Garrett leaned forward, but before he could speak Isla’s fingers were already flying over the keys. She tapped once more,then looked up at him, her eyes sharp. “I have him. Daniel’s current address.” Isla glanced up from her laptop. “He’s listed as a musician. Plays local venues. Lives in a converted warehouse loft in San Antonio.”
On the speaker, Raines cut in. “Text me the address so I can meet you there. How soon can you leave?”
Garrett glanced at Isla, and they spoke at the same time. “Now.”
Chapter Fourteen
With Garrett hurrying out of the house with her, Isla forwarded the address to Sheriff Raines, and then she slid into the passenger seat of the SUV. Garrett started the engine, and by the time he backed out of the drive, she already had the warehouse location plugged into the GPS.
Thirty minutes.
She balanced her laptop on her knees, fingers flying over the keys. “Daniel Cole,” she murmured, scrolling. “He’s a musician. Guitar mostly, but he sings too. Rock-blues.”
Garrett’s jaw flexed as he kept his eyes on the road. “Successful?”
“More than I expected,” she said, scanning another page. “He plays clubs in San Antonio and Austin. A growing following online. He’s had a couple of songs get picked up for streaming playlists.” She paused, frowning at another hit. “Looks like he’s played some pretty big gigs in the last year.”
Garrett cut her a quick glance. “So he’s not hiding in the shadows.”
“No.” Her throat tightened as she kept reading. “He lives in a converted warehouse downtown. An artist’s loft type of thing.Wide open space, probably with a stage set up for practice or performances.”
Her hand trembled a little as she shut the laptop. She pressed it to her chest, as though bracing herself. A groan slipped out before she could stop it. “Garrett… this is him. We’ve found Harris.”
The silence stretched between them, thick with everything that had just shifted. Garrett reached across the console and wrapped his fingers around hers, a gentle squeeze that sent the heat of his emotions straight into her.
Isla blinked hard, her throat tight, and she let herself lean into the comfort for a moment. Relief, sharp and raw, welled in her chest. They had found him. After all these years, they had actually found Harris.
She gave Garrett’s hand a final squeeze before slipping free to return to her laptop. Work steadied her, always had. Her fingers danced over the keys as she pulled up Daniel’s social media. Post after post rolled across the screen. Videos of him performing. Photos with bandmates. Comments from fans.
But something was missing.
“There’s nothing here to indicate he knows who he really is,” she said quietly. “To him, he’s Daniel Cole. That’s it.”
She scrolled further, then stopped, staring at the smiling face in one of the photos. A young man who looked free, unburdened.
Her chest tightened again. “Why didn’t Leah stop pretending after a few years? Why didn’t she just… adopt him? Claim him openly?”
“Because she was probably afraid,” he answered. “She had to know the risk. If she’d tried to make it official, someone would have traced it back to the abduction. And then she would have gone to prison.” He paused. “Anything online about his relationship with his mom? With Marion?”
Isla quickly searched through posts, mentions, interviews. “Nothing,” she said after a beat. “No photos with her. No mentions.” She stopped and cursed softly, the weight of it pressing in. “The sun’s barely up. We’re about to drag him out of bed and drop this on him. How do you think he’ll react?”
Garrett’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I don’t know,” he admitted. His jaw flexed, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “But this is just the beginning. At some point, he’ll also have to know about his mother’s death.”
Isla sat in silence for a while, her thoughts circling, pulling at loose threads until something snagged. She glanced at Garrett.
“What if Marion wasn’t Leah?” she asked. “What if Leah, or Randall, or even Paula hired someone to pose as Daniel’s mother?”
Garrett let out a low groan. “Text the nanny. Send her photos of all three and ask if she recognizes them. Copy Raines so he’s in the loop.”
“On it.” Isla’s fingers flew over her phone, attaching headshots of Leah, Randall, and Paula before hitting send.
Then came the waiting. Every minute stretched long, the SUV filled with nothing but the hum of the tires on asphalt and the steady rhythm of Garrett’s breathing beside her.
Finally, her phone pinged. Isla’s heart gave a hard kick as she opened the message. She read it once, then again, the words sinking like stones. “She doesn’t recognize any of them.”
Garrett let out a sharp breath, shaking his head as if trying to clear it. “Shit. That changes everything.” His voice carried the weight of years of searching, the sudden shift in the ground beneath them rattling him hard.
Isla’s fingers moved quickly over her phone. She texted Lillian back, asking if she had a photo of Marion. The reply came almost instantly.
