Like Sam, Memphis was maintaining a healthy skepticism about whether this lead would pan out. But even she had to admit that the digital photos they’d seen of the woman in question were nearly an exact match for the age-progressed image they’d publicized on the podcasts.
If this woman wasn’t Jordan, she was her doppelgänger.
The woman’s name was Carolyn Waters, and she owned a flower shop in Lewisburg, a small town of fewer than eight hundred residents outside of Bowling Green. According to local records, she’d opened Daily Bloom three years earlier and had taken down a wall to add the coffee and gift shop next door a year ago. She was married to Kane Waters, a local businessman and son of the mayor. Birth records had revealed two young children, a boy named Jagger and a girl named Kira.
Jesse had been unable to find any record of a previous life for Carolyn—no social media, schools, friends, family. It was like she hadn’t existed before she got married, which was another detail that had fired his hope that this might be the break he’d longed for.
It’d come as a big surprise to him that the woman who might be Jordan had a husband and children. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought Jordan might be doing at this point in her life—if she was even still alive—but he’d never pictured her with a family of her own. She’d be thirty-four, so of course it was possible.
“What’re you thinking about over there?” Memphis asked as they headed west on Interstate 66.
“That it never occurred to me that she could be married with kids.”
“Because you still picture her as she was the last time you saw her.”
“Maybe. I’ve also started thinking of her as the age-progressed photo, but I still can’t believe there could also be a husband and kids.”
She reached for his hand. “I’m concerned about whether you’re prepared for this to be a dead end.”
“I am.”
“Are you? Really?”
“I’m trying to be. It’s hard not to get my hopes up a little.”
“A little is okay. A lot is not.”
“Right. I hear you.” He squeezed her hand. “Thank you again for coming with me.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be, and the change of scenery is good for my mental health. I’m tired of being in bed.”
“We could’ve gone for a ride or something.”
“It’s fine, but it’s also nice to be out.”
“You’re still taking it easy on this trip, you hear me?”
“Yes, dear.”
Before her near-fatal injury, it would’ve bugged him to be called “dear” by her or any woman, but now… She could call him anything she wanted as long as she was still around. He wished it hadn’t taken nearly losing her to realize what she truly meant to him, but now that he’d allowed himself to feel all the things for her, he could never go back to who he’d been before.
And he didn’t want to, because that would mean living in a world in which he didn’t know that she loved him, too.
That information had changed everything for the better. No matter how this mission unfolded, knowing he had her by his side would make any outcome bearable.
Or so he hoped.
* * *
Gretchen Henderson’s home in Arlington’s Country Club Hills neighborhood was a stately three-story brick colonial with black shutters and an elaborate ironwork gate.
“So they just let her come home after they caught her cavorting with a Russian at her official residence?” Freddie asked.
“I’m sure she was given strict instructions and they’re probably watching her.”
Sure enough, she noted federal agents positioned on the street. “There they are.”
The presence of the agents meant that Vernon didn’t feel the need to do the usual scope of the area before he’d let her out of the SUV.
