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When the bartender turned away to fill their orders, Kiana leaned close to Dev. “That’s not Jason.”
“Do you know what he looks like?” Dev asked.
“Meredith sent me a picture of the two of them a while back. Let me find it.” Kiana pulled her cell phone from her purse and scrolled through text messages from Meredith.
The bartender returned with their drinks at the same time Kiana found the photo she was looking for.
“There,” she said, sliding her phone across the bar toward Dev. “That’s Meredith and Jason.”
The bartender stared at the image and frowned. “You know Jason?”
Kiana smiled up at the man behind the bar. “No, but I know his girlfriend.”
The bartender nodded. “I’ve seen her around.”
“Jason works here, right?” Kiana asked.
“He did,” the bartender said.
“Can I get another beer?” a customer at the other end of the bar called out.
The bartender hurried to fill the man’s order and several for a waitress who’d come to the bar with a load of empty bottles, glasses and mugs.
“What did he mean Jason did work here?” Kiana chewed on her bottom lip.
“We’ll ask when the man gets another break between customers,” Dev assured her. He sipped the whiskey with no intention of finishing the drink. He wanted to keep a clear head. Alcohol dulled his senses. Dev had a gut feeling he’d need his wits about him.
The bartender worked his way back down the bar, filling mugs and mixing drinks. When he finally made it back to Dev and Kiana, he asked, “Ready for another?”
Kiana shook her head. “What did you mean when you said Jason did work here? Did he quit?”
The man snorted. “He might as well have quit. He’s been a no-show for the past week. The boy never checked in to say he was sick or wouldn’t make his shift. I had to work a double three times this week. I tried to call him. No answer. I went by his place and knocked. No answer. If you see him, tell him not to bother coming back. I got a business to run. I don’t like being ghosted by my employees.” With that, the bartender turned and walked away.
Kiana reached for Dev’s hand. “So, Jason’s missing as well.”
“Do you think he would have kidnapped Meredith?” Dev asked.
Kiana shrugged. “Why would he? It’s not like she’s the daughter of a rich man he could hold for ransom. We grew up in the foster system. You’d think if she was, that the rich man would’ve found her sooner.”
“Unless he didn’t know about her until recently,” Dev suggested. “You say you didn’t know your parents, that you were abandoned as a toddler. What about Meredith?”
Kiana’s brow furrowed. “The foster care people told her that she was left at a fire station as an infant. They put her into foster care immediately. Her foster family had her for four years and were getting ready to adopt her when their marriage fell apart, and she was shuffled off to a series of foster homes until she landed at the same home with Tish and me.”
Dev’s lips twisted. “For all you know, she could’ve been the bastard child of a celebrity who had an affair with his housekeeper or nanny.”
“Right? Neither one of them would’ve had a birth certificate. It bugged her more than it did me. I figured a mother who would abandon her own child didn’t deserve that child. I didn’t want to know my mother. She didn’t deserve me.” Her frown deepened. “Meredith always wanted to know who her birth parents were. She figured her mother was desperate, didn’t have a job, couldn’t feed a baby and did the only thing she could to save her child.”
“She gave her up rather than see her starve or suffer,” Dev said. “That could’ve been your mother as well.”
“Maybe,” Kiana said. “Meredith wanted to know so badly that I got her a DNA test for her birthday and a subscription to one of those ancestry sites. She made me take one of those DNA tests as well. It told me what I already knew. I’m mostly Hawaiian with a small percentage of Irish and German.”
“And Meredith?” Dev asked.
“Same.” Kiana’s lips twisted. “Mostly Hawaiian with a smattering of Welsh and Mediterranean. I think it was the small percentages that gave us both green eyes.”
“Did she find any connections on the ancestry site?”
Kiana tipped her head. “She was just getting into that site a couple of weeks ago.” Her lips curled upward. “She was so excited, thinking she might find people she was related to.”
