AFTER A RESTLESS SLEEP that stretched into the afternoon, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was that damned stuffed tiger.
The thing that used to bring me so much relief and comfort now felt like another lie that I would never be able to fully trust. I scowled at the plush creature even as my fingers itched to wrap around its soft, well-worn fur and pull it close.
Was it something that Noelle had gotten to soothe me as a child? No, she’d never cared about my emotional wellbeing, and I’d hidden the toy from her over the years. I’d always had the sneaking suspicion that she’d throw it away if she knew how much I treasured it.
Anna, the only emotional comfort I’d ever had at the household, had never said anything about the tiger that I could remember either. I’d caught a glimpse of it in a couple of the earliest childhood videos…
Did that mean it’d come from the life I’d had before the household? It could be a clue—or simply a tool my kidnappers had used to placate a distressed toddler in the moment.
I didn’t allow myself to dwell on the thought as I got up from my bed and quickly changed, but I couldn’t help brushing two fingers across the striped fabric of the tiger before I strode out of the room.
I found Blaze sitting at the dining table, a half-devoured plate of fettuccini alfredo poised at his left and his laptop propped open at his right. He rapidly typed with one hand as he forked pasta into his mouth with the other.
I suppressed a laugh. “You take multitasking to a new extreme.”
Blaze’s head whipped toward me. Rather than turning the computer from me or closing it, he gestured to the seat at his side. “Come and sit down. Maybe you can help me.”
Something in my chest tightened at the welcome with a startled pang. He trusted me enough to share whatever he was working on.
Of course, what he was working on was me. As I dropped into the chair, the window open on the laptop’s screen jittered with an occasional flicker of an image. As I watched, one of those flickers flashed into a folder at the bottom of the display.
“What’s all this?” I asked as Talon emerged from his bedroom and headed to the refrigerator behind us. “Who are you looking for?”
Blaze shot a smile at me, his knee bouncing with his usual frenetic energy. “Technically, I’m looking for you. Or anything that could lead us to your birth family.”
Talon grunted. “Why bother with your fancy software? Wouldn’t one of those DNA sites do the trick faster?”
I sat up straighter in my chair. “Is there a website that’d connect me to my relatives by my genetics?” I had a vague sense that I’d heard about something like that before.
Blaze studied me. “I keep forgetting how much you’ve been out of the loop the last twenty-or-so years.” He turned to include Talon in his answer. “Any of the public companies that run DNA matches come with too many problems. To start with, it’ll only help us if one of Dess’s relatives has already gotten a test with them too, so it won’t even necessarily turn up anything. And they are totally public. If the people hunting for her have set up flags in any company’s systems, we could inadvertently lead them right to us.”
“So do it privately then,” Talon said.
Blaze rolled his eyes. “I don’t happen to have the skills to sequence her DNA, so unless you took a secret course in microbiology, that’s not happening. There aren’t any significant private databases that I’m aware of that would give us a decent chance of finding a match anyway.”
I peered at the laptop screen. “What are you doing, then?” He’d clearly come up with some kind of solution. The tech genius seemed to have an answer for everything. Compared to my minimal computer skills, the stuff he could pull off might as well have been DNA sequencing.
Blaze gulped down another mouthful of pasta before answering. “I took a bunch of stills from the videos of you right after you were taken and now I’m having my facial recognition app run them against all the missing child reports it can dredge up from around the right time period for kids around the right age. Since we don’t know how much global reach this organization had, I’m taking them from all around the world. There are a lot—it’s going to be a slow process.”
My heart sank. “You haven’t found any matches yet.”
“Nothing definite. I’m having it pick out ones that are somewhat close in case they did something to your appearance before any of those videos were taken. And if this doesn’t pan out, there are plenty of other strategies I can try.”
His optimism took the edge off my disappointment. But after I’d plowed through a bowl of cereal, I found myself wandering through the apartment, desperate to hear a ping of an alert that might mean a match. When it didn’t come, I finally planted my hands on the other side of the table.
“I can’t just sit around and wait for something to happen. There’s got to be a way I can investigate too.”
Talon let out a doubtful sound from where he’d moved to the couch and dragged out his knitting bag. I was never going to get totally used to the sight of that musclebound killer weaving the needles back and forth with their yarn, as close as the movements might come to the jerk of a knife.
“Whatever bad idea you’re about to suggest, the answer is no,” he grumbled.
I made a face in his direction. “Who says it’s a bad idea?” Even as I said that, an actual idea occurred to me. One that had the potential to be dangerous, sure, but leaving the crew’s apartment would always be a risk. I wasn’t going to find the answers that’d reduce the danger if I stayed cooped up in here.
“I don’t know,” Talon replied in his typical impassive voice. “The last time you took off, you nearly got kidnapped again. Whether it’s bad or not, I’m pretty sure it’ll be hazardous to your health.”
“Hey,” Blaze piped up. “We should at least hear what she’s got to say. It is her life we’re trying to piece together.”
“Thank you.” I folded my arms over my chest. “I could go talk to the contacts I know in this city. They were connected to the household. Maybe they know more than I do about where else this organization operated or who they really were.”
Despite his earlier support, Blaze frowned. “Because they’re connected to the household, they could be under surveillance. You might be walking into a trap.”
“I’d be careful about it. This isn’t my first rodeo, remember.”
“I don’t think you want them knowing you’re even still in town,” Talon put in.
I threw my hands in the air. “Fine. Then I’d just spy on them from a distance and see if they lead me anywhere useful. Happy?”
His mouth still slanted in at a skeptical angle. But thankfully, at the same moment Julius strode into the room. “Since you’re arguing loud enough for me to hear you through my door, I’m going to weigh in.” He nodded to me. “You obviously understand the risk.”
Relief started to trickle through me at his confident tone. “Yes. I am the one who almost just got kidnapped and then found out that my whole life has been a lie. Believe me, I’m not going to be giving anyone out there the benefit of the doubt.”
“Good.” He gave Talon and Blaze a look as if to remind them that he was in charge here and then returned his attention to me. “I trust that you’ll be discreet, and you should be able to take an active role in this investigation. Like Blaze said, it’s your life. And we’re not your jailors anymore.”
My shoulders relaxed. “Good. So you’re not going to make a fuss about me leaving?”
The corner of his lips twitched upward in a subtle smile that shouldn’t have been so sexy. “I hope you’ll come back of your own accord this time, but no, I won’t. I don’t want you going in and out of this building alone like you did two nights ago, though. It’s too visible. If the people searching for you haven’t connected you to this place, I’d like to keep it that way. I can escort you out through our private route and meet you when you get back, if you’ll agree to those terms.”
“Sure,” I said, my spirits rising. I didn’t know if I’d totally believed until this moment that the men really were going to treat me like an equal among them rather than a prisoner. “That’s fair.” I didn’t want anyone involved with the household tracing me here either.
“Excellent.” He dug into his pocket and handed me a wad of cash for good measure, with a glint of amusement in his eyes. “And I can’t let you go out there without proper resources. I’m guessing you’ll find a way to spend this wisely.”
I leaned against a light fixture a few shops down from the bakery, a light brown wig covering my tightly concealed locks of black hair. The hat that I wore atop it hid any irregularities to the wig, and sunglasses masked the rest of my face. I knew from my observations of Blaze’s software that revealing my full face even for a second put me at risk of being captured by a street camera and IDed.
So far, I hadn’t been able to find any sign of the guy I was looking for. I’d strolled past the bakery a couple hours ago and again a few minutes ago, and Jay’s curly hair hadn’t been anywhere to be seen through the front window.
It wasn’t a big shop. If he’d shown up for his usual late afternoon shift, I should have spotted him.
A waft of the sweet, doughy scent carried on the breeze and set my mouth watering. It was too risky to go right inside and ask after him, but man, what I wouldn’t have given for one of those chocolate chip cookies to hop its way out here.
Maybe Jay had taken today off? Maybe he’d changed his schedule? Leaving the apartment had been enough of a hassle that I didn’t want to give up on my quest without getting some idea of when he’d actually be here. Julius might have been willing to escort me out, but he’d insisted on keeping part of the route secret, leading me blind. As a precautionary measure in case I was captured, which I couldn’t blame him for when it’d already nearly happened yesterday.
I got a break when one of the women I had seen working behind the counter emerged from the alley. She must have left through the side door. She was just running her fingers through her billowy hair, which was creased from being trapped in its net for however many hours.
As soon as I clocked which direction she was headed in, I ducked through a nearby shop, darted around to the end of the block, and ambled toward the bakery as if I’d only just arrived in the area. When I came up on Jay’s coworker, I made a show of stopping in my tracks.
“Hey!” I said brightly. “You look familiar. You work at Moe’s, don’t you?”
The woman halted abruptly and then laughed. “Now I feel like a celebrity. I do.”
“I was just heading over there. Best cookies ever.” I didn’t have to fake the enthusiasm in my voice with that comment. I groped for the right impression to give to sell my next question and settled on slightly coy, as if I had a crush. That was a normal reason for asking about a guy, right?
I dipped my head and twisted my hands in front of me with feigned nerves. “Say… is that guy with the curly hair and the goatee working today? I was hoping I’d get to say hello.”
The woman started to grin, but then the smile faded. “You mean Jay. He was supposed to be in today…” She bit her lip.
My pulse hiccupped. “What? Did something happen to him?”
Enough real distress must have come into my voice to convince her to reveal a little more. “Oh, I’m sure he’s fine. Just being flaky. I heard he’s missed his last couple of shifts. The manager couldn’t reach him today. He’s probably just not answering because he knows she’ll chew him out.”
“Oh! Well, at least I’ll get to have those cookies,” I said, and gave her a little wave to let her carry on her way.
I didn’t go into the bakery, of course, but walked right by it, my forehead furrowing. Sure, Jay hadn’t seemed like the most dedicated worker ever, but I didn’t like that he’d suddenly “flaked” on his job within days of me reaching out to him.
It was probably a coincidence. I hoped it was a coincidence.
Shrugging off my uneasiness as well as I could, I flagged down a cab and gave the driver the address of the old mall on the other side of town.
Jay had just been a grunt worker. He’d had no stake in the bakery. Scarlett had owned the electronics store where I’d talked to her last time, as far as I knew. Noelle had said she’d worked there for years, usually on her own. She couldn’t just flake out and not bother to show up.
She’d know more about the household than Jay would have too.
I had the cabbie stop a couple of blocks away from the mall, handed him a good chunk of my remaining cash, and meandered along the street toward the low building while giving the area a careful scan.
No one I passed looked like anything other than a regular pedestrian who didn’t give a crap about me. I didn’t notice any new cameras mounted nearby or other signs of surveillance. Even if I’d missed them, nothing about my appearance right now should tip anyone off to my identity.
I ambled through the dingy mall haphazardly, as if I didn’t have any particular destination. Just window shopping, whatever the hell that really meant. But when I came into view of the electronics shop, my stomach knotted.
All the other stores were still open. The mall didn’t close up until well into the evening. But Scarlett’s shop was fully shuttered—not like she’d just stepped out for a moment. Like she’d closed up for the day.
Swinging past it as close as I dared, I noted the faint dusting of grit along the bottom of the shutters where it’d been sprayed by last night’s cleaning crew working over the floors. She hadn’t opened up at all today, at least. Possibly the shop had been closed for longer.
The memory wavered up of the way she’d talked when I’d come to her store last week, the edge of nervousness in her voice and body language. I’d wondered who she was worried about.
Maybe she’d been right to worry. Jay and Scarlett—that couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?
I kept my pace casual as I headed back toward the mall entrance, careful not to draw any attention, but my heart was thudding. When I’d made it several blocks from the building, I stopped and dragged in a deep breath. My pulse kept racing on.
The last two people I’d had contact with outside of the crew were missing. What had happened to them—and had it happened because of me?
