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Again.
What they’d just shared had seemed like more than sex. Afterward, he’d looked at her as if he’d wanted to say something. But then the phone had rung and they’d been interrupted. She wished it hadn’t, but that was her being selfish. Finding her mother had to be first priority, not whatever was going on between her and Jed—which was likely nothing other than just really hot sex.
She heard the helicopter coming in.
“Let’s go. We’ll meet them at the beach,” Jed said, sliding his gun into his pants.
She followed him down the path to the beach, climbed into the helicopter and they took off again.
They didn’t talk until they landed again at the same spot where they’d taken off in the middle of the night. A beat-up, older-model, four-door sedan was waiting for them.
“Where’s my Chevelle?”
“It’s been garaged and is taken care of,” Grange said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“And what about my shop? And Marco?” She’d been so wrapped up in her own issues and her mother, she’d totally forgotten about her business and her closest friend.
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“We let Marco know—to the extent we can—what’s going on,” Grange said. “He’s taking care of running the shop in your absence. We also have protection there in case someone comes in there looking for you and causes trouble.”
She nodded, relieved she wouldn’t have to worry about Marco’s safety. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Now we need your help with your mother’s friends,” Pete said. “I’ve been in intelligence my entire life, and I’ve never not been able to gather information.”
“Until now,” Grange said with a smirk.
“I told you they wouldn’t tell you anything. My mother’s friends are very loyal and they don’t trust strangers. They must have sensed you were feds.”
“Loyal my ass,” Pete said. “Paranoid is more like it.”
She leaned back and rested her head against the seat. “Same thing.”
“Okay, so we’ll hit all these locations again,” Pete started.
“Wait.” Elena topped him. “If they see me coming with you, they might not even talk to me. I need to go in alone.”
Grange shook his head. “Not going to let you go anywhere alone. That makes you vulnerable to whoever has your mother. If they grab you, we’re fucked.”
She sighed. “Well, you two sure can’t go with me.”
“I’ll go with her,” Jed said. “Since you’ve both already been to those places, these people might not say anything, even in front of Elena. I’ll be her boyfriend helping to find her mom.”
Elena lifted her gaze to Jed. His expression revealed nothing.
“That’ll work,” Grange said. He looked at Elena.
She shrugged. “I guess so.”
They dropped Grange and Pete off at a coffee shop. Jed took the car and they drove to the trailer park where Paco, one of her mother’s oldest friends, lived. It was even more run down than the last time she’d been here trying to find her mother, which admittedly had been about five years ago.
Junked-out cars littered the landscape, along with bicycles and more kids and dogs than Elena could count. A few chickens squawked and ran across the gravel road where Jed parked.
“We walk from here,” she said.
She started, but Jed grasped her hand.
“I’m supposed to be your boyfriend, remember? We need to look the part.”
