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“Sure you are.” Her sister-in-law’s father, Jordan Carrington, was an acquaintance more than anything. A photo of the two of them dancing together a few months ago had made theSnotty Garlic, the article full of wild speculation. She hated that damned gossip sheet. Someone should buy it and destroy it completely.
Someone somewhere printed that thing on actual newsprint. Free at all the local businesses in a two hundred mile radius, it was nothing but “Who Is Who? In Finley Creek and Barrattville”.She’dended up in that damned gossip sheet almost monthly since the theater shooting. Insane. Her only real claim to fame was being related to Luc, one of the biggest tech giants in the western hemisphere. And her sister was married to the Texas governor, there was that. That was it.
Jordan had been extremely embarrassed. His daughter had called her mommy dearest for an entire week after. Until Zoey had threatened to shove a copy of theSnotty Garlicup Nikkie Jean’s nose if she didn’t cut it out.
"Do you hate Garrity?" Zoey asked Murdoch one of the questions that had been burning in her mind since the day they had met. She just watched him for a moment.
It was hard not to watch him—he was big, muscled, blond, and rugged in that way some men had that just captured a woman from the first look. His hair was shaggy warm blond, and fell in those eyes of his. Most days, he had just enough stubble to hint at the uncivilized beast he was.
A cagey cougar, ready to pounce on his prey at any moment—that was what he’d always reminded her of. Dangerous in every way.
"Hell, no. It's a good little town. Why do you ask?"
" You've always seemed to be revving the engine to get out of here. I'm surprised you’ve stayed as long as you have."
"Honey…" He drew it out just to get under her skin. She was wise to Murdoch Lake, after all. He knew every one of her hot buttons and how to push them to send her temper soaring. "Maybe the only reason I stayed before was that I got to work with you? You are—were—the bestest TSP sheriff I've ever seen."
"And you are full of bull." Zoey caught the look he sent at her. No. She wasn't going to fall for Murdoch Lake's brand of charm. "So why since?”
"It didn't feel right to leave Garrity in the lurch. What happened to you shook people up here, too. You are pretty well liked around here. You serious about going for good?"
"Yes. I can do moregood...elsewhere." In one month, she was putting the TSP behind her forever. Her stomach lurched thinking about that. What it would mean.
"But, first, you're trying to solve your own mystery, aren't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Hell, Zo. You think Pen hasn't told me? I took that kid to the cafeteria in your brother's hospital every day for a week after you were shot. Sometimes three times a day, just to make sure she ate something while we waited to know you were ok. Not to mention all the times she haunted the office looking for you when she was younger. I had to look out for her, you know. If she'd let me, I'd adopt her as my baby sister. You're digging into your mother, aren't you?"
"Yes. More like…finding the rest of my biological siblings." Why deny it? That was exactly what she was doing there right now. "My mother was aroundheresomewhere. I'm going to find answers. For me, for Pen. And...there might be at least two morekidsstill out there. Younger than Pen. Maybe even three. I don't know yet. We’ve found so much conflicting information now. I’m the one who gets to wade through it.”
Zoey had somehow inherited the search from Ariella almost a year ago. She’d been on medical leave for almost four months. Then she’d not been ready to go back and work for the very organization that had spawned the men who had shot her, two of her closest friends, and abducted her best friend in the world.
Men who hadn’t beencaughteven yet. Who might not ever be.
And they had beenTSP.She would never be able to trust the TSP fully again. It had taken her almost eight months of therapy to understand that she was angryat the TSP itself.
They were supposed to protect. Not harm.
Yet they couldn’t even protect themselves…from themselves.
That was a lesson she would never forget. Well, now, she could do more to help those who were hurting through Blessed Reunions than she ever could working as just another name and number in the TSP.
Since returning to active duty six months ago, she’d done nothing more than run errands for her brother-in-law when he was at his home in Finley Creek. When he was in the capitol, she mostly just spent her time digging through old TSP files looking for anything that could help the task force clean up the TSP now. She had found a few leads, but nothing major.
Nothing that made a difference.
Zoey hated feeling so…useless.
"I didn't realize that. You think these kids went into the system?"
"It's possible. We know she didn’t keep them. We've found two aliases. That's how Ariella first found Caine. My mother was here in Garrity when she got pregnant with Caine and Rafe. We think. They were born here. I was. Pen was. And probably Paige. Maybe. We can’t confirm anything at this point. We're still trying to track down authentic records for all of us. Denise altered everything, somehow. I’m still not sure how she pulled it off." Zoey was almost certain Denise Daviess had had help, help with significant connections, to have made it happen at all.
A woman could not just sell close to half a dozen children without help. She just couldn’t. Especially the woman they had known Denise to be at the end.
Denise had been living in a small, run-down, two-bedroom apartment with Zoey’s brother Simon at the time of her death five years ago. She’d had a problem with drugs and alcohol and had been a lounge singer half the time and a store clerk the other half. Simon had been living practically feral. He’d started searching for his birth siblings online when he’d been ten. He’d found Ariella. Ariella had found Zoey and Pen. Well,Penhad found Ariella in theSnotty Garlicand put things together nearly three years ago.
"I'm sure they're out there, but...if she was that good at falsifying documents, it might be a longer path than you expect."
