“What other secrets?”
“I’ve been wondering lately… What if your birth mother was still alive?”
I nearly choked on my coffee. I wiped my lips with a napkin and gaped at Nico. “What? Where are you going with this?”
He held up a hand. “Hear me out. Right at the end, he told us that he’d been in love with her. Once your birth father was dead, he may have hidden her away to keep her safe. If he loved her as much as he said he did, he might have orchestrated her death to get the royals to stop trying to find her.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Nico, I feel like you're grasping at straws here.”
“Sure, it’s a long shot. Except, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. You were there. You saw what Kenneth was like when he talked about her. He didn’t seem heartbroken or grieving—it was more like there was a longing in his tone when he talked about her. As though she wasn’tgone, just out of reach. It feels like it could be right.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say we do believe she’s alive. What’s the move? If Kenneth hid her so well that the entire world thinks she’s dead, how do we find her?”
“We’ve got her picture and her name from the yearbook. The royals think she’s dead, which means they wouldn’t have been looking for her. After all these years, she may have become lesswary of being found. I bet Luis would have a good chance at locating her if we really went all in on this.”
From his enthusiastic tone, it sounded like Nico had been thinking about this for a few days. I had to admit the idea made me nervous and eager at the same time. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but we had nothing else to go on.
“I really think that she may have some answers about your wolf and why she’s acting the way she is. If your dad had some knowledge, he probably shared it with her. He was closer to your birth mother than anyone, even Kenneth.”
It did seem like a last-ditch effort, but I didn’t know what else we could do. We’d exhausted every other option. I shrugged. “Okay. Let’s see what we can find.”
We finished our drinks and snacks before heading back home. After getting our computers, we searched using the name we had. We turned up over a dozen different Gabriella Karsons, but every time we were able to pull up a picture, it looked nothing like the beautiful young woman from the yearbook photo. Then we decided to try different combinations of her name and my birth father’s name. The variations went on and on. Gabriella Davids, Gabby Samuelson, Karson Samuels. We even tried crazy things like Davidina Gabriella. No luck.
Hours later, I flopped down on the couch, a headache forming behind my eyes. “This is a waste of time, Nico. She’s dead. We have to admit that.”
“No, I don’t think so. Maybe we aren’t thinking about it the right way.”
“If she was alive and Kenneth loved her as much as he said, I doubt he’d have stayed away from her for long stretches…” I trailed off, an idea forming.
“What are you thinking?” Nico asked, obviously seeing the look on my face.
“Kenneth had that safe house in Europe, but where did he stay when he was in America? If she’s alive, he’d have wanted to be close to her.”
Nico grabbed his phone. “Let me call Luis. He had the most contact with him while they were searching for the vault.”
I walked over, listening to the phone ring.
Luis finally answered. “This is Luis. What’s up?”
“Hey, I’m here with Maddy, and we have a question,” Nico said.
“Okay, what’ve you got?”
“When you were working with Kenneth, did you get any info on where he lived while he was in the states?”
“Well, if you recall, I was searching for him before he came strolling into the bar of his own accord. I’d found some traces of him in Tampa. That’s where I’d been looking.”
“Did you ever pinpoint his location?” I asked.
“Nope. Once he revealed himself, I gave up. No reason to keep looking when he was right there. I don't know if he lived rightinsideTampa, but he had to be close. The fact that he’d heard we were looking for him means he couldn’t have been too far removed from my search area. Are you guys working on something?”
Nico chewed his lower lip and looked at me questioningly. I gave him a nod to go on. “We think, maybe, Maddy’s birth mother might still be alive. I’ve got a theory that Kenneth hid her away and faked her death to keep her safe.”
“Oh shit. Seriously?” Luis asked.
“Like I said, it’s only a theory, but we want to run it down. One way or another, we need to know for sure,” Nico said.
“Okay. I’m more than happy to keep running down leads. If she’s alive, I'm pretty confident I can find her. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty damned good at what I do.”
