Tracker

“Killing him,” she finished. Then she went silent again.

Zeke had to wonder how she felt about that. Did she still love Jake in spite of everything?

Anxious to get this over with, Zeke turned the truck toward the west and started searching for the road they needed. He prayed they’d also find the thug who’d taken Kevin before the man could meet up with Jake Morrow. Because if that happened, he feared they might not ever see Penny’s son again.

FIVE (#u3ca50513-3288-5fb6-81ca-7826ef7c1554)

Zeke tried to keep her talking while he kept watch on Cheetah in the back, his snout searching the air and the woods rolling by. He told Penny he needed to hear her story and gather any details she might remember. But she knew he was just as curious about her as she was about him. He obviously didn’t trust her since she’d been involved with Jake. She couldn’t blame him for that. Look where it had gotten her.

“How did you meet Jake?”

She swallowed and held tight to the bottle of water in her hand, memories she’d tried to bury coming to the surface. “I’m a wilderness guide,” she said, her voice raw and low. How could she talk about this when Kevin was out there, afraid and in the clutches of dangerous criminals? But she did talk. Anything to keep from crawling out of her skin. “We literally ran into each other a couple of years ago on a hiking trail.”

“He hiked a lot,” Zeke recalled. “All over the world.”

Shooting Zeke a quick glance, she added, “He wasn’t out on a leisurely hike that day. He told me he was a federal agent and explained how it could get dangerous for me to be in the area.” She smiled but it hurt to do so since every muscle in her body was coiled like rappelling rope. “But he hurried back and asked for my phone number, in case I saw anyone suspicious. He called me the next night but it wasn’t regarding the case.”

Looking straight ahead, she said, “We were inseparable after that. He had some downtime once he finished the case and...we spent two weeks together, hiking, kayaking and fishing. He even made me practice my shooting skills. But after I had Kevin, I didn’t want a gun in the house.”

She stopped, gulping in the air she couldn’t seem to find. “I don’t want to go down memory lane, Zeke. It hurts too much. Can’t you make this SUV go any faster?”

Zeke reached out and squeezed her hand. “Penny, don’t think about that shot you made. You didn’t know—”

“I should have been more careful,” she choked out. “I can’t get the sound of those cries out of my mind.”

“The noise could have scared Kevin,” he said. To reassure her, he added softly, “Besides, we haven’t confirmed that Kevin is with the suspect.”

She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “I should know. A mother would feel that and when I heard that baby cry out, I knew in my heart it was Kevin. Jake would at least get Kevin to a doctor if he’s hurt, right?”

“I have to believe that, yes,” Zeke said, the look in his eyes full of concern. “Jake wasn’t always this bad. Obviously, you saw some of the good in him.”

She shot Zeke an anguished look. “He sweet-talked me into seeing the good, yes. Which makes me pathetic.”

“He always was a sweet-talker,” Zeke said. “Jake has charisma and he can persuade people with a flash of his dimples. He usually had a pretty girl hanging on his arm.”

Penny took in a breath at hearing that. “I certainly fell right into that pattern with him. I ignored that nagging feeling in my heart that made me question his long absences and all the secrecy. He was probably off having flings with other women the whole time he was with me.”

Zeke shot her an apologetic stare. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know much about his escapades except what he deemed fit to tell me.”

“It’s okay,” she replied, her head down. “I’ve turned my life around because of Kevin. My faith is strong now. I can overcome what Jake did to me but right now, I want to find my son.”

Stopping between two roads, Zeke glanced back to where Cheetah sniffed the air again. When he seemed satisfied that they were still on the right path, Zeke turned southwest and said, “Jake fooled me, too. For a while there after he joined the FBI, he had me thinking we could be true brothers. Even encouraged me to follow in his footsteps to become a law officer.”

“He never mentioned you,” Penny said, wishing she’d known all of this from the beginning. She could have reached out to Zeke and maybe helped with the search for Jake. But instead, she’d run away like a coward.

You were trying to protect Kevin.

But she’d failed at that when she’d returned here.

If she’d reported Jake’s demands to the authorities all those months ago, she might not be searching for her son right now.

That realization made her blurt out one of the things gnawing at her. “I have to wonder if Jake contacted me that last time only to get information on whether your team was searching for him. He asked a few pointed questions about anyone coming around to see me, but he promised he’d take care of us. I’m not used to depending on a man but I sure wanted to believe him. For a while I did believe him.” Pushing her fingers through her hair, she said, “But everything changed.”

“How so?” Zeke asked, his eyes on the road.

She took a sip of water. “He called one day out of the blue but sounded kind of off, you know? He kept referring to his days at Quantico and how this job meant so much to him, how people trusted him and depended on him. Then he said something else that struck me as odd. He said he’d lost trust in the FBI and his connections at Quantico and he wasn’t sure about anything anymore. He wasn’t sure of his next step. And that’s not like Jake.”

“No, it’s not. But I can see him wanting to be able to take care of you, so maybe not being able to do that had him worried,” Zeke said, his gaze sliding over her face. “You’re pretty and capable. Jake likes strength in women. He must have admired that about you.”

“I don’t feel so strong,” she whispered, another distant memory nagging at her. She’d doubted Jake’s faithfulness to her many times and thinking of Quantico only reminded her of that. She was pretty sure he’d been close to someone he’d gone through training with since she’d found a picture in some of his stuff. One of him with a female recruit. But when she’d asked him about it, he refused to talk to her about anything related to work. She sighed, knowing she should mention this to Zeke, but she wasn’t ready to share yet another shameful truth with him.

Pushing all that away, she said, “As I said before, I’m tired of going down memory lane. I want my son back.” The ache of not knowing if Kevin was okay cut like a knife slowly slashing at her insides.

“We’ll find the man who took Kevin,” Zeke promised. “Cheetah can pick up vapor scents in the air and any other kind of scent on the ground. He’s a smart, highly trained K-9 officer. One of the best.”

Penny looked back at Cheetah. The furry dog gave her a long stare to reassure her. She knew Zeke was trying hard to keep her sane, but right now her insides burned with a raw ache and every nerve in her body hummed with the need to find her child.

“Why don’t you tell me what you think about Jake?” she asked, hoping to take her mind off the horror of not having her son with her. “Did he and his mother get along?”

“He used to say Velma Morrow was weak,” Zeke said. “She died a few years ago and Jake barely made it to the funeral. He left right after the service and after that, things seemed to shift between us. We stayed close but his moods changed like quicksilver, so I never knew what to expect with him.”

Penny could relate to that. “He was moody and he’d hold everything inside. I never knew what he’d been through. He talked about a few friends he’d made along the way, but nothing too revealing.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I wish he’d told me about his past. About you. You’d think he’d mention having a half brother and that you worked for the FBI, too.”

“He’s always been secretive,” Zeke said. “But now he’s in a bad way. Too late for him to turn this around.”

He sounded almost sympathetic, but Penny refused to feel sorry for Jake right now.

“According to my mom, our dad was also moody and easy to anger,” Zeke continued. “But he could be a real charmer when he wanted something. He was a successful lawyer and my mom worked in his law firm as a secretary. She fell hard for him but she didn’t know he was married. It was a real mess. He left Jake’s mother and after they divorced, he married mine but left when I was too young to understand. I found out I had a brother one night when they were arguing about it.”

“And...is your mother still alive?”

“Yes. She lives in Salt Lake City. I don’t see her much.”

Penny didn’t press him on that. Her heartbeat echoed with each bump in the rugged lane. They’d only been on the road for about fifteen minutes, but it seemed like hours to her. What if they didn’t get to Kevin in time? “I...I need to find Kevin, Zeke. My son shouldn’t have to pay for Jake’s criminal activities.”

“And neither should you.” Zeke’s expression became etched with slashes of remorse. “You fell in love with him when he still had some good in him. Kevin is part of that good.”

Penny teared up again. “Kevin is so precious. He’s my entire world. I changed my life and found my faith again because I wanted to be the best mother possible. I miss him. I don’t know what I’ll do if anything has happened to him.”

“Even if Jake has him, he won’t hurt Kevin,” Zeke said, trying to reassure her. “You have to keep telling yourself that.”

Penny stared ahead. “He wasn’t happy about my pregnancy at first but once Kevin was born, he changed and tried to be a good father to him. I have to remember that. And...at first he seemed to love me, too.”

Zeke shook his head. “That sounds like Jake. He always loved the ladies but I’m thinking he saw something special in you. You gave him a son.”

“But he didn’t love me enough to stay,” she lamented, tears she refused to shed burning at her eyes. “He would come and go and he made me promise to never mention him to anyone because of his work. But now I think he didn’t want anyone to know about us, either. I thought we had something solid between us but when I refused to leave with him, he turned ugly. Almost desperate.”