After seeing her broken and bandaged in that hospital months ago, I’m more sure than ever she’s going to want to come back here to hide out, to breathe in open space. I wish I had taken her right then and there, but she needed time. That was my mistake. I lost her after that, and I haven’t been able to find her again. It’s starting to piss me off because no one hides from me for long.
“There was a Jane Doe in a hospital in Seattle for the last several months. Now she’s been discharged, and the hospital will only say she’s no longer a patient. What the hell am I supposed to do?” Thad throws a pen down onto his desk and slams back his chair.
I never told him I saw Jane Doe, or that she’s Stormy. He’s going to be pissed when I tell him. But when I found the information last night that she’d been discharged recently, I was pissed. We’ve been contacting hospitals all over the West Coast, but no one wants to help us because of HIPPA. I could hack into the systems and find what we need, but my boss, Cronus, has me on a short leash. He says I can’t break the law to help find her. I know it’s because some oversight committee is looking closely at us, and he doesn’t want to give them a reason to dig deeper. That’s what I hate about working for the government, but I have no choice. I can’t leave them.
I’ve always had a knack for computers, but when I was twenty-two, I screwed up in the worst way. I hacked into what was supposed to be the most secure network in the United States, and I didn’t stop there. I accessed my brother’s Army records, trying to find him. He hadn’t called in weeks, and I was worried. As his big brother, it was my job to watch over him. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t so careful, and I was caught.
My brother still has no clue what I did. For one, it’s a national security problem. I hacked the Pentagon and the Department of the Army. Since that day, I’ve been basically on house arrest with a National Security Agency group called the Unknowns. We have a motorcycle club that caters to former military and law enforcement guys. Our leader, Cronus, is the founder and president of the Drago Defiance Tennessee chapter. I’m now the president of the Alaska chapter.
My brother, Klay, or Reaper, as he goes by for his biker name, is out of the Army and retired from the ATF. He’s a tattoo artist and owns a shop next door to us. He doesn’t stray far from his wife, just like Thad. He helps out with our private investigation company too.
Most of the men who join the Drago Defiance MC think we are just a regular club. They don’t know that the guys with Greek mythological road names are still operatives. My real name is Atlas, so being called Titan fit me perfectly. Lately, I haven’t been going on ops or getting called in because I’ve been searching for Poison, or Stormy as her family calls her. I found out her real name is Virginia, but she doesn’t care for it and goes by her middle name. That’s how I knew, when I called her Stormy before Maisy broke up the conversation, that she was lying about who she is.
After our brief encounter a few months ago, I’m more certain than ever that she is meant to be mine. I don’t care that she’s younger than me. I know she’s been through a lot. I’ll be there as she heals, and I’ll take care of her. I don’t want to rush her into a relationship, but I’ll do whatever is necessary to protect her. Even if that means not telling her family that I’ll be keeping her or that I know she’s the Jane Doe in Seattle.
“I’ll pull some security feeds from around the hospitals and see if I can get some images. Maybe it’s her, and we can find out where she’s headed now that she’s been discharged. We won’t need to call the hospital,” I offer Thad.
He’s a former Alaska State Trooper and was a helicopter pilot in the Army before that. He quit the Troopers when they cold-case filed his sister’s case. Stormy is his baby sister, and I understand his hurt. Look at what I did for my younger brother. I have a life sentence for him.
My heavy boots clomp against the hardwood floor as I move down the hall to the last office on the left. It’s the largest one, but I need it. All my gear takes up a lot of space. I wave as I pass Hermes’s office, and he gives me a nod while on the phone. I bet he’s talking to the boss.
Hermes is also a recent transplant to Alaska. He has to go wherever I go because he’s not only the Sergeant at Arms of the local Drago Defiance, he’s also the man who makes sure I don’t disappear. He’s kind of like my babysitter. He reminds me every day that my life is not my own.
Don’t get me wrong, I trust him with my back. He’s become a very close friend, a brother even, but he’s also the man who will lock me down if I try to take off.
Too many times since Poison was taken, I’ve contemplated just leaving. It wasn’t until Cronus decided to open a chapter here and told me I could use my time to find her that I stayed. But my gut tells me he’s going to pull me back into the fold for another operation soon. My trip to Portland was just to gather intel on a man we’re investigating for human trafficking, slavery, and a handful of other charges, including rape and murder.
As soon as I enter my office, I press my hand to the biometric scanner and hear the bolts slide into place. I lock myself in.
Ever since Cronus called a couple of days ago for a status update, I’ve had the feeling he’s going to give up, just like the troopers and so many other law enforcement organizations have. They all assume that because we haven’t gotten any traction from the press conference back in February, she’s either dead or buried so deep in the life of a slave that no one can save her.
My fingers fly over the keyboard as I open programs and raise the wall of monitors in front of me to start the visual searches. I pull up the document Thad created, with dates of admission or suspected dates, and combine it with the information I already have on Jane Doe. I start at the most recent and work backward from there.
Music blares from my speakers while my headphones sit half on my head, feeding me soundbites from the footage.
It takes hours, but I finally find a camera that might have something. I watch two women walk out of a rehab hospital. One is short, barely five feet, and the other is a few inches taller, maybe five four. That’s one checkmark on the list of Stormy’s descriptions.
I glance up at her image from the file Thad started. Next to it is a photo from her time at the Keller Clubhouse Saloon. Riddler owns the place, and Stormy managed it. She earned that title by being one of the best bartenders around and by caring for the property like it was her own. She worked there before Riddler’s dad was killed by a serial killer trying to get Riddler’s attention.
The second image is my favorite. It’s from the saloon’s reopening. She’s wearing tight as fuck leather pants and a tank top that shows the swell of her breasts. Her deep purple hair shines in the lights overhead, and her cheeks are rosy from alcohol and working hard. But it’s her beautiful blue eyes that call me in. I see promise in them. Potential. A spark of life that hadn’t yet been touched by real darkness.
I shift my attention back to the footage and zoom in until it’s almost distorted. I can’t make out her hair color because the feed is black and white, and her hair is hidden under a stocking cap with a short bill, cocked slightly to the side. She moves with a faint limp. Even through the grainy footage, I can tell she’s thin under the baggy sweatpants and oversized hoodie.
She keeps her head down, but it could be her. I want to believe it is, and something in my gut tells me I’m right. I know her face has changed from plastic surgery, and the sunglasses hide what I really need to see. I’d know her eyes anywhere.
I focus on her companion next. Petite and young, with long dark hair, pale skin, and full lips. She keeps glancing around, like she’s expecting someone to jump out at them. That’s little Maisy. I found them again. Thank goodness.
I watch as they climb into a nondescript sedan, but the camera didn’t catch the license plate.
Now to work my way backward. We know Jane Doe was discharged from the hospital five weeks before leaving the rehab facility. I pull up cameras in the area and start searching. I spot them exiting the hospital. Maisy heads to a car while Jane Doe is loaded into a van. She’s in a wheelchair, one leg and one arm in casts, her face wrapped in gauze.
She looks up once, and I freeze the frame. It’s her. Stormy’s pale eyes stare back at me through the gauze, hidden behind glasses. She never left the hospital. They hid her from everyone.
I shove away from my desk, drop my headphones, and head for the door. Alerts flash across the screen notifying me that Thad, Hermes, and even my brother, Klay, have all tried to get in to see me, but I ignore them. There’s only one person I need answers from. Riddler.
I leave my jacket and storm out. The receptionist calls after me, but I don’t slow down. I have to know if Stormy ever wore glasses. Her eyes were covered in the hospital. Maybe she sustained some kind of damage.
Out here, traffic is light. I don’t even have to pause to cross the highway. I head for Riddler’s office at her shop. Riddler doesn’t just own the saloon, she also runs a car and motorcycle restoration business. The sun beats down from above, and when I glance at my watch, I realize it’s already two in the afternoon.
