Operation Reunion (7 page)

Chapter 10

T
his time Kayla smiled when she saw the dog racing out to greet them. He seemed delighted to see his new friends. In fact, when he skidded to a stop in front of them and looked from her to Dane and back again, he seemed delighted not just to see them, but to see them together.

“Cutter, you are a very different dog,” Dane said, reaching down to scratch his ear.

“Isn’t he?” Kayla said, glad she wasn’t the only one who saw it. “Hayley says sometimes she thinks he’s more human than dog. But smarter.”

Dane laughed. It was a good sound, one that gave her hope.

They headed toward the building. Quinn had called Kayla and asked her to meet him here. She had called Dane, who insisted on coming with her, as she knew he would. He’d made a promise that he would see this through with her, and Dane always kept his promises.

They started to turn on the gravel path that led to the main door of the building, but the dog cut them off. Then he trotted a few steps to their right, away from the door and along the path that led to the warehouse. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at them.

“I’ve been here before,” Kayla said. “That’s what started this.”

“What?”

She realized she hadn’t really told Dane what had happened that morning. It had sounded so silly, the idea that the dog had purposely snatched Chad’s note and carried it off to the very people who were helping her now. She’d been afraid he’d dismiss the whole thing out of hand; Dane was a very practical and sometimes literally minded guy. And in retrospect, it sounded silly even to her.

“He...sort of led me to them,” she said. “I thought he was just playing, but now I’m not so sure.”

Cutter gave a short bark, walked a few more steps, stopped and looked back at them once more.

“Led you like this, you mean?” Dane asked.

“Yes.” She sighed. If she couldn’t tell him the truth, what hope was there for them anyway? “I’d thrown away Chad’s note. He took it right out of the trash can and did this until I followed him to Quinn.”

She expected him to say something about her being silly or fantasizing, expected him maybe even to tease her for thinking the dog had humanlike intelligence. He did neither.

“You threw it away?”

She knew him well enough to understand. And after last night, she knew he needed, deserved, to hear it. “I did. I wadded it up and tossed it. It wasn’t worth what it had cost me.”

He let out a long, compressed sigh.

At that moment, Cutter apparently lost patience with their lack of attention. Or their stupidity, Kayla thought. The dog trotted back and circled behind them. He didn’t quite nip at their heels, but he nudged them both pointedly.

“I guess we’d better cooperate,” Dane said.

His voice sounded strange, and she couldn’t tell if he was sorry the conversation had been interrupted or if he was relieved. He wasn’t like other guys she knew of from her friends, often dodging anything that could be described as serious discussion of the relationship. Those friends envied her the way she and Dane were always able to talk. But despite last night, things weren’t usual between them now and hadn’t been for a long time.

“I love you.”

It burst from her as her mind seized on the declaration as the one most important thing to say right now.

“I love you, too,” he said. “Enough to give us this one last chance.”

The finality in his voice told her he meant what he said. Last night had been a reminder of what she was risking. For all his easygoing nature and his tremendous patience, there was a line Dane would not be pushed past, and she had reached it. She had made promises she intended to keep, but she’d be the first to admit that if they found Chad—

Dane stopped dead in the open doorway of the warehouse, where Cutter had led them.

“Whoa.”

The man who had been tinkering with something on the sleek, black helicopter inside spun around, his right hand whipping to his side. For an instant Kayla’s breath caught; he’d moved like he was used to having a gun there. But then he noticed Cutter and went from alert and primed to relaxed and smiling.

“A little warning would be good, buddy,” he said to the dog who trotted toward him. The dog made a strange noise that sounded oddly like a snort of disgust. “Yeah, yeah, they’re friendlies. I get it.”

He walked toward them then. “Hi. You must be Kayla and Dane. I’m Teague Johnson.”

He held out a hand. Kayla took it, noticing that while he didn’t have a crushing grip, he didn’t treat her like she was some delicate flower who would crumple at a solid clasp, either. Still, she noticed when he then shook Dane’s hand, it was firmer. A guy thing, she thought.

And he was definitely a guy. From his buzz-cut sandy-brown hair to his battered leather jacket to his jeans with a hole in one knee, he was a guy. There was something about him, in the way he stood, the way he carried himself, that made her wonder, as she had with Quinn, if he’d been in the military. If so, it had to have been recently; he looked young.

“Nice,” Dane said, gesturing at the helicopter. There was an undertone of awed appreciation in his voice.

“That it is,” Teague agreed with a crooked grin that made Kayla smile in turn. “Quinn’s newest toy. He got tired of trying to arrange transport when we needed to move in a hurry.”

“And he can afford that?” Dane asked.

Teague laughed, apparently not hearing, or at least not reacting to, the faintly suspicious note in Dane’s voice. But Kayla wasn’t sure anyone who didn’t know him as she did would notice.

“Thanks to Charlie, our resident financial genius, the Foxworth Foundation can afford a lot. What we do isn’t always cheap.”

“So you work for Quinn?”

“I’m part of his team, yes,” Teague said. “Lately he’s been letting me fly this baby.”

“That’s nice,” Kayla said as she looked at the aircraft. She supposed it was nice, to him. “They make me a little nervous. I’ve never flown in one, and I hope to keep it that way.”

“Well, if you don’t like this, we have a pretty little blue and white airplane out at the airstrip,” Teague said.

“Charlie must be really good,” Dane said dryly.

Cutter gave a low sound and darted away, drawing their attention for a moment.

“Quinn,” Teague said.

“What?”

“That was his Quinn sound. He must be back.”

“You’re saying he has different sounds for different people?”

“For Quinn and Hayley he does. Hayley’s is a happy bark. Quinn’s is that rumble. Me and the guys, we have to share one. Except Rafe. For some reason he gets his own.” The crooked grin flashed again. “I swear, that dog isn’t really a dog. I’m not sure what he is, except he’s part of the team.”

Kayla liked that. Liked that the dog was apparently accepted and welcomed by all. It made her feel better about them somehow.

“What happened there?” she asked, pointing to what looked like a patch of some kind that marred the sleek black surface.

“Same thing that happened there,” Teague said cheerfully, indicating an odd, ragged hole farther back that she hadn’t noticed yet.

“That looks like a bullet hole,” Dane said.

“It is. That one doesn’t affect anything, so Quinn wanted to keep it. Sort of a souvenir.”

Kayla stared incredulously. “A souvenir? A bullet hole as a souvenir?”

“It’s from the mission where he met Hayley,” Teague explained.

That bit of information startled her and, oddly, warmed her a little. It was a strange feeling.

“Did she shoot at you?” Kayla asked.

Teague laughed. “She would have if she’d been armed, I think. We did sort of kidnap her.”

Kayla gasped. Dane, perversely, laughed. “Now that’s a story I’d like to hear.”

“Some other time.”

Quinn’s voice came from behind them, and they turned to see him entering the warehouse, Cutter trotting at his side.

“Right now,” he went on as he and the dog came to a halt beside them, “we need to talk about a possible lead.”

Kayla’s breath caught. “To Chad?” she said, then felt silly; what else?

“It may amount to nothing, and I warn you, it’s not fresh, but it’s the first thing we’ve turned up.”

Kayla felt the old, eternal hope rise within her. And as they walked back toward the main building, she reached down to scratch behind Cutter’s right ear in silent thanks. The dog made a soft, yowling little noise that sounded for all the world like encouragement.

Kayla shook her head in wonder. Maybe Teague was right, and he wasn’t really just a dog.

She didn’t know how or why this had happened, but she felt heartened about her brother for the first time in a long time, and for that she had to thank this furry conspirator.

Chapter 11

D
ane stared down at the image on the paper on the table before him.

“Wow.”

Kayla seemed beyond words, and looking at the computer-generated picture of Chad at his current age, he understood why.

“We tried doing this a couple of years ago for the social network pages she set up,” Dane said, “but it didn’t come out anywhere near this good.”

“It’s a special talent. Our tech guru, Tyler Hewitt, is a genius,” Quinn said. “We do a lot of missing person cases. He took some standard image-aging software and tweaked it a bit, and the results have been amazing.”

“He looks different,” Dane said, “yet I’d recognize him in a minute.”

“Is this what you wanted me to see?” Kayla asked. “Is this for flyers or posting or—”

“Someone thinks they saw him.”

Kayla jumped. “Easy,” Dane said. “He said it’s not fresh.”

“But it’s more than I’ve had in so long,” she said almost breathlessly. “Where?”

“A small town in Northern California. Not impossibly far from the note you got from Redding.”

“That was three months ago.” Kayla said it evenly, but Dane suspected she was trying to keep disappointment out of her voice, remembering she’d been warned the lead wasn’t fresh.

“Yes. But it’s a starting place.”

“Who recognized him?”

Quinn shook his head. “It wasn’t that definite. Just that the picture looked like somebody they’d seen. In a video game store.”

Kayla’s head came up sharply. “A video game store? That was one of Chad’s passions.”

Quinn nodded. “That’s why we took this one seriously.”

“How’d you manage this?” Dane asked. He didn’t want to burst Kayla’s bubble, but this seemed a bit much after only a few days. “This is hundreds of miles away and a little town, but you just happen to come across the one person who thinks he saw him?”

“We didn’t. Not in the sense you mean.”

Quinn leaned back in his chair. To Dane’s surprise, the look he gave him seemed almost approving.

“You know we don’t charge money for what we do,” he said.

Dane instantly registered the key word in that statement. “Money,” he said.

“What we’ve done instead,” Quinn said, “is build a network. Of ordinary people across the country, people who don’t stand out, who don’t make people clam up like the police sometimes do, people who can watch, notice, without being noticed much themselves.”

Dane’s gaze narrowed. “You’re saying...that’s what you charge for your help?”

Quinn nodded. “Help in turn, at some later date. Most of our people are happy to do it. They never forget what it was like to be the one backed into a corner, the one at the end of their rope, the victim of injustice.”

“Like you were,” Kayla said softly.

Quinn’s gaze shifted to her, but he said nothing.

“Your parents.” If Quinn was upset, it didn’t show, except maybe in a slight lowering of his brows. “Hayley told me. I think she thought I needed to know you really did understand,” Kayla continued, apparently feeling the need to explain or to defend Hayley.

“Then I trust her judgment,” Quinn said. Briskly, he went on. “We’ll be leaving for California first thing in the morning.”

“Taking that little toy in the warehouse?” Dane asked.

Quinn grinned suddenly, like a guy with the coolest car in town. “It is sweet, isn’t it? But no. We’ll take the plane. The Siskiyous are mountains I take seriously, and I’d rather be way above them.”

“Okay,” Kayla said.

There was undeniable excitement in her voice, and Dane supposed he couldn’t blame her. And he realized that if this turned out to be just another disappointment for her, he wasn’t going to be very happy with Quinn and company.

“I’ll let you know as soon as we speak to our person there if it seems there’s anything to this.”

Kayla shook her head. “You won’t have to. I’m going with you.”

Dane went still. Quinn’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t think that would be the best idea,” Quinn said. “And it’s not necessary. We’ll check it out, and if there’s anything to it then you can—”

“No. I want to go now. I need to. I need to
do
something. Something besides sit at home and wonder.”

“You’ve already logged more frequent flyer miles than any pilot, searching for Chad,” Dane pointed out.

“Don’t you see? This is the first chance in months, the first real possibility somebody may have seen him!”

Dane thought she was building this up too much, and obviously so did Quinn. But Dane knew that when Kayla focused on something, there was no stopping her. It took a considerable effort for him to quash the reaction that had become nearly automatic over the past couple of years. He’d promised her he would give this a full, honest shot. One last time.

Then it would be over, one way or another.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll both go.” He glanced at Quinn. “Assuming there’s room in this plane of yours.”

“There’s room,” Quinn said. “But it’s still not a good idea. It could well be a wasted trip.”

“Won’t be the first,” Dane said. He saw Kayla wince, and he sighed. “Sorry. I meant what I said. This gets every chance to work.”

So if I have to walk away, I can walk away clean, knowing I gave it as much as I could.

He hated that those were the words that formed in his mind, but he couldn’t deny them. It was the truth. For all the sweetness rediscovered last night, it hadn’t really changed anything. If Kayla couldn’t or wouldn’t give this up, or at least relegate it to second place in her life, then he would have to walk away again. No matter that it would nearly kill him to do it.

He was tired of being that second place holder himself.

It simmered in him as they headed back to her place to pack a small bag in case what needed to be done couldn’t be done in a single day. He’d brought his own things back inside; they’d never made it out of his car anyway.

By the time they got there he was at a near boil. He wanted her to be crystal clear on what she was risking, what she was on the verge of throwing away. Last night’s slow, sweet reunion had been one thing, but he was in no mood for slow and sweet now. He was fighting for his life, for their life together, and the kid gloves were off.

He grabbed her the moment they stepped inside. He kissed her fiercely, demanding her full attention. After a moment of startled surprise she gave in, kissing him back as if she understood.

But then this was Kayla, and she always understood.

As if that kiss had been the spark to tinder, the fire they’d always shared leaped to life. But he wasn’t satisfied with that; he threw fuel on the flames, tearing at her clothes, needing, demanding, until she was with him, yanking at his shirt, his jeans.

They went down to the floor right there, no niceties this time. In seconds he was inside her. He felt her nails dig into his back at the sudden invasion, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted her clawing at him, wanted her as mad, as desperate as he was, wanted to stamp himself on her so completely she would never, ever be able to forget this moment. He wanted her tied to him forever, and he used his body to tell her in the only way he could express it right now.

He clenched his jaw and held back, even as she began to go wild beneath him. She locked herself around him, as if she knew exactly what he wanted and that made it what she wanted, too. He rolled to his back, taking her with him, giving control over to her now, wanting her to show him she was as hot as he was. He needed to see it, to feel it, and somehow all the fear and frustration that had been growing in him for so long seemed wrapped up in that need.

As if she knew, she rode him with an eager ferocity that nearly drove him out of his mind, and in the last seconds, when he knew he couldn’t wait any longer, he rolled them back and drove deep, heard her cry out, felt the first clenching of her body around him, then let himself go as her name ripped from his throat.

* * *

Inside the small airplane, Kayla sensed Dane’s tension, knew the effort he was making to keep his promise to her. It made her feel better and worse at the same time; better because he was keeping to his word, and worse because it was clearly an effort. She realized with a sinking feeling that he thought this was going to be as fruitless as every other trip she’d made and that he was only coming with her because he’d promised her this one last chance.

She looked around the interior of the plane again, hoping for distraction. She and Dane had once taken a flight to Victoria, B.C., on a seaplane that had been even smaller than this, and she’d loved it. Much better than the helicopter that Dane had seemed so enamored of.

The young man who had been working on that helicopter was at the controls of the plane now, with Quinn in the copilot’s seat. Somewhat to her surprise, Hayley had come with them.

“I’m the unofficial flight attendant,” she said with a grin, handing out sodas.

There was no separate cockpit, so she was able to turn and hand a can to Quinn and offer one to Teague, who declined. Hayley’s seat and the empty one next to her backed up to the pilot’s, whereas Kayla’s and Dane’s faced forward. The cabin was finished nicely, with leather seating and large, rectangular windows, and there was plenty of room for Dane’s long legs to stretch out.

“Nice,” Dane said.

“Quinn’s other toy,” Hayley said with a smile. “He wanted a small jet, but Charlie slapped the purse strings shut on that.”

Dane had been looking back at the cabin, but now he leaned forward to study what he could see of the instrument panels. It looked horrifyingly complicated to Kayla, although not much different than the big-screen gaming system his friend and partner Serge had. Dane had such an affinity for things electronic she wouldn’t be surprised if he could figure most of them out simply by watching them long enough.

“It’s pressurized?” Dane asked after a minute or two studying one section of the controls.

Hayley nodded. “Quinn was able to justify to Charlie the need for a pressurized cabin with all the mountains around us.”

“I thought only jets were pressurized.”

“This is the single exception in small planes. And that,” Hayley said with a laugh, “is the sum total of my knowledge, I’m afraid.” She gestured toward the front. “You want more, you’ll have to ask them.”

Dane smiled. “I will.”

“Maybe on the way back you can sit up front.”

“That,” Dane said, his eyes alight, “would be exceptionally cool.”

His excitement made Kayla smile. For a moment she wondered if he’d come along as much for the plane ride as for the search for Chad. And why not? she asked herself. She was glad he was enjoying the flight—it made her feel less guilty.

“Who takes care of Cutter when you have to leave?” Kayla asked.

“Usually our neighbor, who adores him. Or he stays with Rafe, another of our team, when he insists.”

“The guy or the dog?” Dane joked.

“The dog,” Hayley answered, sounding dead serious. “I think he knows Rafe’s in a rough patch right now because he’s been spending more time with him. Plus, the man has never had a dog, so Cutter’s determined to introduce him to the joys.”

Both Dane and Kayla blinked.

“I know, I know,” Hayley said with a laugh. “But believe me, hang around Cutter long enough, and you’ll start thinking that way, too.”

The plane bounced slightly, as Quinn had warned them it might as they went over the mountains. Kayla shifted in her seat to look out the window. The movement, and a physical awareness that stopped just short of soreness, reminded her in a very personal way of what had happened between her and Dane the moment they’d set foot in her house last night. It wasn’t that they hadn’t had wild, hungry sex before, but nothing quite like that. From the beginning Dane’s intent had been clear, he’d wanted to drive her crazy and he’d succeeded.

Admirably.

She felt her cheeks heat at the memory and was glad her face was turned away at the moment. Only the sure knowledge that, in the end, he’d been as wild as he’d made her let her regain some composure.

When they reached the small airport, the plane set down with a gentle thump that Kayla barely felt. She glanced toward Teague.

“He’s good,” Hayley said. “And almost as good with the helicopter. Quinn’s been teaching him.”

“I always wanted to learn to fly,” Dane said, startling Kayla.

“You never told me that,” she said.

He glanced at her. “I have. You just weren’t hearing much at the time.”

His tone was gentle, not accusing, but she felt stung nevertheless. Not by him, but inwardly; if he had indeed told her that, and she had completely missed it, what else had she missed? What else had been lost in the fog of grief and confusion?

She’d always thought she remembered everything about him, that she knew him better than anyone, that if someone asked her what his hopes, his dreams, his innermost thoughts were, she could tell them.

Now that confidence was shaken, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.

It was still nagging at her as the five of them piled into the rental car Hayley had arranged the day before. Teague, as the shortest of the three men at a mere five-eleven, was relegated to the back seat while Quinn drove and Dane took the passenger seat. Hayley teased him gently about it, but Teague’s crooked grin never faltered.

“Hey, I’m back here with two beautiful ladies—seems like I’m the lucky one,” he said.

“Just remember who signs your paycheck,” Quinn said in clearly mock warning.

“Yep,” the irrepressible Teague retorted, “Charlie.”

Hayley laughed, and the easy camaraderie lightened even Kayla’s mood.

The town was close by, and it only took a few minutes to reach their destination. Kayla felt her pulse begin to pick up the moment she saw the sign for the game store. It looked like just the sort of place Chad would hang out. And when they stepped into the interior, with rows of the latest in games and equipment, and even a section for fan gear, it felt even more so.

The man behind the counter glanced at them, then put down the game controller he’d been inspecting. Light gleamed on a smooth, bald scalp fringed by silver hair. So much for the stereotype of gamers all being geeky fan boys, Kayla thought.