Page 20 of Her Noble Protector

Dawn in the Arizona desert was beautiful. Raiden hadn’t gotten much sleep, but then he didn’t need much. He’d intended to go back to the motel for a shower and the facilities, but after promising Lisa that he’d stay, he managed with a camp bath and digging a hole in the corner of her backyard.

Then, away from the house so Lisa couldn’t hear, he called Kane for some intel.

“Yo, Raiden, you making any progress?” Kane asked.

“It’s only been two days, so not much.”

“I expected better out of you.”

“This is a special case. Gotta take things slow and easy.”

There was a bit of silence while Kane digested Raiden’s words.

“I can see that,” Kane relented.

“So did you get me the info I asked for? She’s holed up and not working. How are her bills getting paid? Why in the hell did she leave a good-paying job in Alaska for a tourist guide job in Mexico? Why a house in Arizona? Inquiring minds want to know.”

All of that shit had been swirling around in his head since he’d hopped the plane. He’d intended to ask Paula some of this, but she’d been unreachable, so he’d put Kane on the trail.

“Calm down, Raiden. I’ve got most of that figured out. She only had one relative that I could find. Weird thing is, Lisa only lived with her until she was sixteen, but anyway, the woman died without a will, so everything went to Lisa. The house was a hovel, been there forever, but it was in a neighborhood that was up and coming so it went for a whack. Lisa was set up. Not that she wasn’t already doing damn well; she was being paid top dollar as a guide in Wyoming, Alaska, and the Olympic Peninsula. So her house is paid for free and clear, all of her bills are coming straight out of her checking—which is substantial—and I haven’t the slightest clue why she quit all of that to head on down to Mexico.”

“Why Arizona?” Raiden asked. “If all of her Wilderness jobs took her to Washington, Alaska, and Wyoming, why does she own a home in Arizona?”

“It’s where she grew up. She got the money from grandma three years ago, so she could have bought in Alaska, but she didn’t. The only thing I know that really keeps her here in Arizona is that she makes good-sized donations to a charity in Tempe that is dedicated to helping foster kids when they’re in crisis. I haven’t done any digging except for her financials, but they do depend on a lot of volunteers. My guess is she’s heavily into the volunteering. My further guess would be that she has some kind of connection going back in time with someone at this charity, just haven’t found it yet.”

Raiden nodded. Made sense.

“That it?” Raiden asked.

“Hey, for a non-paying job, I think that’s a lot.”

“Tell A.J. I’ll give her some Tim Tams and Twinkies for what you’ve accomplished.”

“How does that benefit me?” Kane demanded to know.

“If you’re the one giving her the treats, she’ll end up being grateful to you,” Raiden pointed out.

Kane chuckled. “I can make that work to my advantage. Okay, I’ll dig deeper, I’ll keep you posted. On to something else.”

“What,” Raiden asked.

“Your nephew.”

“That’d be Leif, right? He’s my cousin.”

“Whatever. The persistent little shit.” Raiden grinned, he so wasn’t surprised.

“What have you got?”

“Man, as soon as I shut his shit down, he was back to it using a Mac this time, on another I.P. address. If it weren’t for the fact that I was checking all of the contacts on his original account, I probably wouldn’t have found him.”

“Sure would have sucked if you had been outmaneuvered by a little shit,” Raiden snorted.

“Fuck you, Sato.”

“So, did you shut him down again?” Raiden asked.

“Kind of got sick of his games. Did one better. I figured it was time to put paid to his business altogether. Put a stall on all of his communications. It gave me time to reproduce his test answers but change them around. They’re now wrong. Just did it with three of his customers. The others, I just stopped them from getting their incoming, so they were out their cash.”