Maybe I should just let him go.
I let out a sigh as I flip the laptop open and pull up my email. I scroll through my messages, most of them bugging me about late payments and missed work deadlines. However, one catches my eye.
Subject: Is this Cade?
I double click the email from one of the three PIs I hired—and consequently no longer can afford to keep working. My brow furrows as it pulls up, and I grimace. The image is pixelated, and I squint at it as I blow it up. It’s just a blonde headed guy in a baseball hat, standing beside a man in a black cowboy hat.
My phone buzzes again in my pocket, and I pull it out, seeing the PI’s name on the screen. I take the call and put it to my ear.
“This is Jen.”
“Hey, it’s Parker,” he answers. “I know we’re not working together anymore since that last missed payment, but that surveillance picture pinged.”
I frown, staring at the image. “I can’t tell if it’s him.”
“Something in the software says that it is.”
I zoom in on the face of the guy with the baseball hat. It’s nothing but a messy blur. “This guy could be anyone.”
“Yeah…” Parker’s voice trails off for a few beats. “But here’s the thing about that. When I went digging into the area, it seems like a place a lot of…unsavorycharacters end up—most with military backgrounds. I hit a brick wall as soon as I found that.”
My heart flipflops in my chest. “Which means someone purposefully is keeping you out.”
“Or I’m shitty at my job,” he chuckles on the other end of the phone. “That’s a possibility, too. Though my ego would like to say otherwise.”
I don’t laugh at his stupid joke. I’m too busy scrolling outward and taking in the sight of the man beside my presumed brother. “Do you have an ID on the other guy? The one in the cowboy hat?”
“Uh…” I hear clicking on the other end of the line. “No. He doesn’t seem to register in any databases, and honestly, I need another payment if I’m going to start digging further.”
There it is. More money.
“I already explained that I’m out of funds. There’s no more savings for me to dip into. I’ve ran them all dry.”
“Then it looks like it’s time for you to call it. Maybe it’s better to let it go and let the Marshals and NCIS sort it out. I don’t know if you should be getting tangled with your brother. I saw part of his file…”
“It was a training accident,” I shake my head, feeling the lie spill from my lips with an ease that makes my stomach nauseous. “He didn’t kill those guys. He’d never do that.”
“Um, okay.” Parker smartly lets it die. “Well then, best of luck to you, Jenna. I hope that you can figure it out.”
I open my mouth to thank him, but the line goes dead before I get my chance. I pull the phone away from my ear, and then set it on the table, screen facing up. I turn my attention back to the picture, zooming all the way out.
Colorado.I read the location.Why would Cade go to Colorado? And why would he be on a college campus?
I pull up a new browser tab and search the small community college. It’s nothing special. The area is rural and isn’t in the part of the state that draws tourists and transplants.
“Which would make it a great place to hide,” I mumble under my breath. Mix that with the little bit of information that Parker pulled about the military, shady characters…
He could have connections. It could make sense.
And honestly, it’s the only thing I have to go off.
I scroll a ways down on the college page, and then pause, an ad for an interim professor for the literature class catching my eye. My heart is in my throat as I click for more details.
I have no degree. I have no real experience. But if there’s one thing, I’m really good at…
It’s pretending to be someone I’m not.
And if that’s what it takes to fund the next part of my search, then so be it.
