“Me neither.”
Four weeks with no contact from Lauren, his presumed-dead-but-resurrected ex. Her demand for money to go away again had come as a shock, but at least Will knew the truth now. Reid had begun to let himself hope she’d given up and moved on, that she was far away with no more thought about him and Will. But something in his gut told him he hadn’t seen the last of her.
“Grandpa offered to take me deep sea fishing this weekend. I told him I’d have to check, but it’s okay, isn’t it?”
Reid gave a jerky nod. “Sure. He probably knows all the best spots.”
Jane’s dad had wasted no time in trying to buddy up to Will. Reid wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet. If there was one place to put the majority of the blame in this situation, it was squarely on the shoulders of Charles Hardy. He’d uttered the lie that set everything in motion. Though Reid’s own hands weren’t clean, Charles hadn’t made any attempt to find the grandson he knew was alive even though he’d told Jane the baby died. He had to have known Will was out there somewhere, but he’d waited until Reid had brought him to Pelican Harbor and revealed his identity to Jane before reaching out.
But never let it be said he stood in the way of a good relationship between Will and his mother’s family. Pettiness wasn’t in his nature.
Reid twirled a fallen leaf in his hand. “I found a lead to my grandparents, my mom’s parents.”
“Seriously? Where are they?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned it yet. “They’re in a little town in northern Indiana called Wabash.”
“Why didn’t you try to find them when you left Liberty’s Children with me?”
“My dad had said they were dead so I didn’t look very hard. And I didn’t have the money back then to hire anyone. It was all I could do to keep us both fed and with a roof over our heads. I was working a lot of hours, too, so there wasn’t much time. I hired an investigator a couple of weeks ago, and it didn’t take long for her to find them.”
Will’s brown eyes shone above his hopeful smile. “Are you going to call them? Or maybe go see them?”
“I haven’t decided what to do yet. Kelly—that’s the investigator—seems to think they are in good health. They’re in their midseventies and still living at home.”
“A-Are there any aunts or uncles? Or cousins?”
“My mom had two younger brothers, and they each have kids. I’m unsure of ages and names yet. Kelly’s putting together information for me, and I should have it tomorrow or the next day. Then we can decide what to do.”
“I want to go there. Just show up on their doorstep.”
“I’m afraid that might be too much of a shock to them.”
“Don’t you think it would be a good shock, though?”
Reid looked out at the moonlight glittering on the water. “I’m not sure how they parted with my mom and dad.”
“And is she still alive? Your mother?”
“I was ten when she went missing. I heard her yelling at my dad that it wasn’t right for him to have another wife. When I got up the next morning, she was gone. He said she left, b-but I always thought he had her killed. Or killed her himself.” He shuddered, remembering the rages his dad would get into. “Within a month he had two other wives.”
“Did Kelly search for her too?”
He probably shouldn’t be talking about all this with Will. Sometimes Reid forgot he was only fifteen. The boy had always acted mature and steady.
He nodded. “No sign of her.”
“If you haven’t talked to them, they probably still think she’s out there somewhere.”
He needed to change the subject. “You have homework?”
“Yeah, some algebra.” Will got up. “I’ll do it now. The mosquitoes are zooming in.”
“I’m right behind you.” Reid listened to the fading sound of Will’s flip-flops, then got to his feet. His personal life could wait. Keith McDonald was still missing, and the possibility of an attack on the oil platform loomed large in Reid’s mind, even though it was in the hands of Homeland Security now.
He should leave it alone, but as an investigative journalist he had the unique position of being someone people wanted to talk to. Maybe he could find out more than the law. And it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he and Jane worked together on this. If anything could get her to put the past behind her, it might be a new case they could solve together.
* * *
She’d rather walk through fire than go in there, Jane thought the next day as she pulled up outside her father’s prepper compound and sat staring at the gate and the long driveway back to the buildings. All she had to do was punch in the code, but her throat was tight, and she couldn’t get her hand to move from the steering wheel. She hadn’t talked to her father in several weeks, not since he’d admitted the heinous things he’d done fifteen years ago.
Thanks to his lie, she’d missed out on the first fifteen years of Will’s life.
She exhaled and reached for the button to lower her window. Sitting out here wasn’t going to get her questions answered about Keith’s disappearance. Her father would know more about that oil platform than most. He was part of the environmental group in town that oversaw the marshes and wetlands. He knew all about the impact from Deepwater Horizon and helped oversee safety measures on the platforms.
Her hand shook as she punched in the code. The big gate opened, and she was through both gates in under two minutes. Her pulse was beating like a tom-tom in her chest when she parked in front of her father’s porch. She stared at the two-story brick four-square for a long moment. How did she even open the conversation when she hadn’t come close to forgiving him yet?
She forced herself to shove open her door and step out into the blazing heat. She opened the back door and let Parker out to run into the shadow of the big trees where he would chase squirrels before taking a nap—though she didn’t intend to be here long enough for the squirrels to wear him out.
Her shoulders back, she strode up the steps to the door and pressed the bell. A few weeks ago, she would have opened the door and gone on in. But a few weeks ago she still naively believed everything her father told her.
Footsteps came toward the door, and it opened. Her dad’s gaze sharpened on her face. “Jane.” His eyebrows rose.
“I need to talk to you about a terrorist threat.”
He opened the door wider and stepped aside. “Sure.”
Most people thought he was much younger than his early sixties. His biceps were as firm and strong as a twenty-year-old’s. Only his bushy white hair matched his age.
She entered into a welcome wash of cool air and shut the door behind her. Coffee aroma drifted toward her, and her stomach rumbled at the scent of beignets. They wouldn’t be homemade. With his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth, in jail, he’d be buying most of his food. For a prepper he was surprisingly unhandy in the kitchen. Until Elizabeth had moved in, he ate fast food, frozen pizza, and cereal. Or the dreadful freeze-dried meals he rotated out of his stockpile in the bunker.
“It’s good to see you, Jane.”
His cautious tone did nothing to quell the anger rising in her chest. Instead of answering, she dropped onto the sofa and clasped her hands on one knee. “What do you know about Zeus?”