had pointing to Chad and probably some mentions of his sister. Not nasty ones, she didn’t think; they had been kind, if unbelieving. They’d probably just gently suggested, in some police jargon, that the suspect’s little sister was a bit nuts, driven to the edge of insanity by what had happened.

She needed to get out of here. Getting one of these notes always revved her up, and she needed to calm down, to think. How she was going to do that when she no longer had the option to go to the one person who had always helped her with that, she wasn’t sure.

Oddly, the moment she decided to get up and leave the dog awoke from his snooze and scrambled to his feet. Before she could rise he was there, as if he’d somehow read her mind and was once more preventing her from leaving. The animal leaned into her, resting his chin on her leg as he stared up at her. And suddenly it was impossible to move.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Quinn suggested.

“And pet Cutter,” Hayley added. “It’s remarkably soothing.”

Kayla nearly smiled at that; people got so silly about their animals. But maybe if she did pet the dog, he’d be satisfied and get out of her way. She lifted a hand and ran it over the dog’s head, then, remembering what Quinn and Hayley had done, added a scratch below his right ear. The dark eyes never wavered, but he let out a sound that was amazingly like a happy sigh.

It was soothing, she thought, startled. She felt calmer, steadier. And when Quinn again suggested she start at the beginning, to her surprise, she did.

“Chad is my big brother. We moved here when I was fourteen. He was sixteen. Two years later, ten years ago, our parents were murdered in a home invasion robbery. The police suspected Chad. He ran. I haven’t seen him since.”

“Well,” Quinn said to Hayley without any of the horrified reaction Kayla was used to whenever she told the tale, “that could give Rafe a run for his money for succinctness.”

“I’m sure she’s had to tell it a few times,” Hayley said.

Although there was a world of sympathy in her voice, the auburn-haired woman didn’t gush. Nor did she recoil from the blunt, grim story. Kayla was a little amazed at how comforting that was. Like petting this darn dog, a motion she only now realized she’d continued the entire time she’d been speaking. And it really did soothe her at a time when she needed it.

“That,” Quinn said, gesturing at the note that began it all, “is from him?”

She nodded. “I get one every few months. He never says where he is, or has been, just that he’s sorry he had to leave, he didn’t do it and he loves me.”

“Where do they come from?” he asked.

“Oregon. Northern California. Idaho. Montana once.”

“So he stays in the northwest, generally.”

She nodded.

“And what do you do when you get one?” Hayley asked.

Kayla shrugged. “The only thing I can do. I go there, wherever he sent it from.”

“Have you ever found anything?”

She sighed. “Nothing useful. I don’t have a current photo, obviously. I tried an agency that aged up an old one for me, but it didn’t help. A few times in the beginning someone thought they remembered seeing him, but most times it’s like he was never there.”

“He’s gotten better at it,” Quinn said, sounding thoughtful.

They both seemed so open, so willing to listen, unlike the police, or even Dane, who had grown so weary of it all.

“I set up a page on a couple of social media sites,” she said, “but it’s the same problem. And I got more junk than genuinely helpful stuff. Even got some real creeps, pretending to want to help.”

She shivered at the memory; if Dane hadn’t insisted on going with her every time who knows what would have happened. Twice, guys who looked nothing like their own profile photos, had shown up obviously with something other than help in mind. They’d taken one look at Dane and departed hastily.

“It’s definitely a cold case after all this time,” Quinn said.

“That’s what the police say, too. So why would you help me?”

“I know something about worrying about a brother,” Hayley said. “I have one I haven’t heard from in months. Walker’s not on the run, or in trouble that I know of, but I don’t know where he is or how he is.”

So the empathy in the woman’s voice had been real, Kayla thought. It helped her decide.

“I believe Chad. He didn’t do it. I don’t care what the police think they know—I know he didn’t. He couldn’t.”

“If it’s true, then we’ll prove that,” Hayley said. “You’re not alone any longer, Kayla. You have—”

She broke off as Cutter’s head came up suddenly. His eyes had been closed as Kayla petted him—in fact, he’d seemed to be snoozing as she stroked her fingers over his soft fur—but something had clearly brought him to alert. She’d heard nothing, but her ears weren’t as keen as a dog’s. As Kayla glanced around, she saw nothing different than it had been moments ago. There had been a few people coming and going while they’d been here, and the dog hadn’t reacted at all.

She would have written it off to unfamiliar dog behavior if not for two things; Hayley never finished her sentence, and Quinn immediately stood up. And suddenly he was no longer the friendly man with the nice smile, but someone altogether different, alert, ready and capable. He glanced around much as she had, but then he looked at the dog, watching, waiting, as if for some signal.

Cutter’s head moved sharply in what looked, impossibly, like a nod.

“What have you got, boy?” Quinn’s voice was low, and Kayla heard something in it that hadn’t been there before, some edge that made her think Quinn could be a very dangerous man. The dog made an answering sound she couldn’t quite describe. Hayley stayed silent, her gaze flicking from man to dog and back, waiting.

The only thing Kayla was sure of was that this, or something like it, had happened often enough that none of the three found it unusual.

She shifted to look around again, wondering what had set the dog off. He seemed to have settled on a direction now, looking out toward the street. And then, unexpectedly, his tail began to wag just slightly. She looked that way and saw nothing amiss—an older couple walking arm in arm, a kid on a skateboard, a man crossing the street from the post office parking lot, a car—

Her gaze shot back to the man. A man heading quickly toward them. The way he moved, with that easy grace and long stride, the way he held his head, the gleam of the morning sun on dark hair….

Dane.

Her pulse kicked up, as it always did at the sight of him. But how had the dog known, of all the people around this morning, that this was the one? And what was he doing here anyway?

Hope leaped in her, but she quashed it; Dane hadn’t been angry when they’d parted, or she would have nurtured that hope that he would, as he always had before, get over it. He’d been quietly weary in a way that told her as nothing else could that he was done.

“It’s not that I don’t admire your loyalty,” he’d said. “I do. I just could have used a little more of it myself.”

She shivered at the memory of the words and of her own freezing reaction when she’d realized, for the first time, he’d used the past tense.

“You know him?” Quinn’s voice broke through the awful memory, and that edge in it shook her back to the present.

“Yes,” she whispered. She couldn’t think of another thing to say that would explain who this man was to her. There were no words that were adequate. But as she looked at Quinn, then Hayley, she realized she didn’t have to.

They knew.

Chapter 3

“Who he hell are you?”

Dane stared at the man standing between him and Kayla. The guy looked tough, solid and ready for anything. Just about matched his own mood, Dane thought. Which made no sense; who Kayla hung out with wasn’t his business anymore. Not that that had stopped him from bolting over here when he’d spotted her with two strangers.

“He’s my fiancé.” Dane’s gaze snapped to the woman who had been sitting beside Kayla. It was further evidence of his mood that he hadn’t really focused on her before; she was lovely, and if her words hadn’t completely disarmed him, her smile might have. “I’m Hayley Cole, and this is Quinn Foxworth. Behave, both of you.”

Dane wasn’t sure if she meant him and Quinn or Quinn and the dog. The dog who was looking at him in the oddest way. Not in the love-filled, melt-your-heart kind of way Lilah always had, but with an intensity that spoke of a clever brain behind those amber-flecked dark eyes.

“And you, I gather, are Dane.”

The man’s voice was steady, with no particular inflection, but Dane couldn’t help thinking this was a man who would react quickly and effectively if necessary.

It hit him somewhat belatedly that this stranger had known who he was. And the only way that could be was that Kayla had told him.

His gaze shifted quickly to the woman who had been part of his life for so long. Had she really told these strangers about him? Maybe even how he’d walked out on her, telling her wrenching story, making anybody who hadn’t lived it with her over the past ten years wonder what kind of heartless bastard left a woman whose life had been torn apart like that?

A sense of betrayal filled him, and he took a step back. But it turned out to be only a half-step; somehow the dog had gotten in his way and he had to stop.

“I thought you were through with me,” Kayla said. Her voice was quiet, unemotional. And that sparked a new feeling in him, one that was almost anger. She didn’t even think they were worth fighting for?

That he didn’t want to fight with her, that he never had, was something he cast aside just now. He focused on the fact that she sounded so calm. As if she’d processed that it really was over. And instead of crying over it, or getting angry at him, she was…accepting?

“So that’s it?” he said sharply, ignoring the three unknown onlookers. “You just quit on us?”

“You’re the one who left.” She gestured with the note. “And he’s still out there, Dane.”

“Yeah. And I’m here. I’ve done nothing but support you and love you and help you for ten years, while that spoiled, manipulative brother of yours plays with you, taunts you, but is too big of a coward to come back and deal with the mess he left you with.”

“Dane! He’s not—”

He held up his hands; he really had had enough.

“He always skated by on his looks. He used you, took for granted that you’d always worship your big brother.” Dane grimaced. “And I guess he was right about that.”

His anger faded as once more the reality hit him in the face. This time she was silent when he took a breath. And he realized he had no right to stay upset at her for talking about them—and him—to strangers when he’d just dumped a pile of dirty laundry in front of them. To their credit, they’d said nothing, but they hadn’t left them alone either.

“I tried, Kayla. I really tried.” He heard his own voice, realized he sounded as tired as he felt after that last burst of pained rage and resentment. “But I can’t play second fiddle to your fixation any longer. I won’t. The woman I…loved is buried beneath this obsession and I can’t find her anymore. You’re on your own.”

“That’s just it,” Kayla said, showing a spark of spirit now. “I’m not on my own anymore.”

She waved toward the couple standing a couple of feet away in a gesture that seemed to include the dog.

“They’re going to help find Chad.”

Suspicion bit as hard and deep as that dog probably could if motivated. Ignoring the jab of pain at the reminder that, although she’d given up on them, she obviously wasn’t about to give up on her obsession, Dane spun on his heel to stare at the trio. On the surface they looked harmless enough—handsome guy, beautiful woman, nice-looking dog. Quite the picture they presented.

He didn’t believe it for a minute. And he hadn’t forgotten his first impression of the man as someone not to take lightly.

“Are they?” he said, focusing on the man introduced as Quinn. “And just how much do they want you to pay for this ‘help’?”

One corner of Quinn’s mouth quirked, and Dane saw something flicker in the man’s eyes, something that looked strangely like approval.

“Nothing,” Kayla said.

Dane turned his head to look at her. “Haven’t you learned? Didn’t that phony P.I. and that guy who took you for five grand in California teach you anything?”

Kayla flushed. He hated doing it, but somebody had to protect her from herself, and right now he was the only one around.

The dog moved and, oddly, came to sit between him and Kayla. The animal looked from him to her and back, with an expression that looked for all the world like impatience. Dane shook his head; he loved dogs, but he didn’t usually impart human qualities to them.

“Quinn?”

It was the other woman who’d spoken, drawing his gaze. She looked the picture of innocence, which made him even more suspicious.

“Yes,” the man said. “I think so.”

Another stab of pain shot through him. He and Kayla had been like that once, able to communicate without words. But lately he’d quit trying, or even asking what she was thinking, because his gut knew one more admission that she was worrying about her brother would send him over the edge.

And it had.

“Walk with me,” Quinn said. Dane eyed him warily. “You have questions,” the man said in answer to his look. “I’ll give you all the answers you want.”

“And I’m supposed to just believe you?”

“No,” Quinn said. “I expect you to do your homework and then decide if you believe us.”

That surprised him enough to make him follow the man’s lead. And if he wanted to be out of earshot of Kayla, it could mean he wanted to hear the other side of the story.

“That note she got today…” Quinn began as they neared a stand of cedar trees along one edge of the park.

“Don’t bother. I know exactly what it said. ‘I didn’t do it. I love you. I’m sorry. Forget about me.’ Even as he keeps sending them so there’s no hope she ever could.”

Quinn stopped walking and turned to look at him.

“I know that sounds harsh,” Dane said, “given what she’s been through.”

“Crimes like that have a far-reaching ripple effect,” Quinn said. “They touch many more lives than just the immediate family.”

The rather detached yet undeniably true observation made Dane take a second look at the man. He was as tall as he himself, and while Dane biked and ran to keep in shape, he doubted he was as strong as this guy looked. He’d been thinking of adding some weights to his regimen, and just looking at the arms on this guy was enough to convince him.

“Look, I know she loved Chad, but he was…”

“Spoiled and manipulative?”

Dane’s mouth tightened. “Yes. Chad never once had to suffer the consequences of his actions in his entire life.”

“His parents protected him?”

Dane nodded. “He was the firstborn, and he was spoiled rotten. Until Kayla came along. He was jealous at first, but she adored him so much he finally decided he liked it. She would do anything for him, and he wasn’t above using that.”

“You didn’t know them back then.”

He didn’t sound particularly accusatory, but Dane was raw enough that he answered a bit sharply.