She heard Isaac curse, and then his arm slipped around her and he guided her toward the bathroom. Once there, he opened the door and quickly did a scan, ensuring no one else was in it. It was a single-occupant bathroom, a fact that obviously eased some of Isaac’s worry, and he quickly motioned Jenna and her mother in.
“You come get me if she needs me,” Isaac told her mother tersely.
“Of course I will,” she said in a soothing voice.
Jenna was just grateful to be inside the bathroom and out of view of customers inside the restaurant. She felt faint, but most of all the contents of her stomach felt as though they were trying to claw their way up her throat.
She rushed to the toilet and violently heaved. She put one hand down on the toilet seat to brace herself and wrapped her other arm around her waist in an effort to calm her rioting stomach.
She continued to heave until there was nothing left to come up. She felt so weak that she knew she’d never be able to walk back without Isaac’s help. And right now she wanted Isaac. Wanted his strong arms around her because he’d never let her fall.
She tried to right herself but lacked the strength. Her mother’s surprisingly strong grip helped her get to her feet and then Jenna murmured, shocked at how weak she felt and the slurring of her words, “Please get Isaac for me.”
To her ultimate shock, she saw a gun appear in her mother’s hand and then felt the cold metal of the barrel press bruisingly hard into her side.
“It’s not Isaac you’ll be going to see, Jenna, dear,” her mother said coldly. “There’s someone right outside that window who wants very much to see you.”
Jenna stared in shock at her mother, unable to comprehend what was going on.
“You can’t fight me,” she said dispassionately. “The button I scratched you with? I drugged you. You’re as weak as a kitten and if you don’t move fast, not only will I shoot you, but I’ll shoot your precious Isaac too, so if you don’t want him to die, then you’re coming with me through that window and you’re going to do it fast before he gets worried and barges in. Because if that happens? I kill him, Jenna. So get moving.”
She shoved Jenna toward the blind-covered window even as she shouted loud enough for Isaac to hear, “She’s okay, Isaac! Just getting cleaned up now. We’ll be out in a minute. She just needs to wash her face and get her bearings back.”
“Are you all right, Jenna?” Isaac called back, concern evident in his tone.
“Answer him,” her mother hissed. “And you’d better be convincing or he’s dead.”
Fear nearly made speech impossible. Her mind was cluttered with a million things, memories, brief snippets and fragments of long-ago events all coalescing into place.
“I’m okay, Isaac. We’ll be out in a minute.”
Her mother made quick work of the blinds and getting the window open and then she shoved Jenna out, following behind her. Jenna stumbled when her feet made contact with the ground, the drug making her unsteady and dizzy.
“Youkilled him,” she whispered. She lifted her stare and looked right into the eyes of evil. “You killed my father and you were the one who sold me to the cult,” she said hysterically.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DANEwas standing in front of the television, holding a cup of coffee in his hand, as he replayed the interview that had Jenna’s mother pleading for information about her long lost daughter. He didn’t know why he was so bothered by it. They’d checked her out, dug up every nonexistent skeleton from her past, and all they’d found was a woman who’d lost everything shortly after her daughter, Jenna, had turned four.
It wasn’t personal. It never was. Suspects were suspects until they weren’t. People were investigated and either found to be a source of use or not. So why did this woman stick in Dane’s craw so badly? What was it about her eyes that bothered him so damn much?
He was about to turn the television off when he heard Tori enter the room. But one look at Tori’s mask of horror, the fact that she’d gone rigid and her face had leached entirely of color, momentarily froze him.
“Who is she?” Tori demanded hysterically. “Who is the woman on the television?”
She ran to Dane, fighting him for the remote, kicking and hitting. Never had he seen her react this way to anything. He let go, letting her do what she wanted so desperately as she hit the button to turn the volume way up. But he walked up behind her and enclosed her in his arms, afraid she’d only become more violent and hurt herself.
“Tori, honey, it’s me, Dane. Talk to me. Talk to me right now. Tell me what’s going on. Who is this woman to you? You don’t understand how important this is. If you know something, you have to tell me right now.”
She whirled around, her eyes wild with so much fear that he hurt for her. “Who is she?” she screamed.
“Who is she to you?” Dane demanded, still holding her by the shoulders so she wouldn’t do anything crazy like run out of the safe house where he was keeping her completely hidden from the public—or private—eye.
“She’s the woman in my dream,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t you understand, Dane? She’s the woman I saw being shot to death but she wasn’t wearing that. God, if we can find out who she is, then we might actually be able to save her!”
Dale felt the blood drain from his own face as he stared back at Tori in horror. “Are you sure about this, Tori? You have no idea how important this is. That woman is Jenna’s mother, or the woman claiming to be her. Isaac took Jenna to meet her today. The footage you’re seeing is from several days ago when she made a public plea for help locating her missing daughter, and Jenna saw it.”
Tori’s mouth gaped open. “Oh my God, Dane. You have to tell them what I saw. You have to tell them now!”
