Identity Withheld Read online

  Another car rumbled by on the street, and Jake herded her toward his parents’ side door, his body shielding her from view of the road. “C’mon, sport,” he called over his shoulder to Tommy. “I’m sure Gran has lunch about ready.”

  Kara breathed a relieved sigh at the sight of leftover turkey, ham and sandwich fixings spread on the table. Jake wouldn’t pursue his questions in front of Tommy and his parents, and the reprieve would give her time to figure out what to do. “Oh, this looks wonderful, Mrs. Steele. Let me just get cleaned up and I’ll be right back.”

  Jake stepped in front of the stairs, blocking her escape. “After lunch, we need to finish our conversation, okay?”

  She tilted back her head to meet his gaze. He was a lot taller than she’d realized, at least a couple of inches over six feet. And to anyone else, with the way his muscular arms and shoulders strained at his fire department T-shirt, he probably looked downright intimidating, but she couldn’t shake the image of those strong arms cuddling his sleeping son last night, or the warmth of his touch as he’d prayed for her. Deep down, she knew that he wouldn’t force her to tell him anything she wasn’t ready to, even as frustrated as he clearly was with her reticence.

  She nodded and raced upstairs, leaving him to field his mother’s questions about the tear in her slacks and the dog’s escape.

  As she quickly scrubbed her hands, she reviewed her options. She didn’t dare try dialing the marshal’s number again. If the bad guys hadn’t actually caused Ray’s accident, at the very least they had to be tapping his phone, or else how would they have found her at the truck stop so soon after her call? And returning to the truck stop was out, which meant she’d have to break one of the marshal’s cardinal rules, because now that she’d thrown away her phone, and her house was uninhabitable, the marshal’s office had absolutely no idea where to find her, unless she initiated contact. That had to be safer than confiding in Jake. After all, how could Jake really help her, except to give her a place to hide for a couple of days?

  She couldn’t stay in hiding forever. And now that the bad guys knew she hadn’t left the area, as a sane person would have done, they’d be combing every back alley for her.

  Except...what about this P.I. Jake mentioned? Had the adoption ring hired him, too?

  It didn’t make sense when they’d already found her. When they’d already burned down her house! Unless they figured they didn’t want their own guys asking the police questions. Yeah, that had to be it, because otherwise the police would be able to identify them later when she turned up dead.

  Her insides lurched. Water splashed on her sleeves and chest. She snapped off the tap, clutched the edge of the sink. Lord, I can’t do this alone. Please. Slowly, the infernal shaking eased. She drew a deep breath, then another. Please, Lord, connect me with a marshal who can get me out of here.

  She dried her hands and peeled off her now-damp hoodie. As she tossed it into the bedroom she’d used last night, she scanned the dresser top and night table for a phone. None. The doors to the other upstairs rooms were closed, and she didn’t feel right about snooping around for a phone, especially when everyone might be waiting for her downstairs. No, she’d make the call after lunch. She was pretty sure she’d seen a cordless phone in the kitchen. She could take it into the bathroom to make the call, where she wouldn’t be overheard.

  As she returned to the kitchen, Mr. Steele set a plate on the counter and stole a kiss from his wife. Her heart kicked longingly at the sight. In all her growing-up years, she’d never seen her dad playfully steal a kiss. She remembered the day Clark did. They were unpacking a picnic lunch she’d made, and his spontaneous show of affection had made something shift inside her. She’d let herself start thinking that maybe he was different from other men—men like her father, who only cared about their careers. She should’ve known better. If there’d been one good thing about her becoming entangled in this whole adoption ring nightmare, it was that it let her see Clark’s true colors before she made a fateful mistake.

  “Look, Miss Kara, I spelled your name,” Tommy shouted gleefully from the table, where he sat with his dad arranging plastic letters into words. “K-aaa-rrr-aaa,” he sounded out.

  “Wow! That’s very good, Tommy.”

  Jake’s gaze lifted to hers with a fatherly pride that made her heart flutter. How differently might she have thought of herself if she’d ever seen that look in her own father’s eyes? Jake was a good man.

  Tommy peered up at her, his forehead wrinkling. “Hey, your eyes turned blue like mine and Daddy’s.”

  “Wow, you’re observant,” she said, with as upbeat a tone as she could muster with Mr. Steele looking to Jake, one eyebrow cocked and Mrs. Steele stealing a peek at her eyes. “I was wearing colored contacts before,” she explained. “I thought it might be a fun change for a while.”

  “Cool.”

  Kara shifted her attention to the letters on the table and slipped into the seat on Tommy’s other side. “What else can you spell?”

  Tommy quickly rearranged the letters. “Mommy. My mommy’s in heaven. Right, Dad?”

  Jake gave his son a sideways hug and kissed the top of his head. “That’s right.” His voice cracked. “But she loves you very much.”

  “And she doesn’t want me to be sad that she can’t be here,” Tommy said matter-of-factly, as if this was a subject they’d discussed many times.

  Unlike his dad, Tommy didn’t seem upset by the loss, and Kara wondered how long ago his mother had died. She couldn’t help but admire how hard Jake clearly worked to ensure his son knew how much his mother had loved him.

  Mr. Steele prayed for the meal and steered the discussion toward happier subjects. He and his wife shared snippets of the Alaskan cruise they’d taken that past summer to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary, and laughed at how Jake’s brother had fallen in love with the woman he’d been on the cruise to gather evidence against.

  “Really?” Kara sneaked a glance at Jake. When he’d asked Sam to keep her name out of the report, she’d sensed more was being said than what was spoken. Had Jake won his brother’s acquiescence by letting him believe he had feelings for her?

  “She was innocent.” Jake popped his last bit of sandwich in his mouth and winked. “The Lord brings people together in mysterious ways.”

  Jake’s wink, or maybe the intimation in his tone, unleashed a flurry of butterflies in Kara’s middle that she needed to ignore. He couldn’t have meant what it sounded as though he meant, as if maybe the Lord had brought them together.

  She was overwrought, sleep deprived, practically out of her mind with panic not knowing what to do. He’d just been talking about his brother. Or maybe, just implying she should accept his help, considering how God kept allowing him to come to her rescue. Yeah, that had to be it. Because he was clearly not over his wife.

  Not that it would matter, because she would be leaving soon. Very soon. As soon as she got hold of the marshal’s office.

  Eyeing the phone, she pushed her chair back from the table. But at the same moment, the side door burst open and Sam strode in.

  “Uncle Sam,” Tommy squealed and catapulted into his uncle’s arms.

  “What are you doing here?” Jake said. “I thought we were going to work on the fence tomorrow.” Jake stiffened and Kara tracked his gaze to the newspaper tucked under Sam’s arm.

  Oh. No.

  “Goody! Can I help?” Tommy shouted.

  Sam set the boy down. “In a little while. Maybe Miss Grant can read you a few books while your dad and I take care of the hard stuff first.”

  Kara’s blood turned to ice at his use of her last name—a name that neither she nor Jake had mentioned at the truck stop. A name that according to Jake hadn’t been in the paper either. Which meant Sam—former FBI agent Sam—had been doing his homework.

 
“Do you mind?” Jake looked at her apologetically, and it took her a couple of seconds to clue in to his request.

  But how much had Sam discovered? What was he here to do? Why did he want to talk to Jake and not her? Or more important, why did he want to talk to Jake without her?

  EIGHT

  “I’ll be out in a second.” Jake pushed Sam outside with his dad as his mother cleared the kitchen table. He hadn’t missed the way Kara had tensed the instant she’d spotted the newspaper in Sam’s hand. And he had a bad feeling any trust he’d gained during their conversation in the truck would be lost the longer he stood outside talking to his cop brother. Jake hovered at the doorway to the living room, where Kara and Tommy had settled into the recliner.

  She didn’t look as if she’d bolt before he returned. Aside from Sam’s fiancée, he’d never met a woman who interacted with his son so naturally and who Tommy had taken to so unreservedly. Even the dog was smitten. Rusty snuggled up against the chair and laid his head on the armrest, nuzzling her arm until she scratched his neck.

  The sun glistened through the window, creating a halo effect around them that would’ve made a stunning picture. His mind drifted back to their shared prayer in the truck. He’d felt ten feet tall when he’d taken her hand in his and her trembling had finally eased. If they’d had a few more undisturbed moments, he was certain she would have confided in him.

  Tommy held up his Are You My Mother? book, and Jake’s heart clenched.

  His son was growing too attached to a woman who he was pretty sure didn’t plan on sticking around. Jake fingered the P.I.’s business card and wondered for the hundredth time if he’d been an idiot to invite her here at all.

  The kind of jerk who came after a fleeing woman wouldn’t think twice about collateral damage. Except...since Sam had clearly figured out that Kara wasn’t just a houseguest, maybe he would run a background check on the P.I. for him, see if the guy was even legit. A P.I. with any kind of morals wouldn’t help an attacker locate his prey. He might even disclose his client’s name once informed of why the guy really wanted to find her.

  Yeah, maybe Sam finding out who Kara was wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  Jake quietly backed away from the doorway, and, ignoring the glint in his mother’s eye, slipped outside.

  Sam dropped the pile of fence poles he’d been moving and wasted no time getting to the point. He snagged the newspaper from his back pocket and slapped it into Jake’s hand. “Why didn’t you tell me she was the arson victim?”

  “It didn’t seem relevant.”

  Sam’s eyeballs actually bulged. “Excuse me? Yesterday someone burns down her house, and today someone tries to grab her, and you don’t think they’re connected?”

  Dad’s gaze bobbed from Sam to Jake. “Someone tried to grab her? Was it the gunman from the coffee shop?”

  “What? She’s connected to that, too?” Sam shot Dad a flabbergasted look. “You knew someone was after her and you let her sleep under your roof?”

  “Of course.” Dad crossed his arms, straightening to his full height, which put him eyeball to eyeball with Sam. “It was probably the safest place for her to be.”

  “Safe for her, maybe,” Sam said through gritted teeth. “Until this creep tracks her here. Then none of you will be safe.”

  Dad let out an indignant snort and snapped the tape measure to the last fence post they’d erected. “I was a cop for over forty years.” He marked the spot for the next hole. “I’m not about to let an irate ex-boyfriend, or whatever he is, scare me out of helping a woman in need.”

  Sam planted his hands on his hips and glared at Jake. “Is that who you told him was after her? An abusive boyfriend?”

  Jake plowed his hands through his hair. “I don’t know who’s after her. That was my guess, because last night when I found her running from someone in the hospital parking lot, she had the same look April’s mother had when her husband threatened her.”

  “Okay, wait a minute.” Sam tamped the air as if that would cool everyone’s rising tempers. “You’re telling me you’ve seen this guy before?”

  Jake shrugged. “I didn’t get a look at the guy in the hospital parking lot. But yeah, the guy I saw this afternoon looked like he could’ve been the gunman from the coffee shop last night.”

  “And you didn’t think you needed to tell me that?”

  “Shh.” Dad patted the air this time, darting glances to the neighbors’ yards.

  “The guy shanked two of our deputies,” Sam hissed.

  Jake blew out a breath. “I know. But my father-in-law was a cop, too. Remember?” He clenched the newspaper in his fist. “And Kara seems petrified of the police knowing where she is, so I figured that if I had any hope of winning her trust, I needed to help her stay below the radar.”

  “Below the radar?” Sam’s voice shot up again. “For all you know, you’re aiding and abetting a criminal!”

  “She’s not a criminal,” Jake said firmly.

  “Definitely not,” Dad agreed. “I’ve seen all kinds over the years. Kara’s not one.”

  Sam picked up the auger and drove it into the dirt with anger-charged jerks. “I can’t believe you condoned him not even telling the sheriff where she was.”

  Jake’s heart slammed into his ribs. He grabbed Sam’s shoulder. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

  “Of course not.” Sam yanked free of Jake’s hold and jabbed a finger into his shoulder. “But you need to.”

  Jake pulled the P.I.’s business card from his pocket. “Can you do me a favor, first, and find out who this guy is and why he wants to find Kara?”

  Sam scanned the card. “A P.I.? Where’d you get this?”

  “Or so he claims.” Jake told him the guy’s story as Sam jotted down the contact information, then added, “I think Kara might be ready to tell me what’s really going on. At least she seemed to be, until you showed up. She’d agreed to talk after lunch.”

  Sam glanced at the house, then went back to auguring. “What do you know already?”

  “At the fire, she kept saying she had to get to the coffee shop to meet a friend. But when I found her after the gunman had shown up, she didn’t seem to have a friend in the world. I know she’s petrified of someone finding her. Whether he’s her so-called friend, I don’t know. But she even dumped her cell phone for fear he could use it to track her.”

  Dad grimaced. “She was probably right.”

  “Shoot, why didn’t I think—” Jake pulled out his cell phone and dialed the sheriff’s number. “Hey, Sheriff, it’s Jake Steele.”

  Before Jake could ask his question, the sheriff launched into a full description of what they’d found in the cellar of Kara’s house. “The fire marshal says that both the type of string used as a trailer and the brand of candles were different from in the other four fires. Those details were never reported in the news, which makes him confident we’re dealing with a copycat.”

  Which meant not only did Kara have a sicko after her, there was another sicko out there, likely planning his next arson for inside of a week, if he kept to the same schedule. “Let’s hope this copycat’s stab at the limelight hasn’t ticked our first guy off, or chances are his next fire will be scarier than ever.”

  “Yeah, the fire marshal said the same thing. This fire’s looking more and more like an effort to bilk the insurance company, and I’m not convinced that our missing victim didn’t have a hand in it.”

  Seeing his opening, Jake jumped in with the reason he’d called in the first place. “Did you happen to check Kara’s phone? Find out who she called last night?”

  “Yeah, and that’s what has me even more suspicious of her. She called the same number four times. Unfortunately, we can’t get an ID on who it belongs to. But the first call went out only minutes before the 9-1-1 call for
the fire. And one was a text message that said, ‘I’m at the coffee shop. Where are you?’”

  Jake restrained a groan. With two deputies injured by the gunman, it was no wonder the sheriff had his sights set on a woman who’d been waiting for someone at the same coffee shop. And if he knew Jake was keeping her whereabouts from him...Tommy could be visiting his dad in jail.

  He had to convince Kara to come clean with what was really going on, or he’d have no choice but to turn her in.

  “I found out where she works from her landlady,” the sheriff went on. “Her boss had no qualms sharing her schedule with us, so I should have her in custody by Monday morning. I appreciate your help on this. You may want to check in with the fire marshal, but I don’t think this particular fire investigation will be of any more interest to you.”

  Right. If he only knew.

  * * *

  Kara let the curtain slip back into place as Tommy and Rusty bounded out the door. If the rigidness in Jake’s posture was anything to go by, he hadn’t been happy with whatever Sam had to say. But more worrisome was the sight of him on the phone as he’d crushed her picture in his fist.

  Mrs. Steele headed upstairs with a laundry basket and Kara snatched up the kitchen’s cordless phone. She locked herself in the main floor bathroom, and then realized she didn’t know the number or know where the Steeles kept a phone book, and the landline didn’t have the option of going on the internet to check.

  The slap of the screen door rattled the windows. Great, someone was coming inside. Now what?

  She could call the operator for the number, but then she wouldn’t be able to block her number from being seen.