She studied the monitor for a moment before shaking her head. “No. I’m sure of it. It’s like she’s a doppelganger, but it’s definitely not Anna.”
“That answers one question, but poses a lot of others,” Darwin said. “Like who is this woman taking Anna’s place and how did she get Anna’s credit card? Did Fredrickson realize he was buying a plane ticket for a decoy? Does this have something to do with what Anna overheard with her employer, and most importantly, where is Anna now?”
“Is she even still alive or have they killed her already?” Talia asked worriedly.
“We’ll assume she’s alive until we know for sure one way or another,” Lennox said firmly.
They spent the next few minutes brainstorming the answers to those questions—or more precisely, how they could find those answers. In the end, they realized they had very few options. They simply didn’t know enough yet.
“Can’t we take this video clip to Detective Green?” Talia asked. “I mean, doesn’t this prove that I was right about Anna being in trouble? He might not be great at his job, but even he isn’t clueless enough to ignore this, right?”
Kyla took another sip of coffee then let out a sigh. “I’d agree if it wasn’t for the fact that we should probably consider Detective Green a suspect in all this. The way he was soquick to dismiss your concerns and sanitize the police report is suspicious at best.”
Talia’s shoulders sagged a little at that, but she nodded. “As wild as it is to think a cop with the San Diego Police Department might be involved with whatever’s going on, I see your point. So, if we don’t involve the cops, whatcanwe do?”
“Quite a few things,” Kyla said. “Step one, I start digging into Anna’s background and see if she was involved in anything that could explain why she’s missing. Step two, I’ll begin a state-wide facial recognition scan for her. Maybe we’ll get lucky with that. Third, I’ll look into Detective Green and the Fredrickson family to see if I can find a connection between them. Finally, I’ll snoop around the families the other au pairs work for to see if you ladies were right and there is something nefarious going on.”
Talia stood there looking stunned. Lennox couldn’t blame her. Kyla had just volunteered to mount a huge investigation on their behalf, based on little more than a whiff of suspicion.
“Naval Intelligence would do all of that for me?” Talia finally asked in amazement.
“No,” Kyla said, turning to her with a smile. “But I will. And that’s the only thing that matters.”
Talia’s eyes misted with tears, and she blinked them away, leaning forward to hug Kyla. “Thank you.”
“While you’re doing all this digging, what can the rest of us do to help?” Lennox asked.
Kyla looked at him, then Wes, and finally at Darwin and Colt. “You guys have the most important job—keeping Talia safe. Because until we figure out why that man came after her last night, we have to assume he’s going to do it again.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Talia sat in the passenger seat of Lennox’s F-150 King Ranch pickup, her head spinning at that morning’s revelations. Not only had Anna not gone home to Bolivia, but her employer, John Fredrickson, was apparently involved in the ruse to make it look like she had. He might even have killed her. Was Fredrickson also responsible for the man who chased Talia last night? Or did it have something to do with the men Anna had heard threatening Fredrickson?
Then there was the stuff Kyla had said about that scary guy from last night coming after Talia again. The mere possibility had her rattled so much she could barely think straight.
“I thought Maria was going to be at a friend’s house the whole weekend,” Lennox said, driving through the perpetually heavy traffic along Interstate 5. “Did something change?”
“No,” Talia said, appreciating Lennox’s effort to distract her when she was obviously on the verge of spinning out of control. “Maria is spending the weekend with her best friend, Beverly McDaniel, but it was always the plan that Maria, Beverly, and their friends would go to Legoland this morning. Anna was supposed to help chaperon the kids, and with her missing, they called and asked if I could help instead. I hope you don’t mind that I said okay?”
“Definitely not,” Lennox said. “I don’t have kids, so I never get to go to Legoland. This is my chance to act like a kid myself. I’m not turning my nose up at it.”
“And here I thought you were coming just to keep an eye on me,” Talia said with a laugh, having a hard time not loving the boyish energy coming off a big Navy SEAL like Lennox.
“Oh, yeah. That too!” he assured her even as he tried to hide his eagerness. “But there’s no reason I can’t have a little fun at the same time, right?”
“Right,” Talia said, feeling the smile spread across her face as Lennox continued the drive northward. “Well, I have no doubt Maria will enjoy having you there. She asks about you all the time.”
From the corner of her eye, Talia saw Lennox grinning like a goofball. He and Maria had only seen each other a few times, but when he’d saved her and her older sister, as well as Talia, from bad guys at the zoo a while ago, it had definitely made an impression. Maria now considered Lennox to be an older brother slash personal superhero. Maria was also positive that Talia and Lennox should date because they “looked good together.” Like a six-year-old knew enough to make that kind of assessment.
Talia was still thinking about how silly kids could be as Lennox took the exit off the interstate, turning toward the Legoland parking lot off Airport Road. To a kid like Maria, the only thing that mattered was that Lennox was funny and liked to tell jokes. The fact that he was a Navy SEAL and therefore never around didn’t mean anything to a little girl who saw her parents on a regular basis.
It wasn’t difficult to find Maria once they arrived at the front gate area of the park. She was the precious blonde-haired girl standing in the middle of a group of other similarly agedkids jumping up and down in excitement as their au pairs waited patiently several feet away.
“Lennox!” Maria suddenly screamed at the top of her small, six-year-old lungs, taking off running in their direction like an Olympic sprinter. She might be little, but she was very fast for her size.
Maria ran into Lennox like a tiny freight train, almost bouncing off before he reached down to pick her up and spin her around, laughing as much as she was.
“I didn’t know you were bringing Lennox,” Maria said, turning toward Talia the moment she was on the ground, energy bubbling out of her as she hugged Talia. “Does that mean you guys are dating now? OMG! Are you married already?”
