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Traci kept her stare on her daughter as she continued. “Once we had time to cool off, we agreed it was best if you didn’t know about English’s work with the CIA. It broke my heart to see you grow up with such hatred for him, but he convinced me it was for the best. He only asked for one thing. I had to regularly send him updates and photos of you, but I had to do it without your knowledge. He promised not to contact you as long as he was aware of how your life was going. So I sent everything to a post office box. It wasn’t even in his name. I was to send it all to a Garth Penroy, and he would make sure to pass it along to English. I had no way of knowing if he did, but I figured if he hadn’t, English would have reached out to you directly.”

At the mention of Garth Penroy, Jackson and Luke exchanged a knowing look.

“Mrs. Dunlap, did you ever meet Garth Penroy or know who he was to English?” Jackson asked her.

“Call me Traci, please. No, I didn’t. I’d never heard of him until we set this up years ago. I actually assumed it was a fake name English used to get the post office box.”

But it wasn’t fake, according to the intel Luke uncovered. Jackson nodded, filing the tidbit of information away until he was able to look into it deeper.

“So English wanted to keep his thumb on me,” Reagan muttered angrily. “Makes sense. It’s probably why he refused to let Dad adopt me.”

“That’s not why, Reagan.” Randall shifted in his seat, so he could lean forward and look directly into her face. “He was ready to sign away his rights, but he wanted to meet me first. He had me checked out to make sure I was a good enough man for you and your mother. I was angry about it at first, but the more we talked, the more I realized he still cared for both of you. He only wanted you to be happy and safe. After meeting him and seeing it for myself, I couldn’t ask him to sign away his rights. Instead, he signed a paper making me your legal guardian in addition to your mother.”

“Why didn’t you stop me from changing my last name? Why didn’t you tell me all of this once I was older?”

“You were eighteen and free to do what you wanted. I wrote to English a few times over the years and told him I wanted to tell you. He always asked me not to. He believed staying out of your life was for the best, no matter what happened. He believed you were safer not knowing about him, and after a while, I started to agree with him,” Traci explained.

Reagan jumped to her feet and paced, an action Jackson recognized as necessary to release her nervous energy. She probably needed a break, and he couldn’t blame her. She was being hit with a lot of intel all at once. But they had no more time to waste. The time to process would have to come later.

Jackson cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “What about this guy Reagan saw, Terrence something?”

Reagan kept pacing as if she hadn’t heard Jackson’s question. Randall hesitated, his eyes on his daughter, but he answered with a heaviness to his tone that unsettled Jackson.

“Terrence Johnson was my partner for twelve years before I retired from the police department and he was promoted to detective. His record was stellar. Service commendations. Metals of Honor. He hated all of it. Said he wanted to put the bad guys away, and he didn’t need any pomp and circumstance to do it. He was divorced and had no kids, so he was always at our house for holidays or birthdays or just a Tuesday night dinner. We consider him part of the family.”

“Did you ever talk to him about English?” Easton asked.

Randall shook his head. “He asked me about Reagan’s father once after he’d been over to our house a few times, but I told him the guy was out of the picture and had been for a while. He never asked about him again.”

“I can’t believe he would be involved in this,” Traci added. “He adores Reagan. He would never hurt her.”

His mind suddenly recalled an image of bullet holes in the ground surrounding the spot where he shielded Reagan in the hospital’s garden. Could Johnson have been the shooter? Was the drive-by merely meant to scare them off the case and not to hurt Reagan? But why go after her at all? And how was English and Johnson connected.

As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, Reagan stopped when she was facing the room. Jackson’s chest tightened when he saw the tortured look in her dark eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed someone else’s devastation, but it didn’t usually affect him the way Reagan’s pain tore at him now.

“I know what I saw,” Reagan reiterated. “Terrence was at the bar. He was talking with the gunmen. It seemed like the men talked to him like he was in charge, but I could be mistaken. The rest I’m sure of.”

“Well, I can get to the bottom of it. I’ll call him and see what I can find out,” Randall offered.

“Sir, I wouldn’t,” Jackson cautioned him. “I know you’re friends, but if he’s involved, he won’t open up to you. And even if you’re careful, he could be suspicious of any questions you ask. I think it’s better if we look into it quietly.”

Randall nodded. “It’s a big mess, isn’t it? It like we have all the pieces of the puzzle, but no way to know how they fit.”

Jackson’s chest clenched at how accurate Randall’s assessment was. “But we have the pieces. It’s more than we started with. We need to figure out where to go from here. If you’ll excuse us, my brothers and I are going to step in the kitchen and plot out our next move. I think you all need some time together alone.”

Reagan looked ready to protest, and that’s why Jackson posed the suggestion to her stepfather instead. Randall nodded and waved them on. The brothers hustled back into the kitchen where Luke immediately set up his laptop on the table, his fingers flying over the keyboard while he studied the monitor with a fierce intensity.

“Damn. That was heavy.” Ben blew out a long breath as he leaned against the counter.

“I don’t know what to think,” Easton added. “Who the hell is Garth Penroy and Terrence Johnson, and do we really believe Mr. Dunlap’s partner is involved in this? I mean he was a beat cop turned small town detective. How would he even know English to orchestrate his attack and try to kidnap Reagan?”

“The thing is, if he’s involved, I don’t think he’s trying to kidnap Reagan. I think he’s trying to prevent her from being kidnapped,” Jackson said.

“What?” Ben asked. “Why do you say that?”

“I examined the bullet holes at the hospital. You can see the gunman shot all around us but never hit us. He’s either a bad shot or someone who wanted to miss his target. Then at the bar. Why did the gunman take so long to breach? We were able to slip out without being caught, and we were upstairs in Gish’s apartment before we knew the approached. Something’s off about all of this.”

“So far, everything I see about Johnson is exactly what Mr. Dunlap said. Nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary with his financials or phone records. At least, nothing I can see at first glance. I can keep digging and see what turns up,” Luke said. “In the meantime, we need to see what we can find out about the post office box and Garth Penroy.”