Page 7

“Yeah. Easton’s here too, so he can watch Gish and Becky while I get my laptop. I should still have her number saved from when we tracked her earlier.”

Earlier. When their whole world turned upside down. When they learned the man who’d raised them, cared for them and taught them everything he knew possessed secrets he never thought to tell them. Secrets like he had a family he never had anything to do with. He had a daughter he never spoke of. The daughter who was the last person on his mind as he slipped into a coma, lying in a pool of his blood in a dark, smelly alley, after being stabbed and beaten to within an inch of his life.

He didn’t worry about any of the boys whom he’d raised and trained to carry on his legacy. Nor about the woman who watched after him and those boys for years in the hope English would return her affection. No, he worried for a daughter he hadn’t seen in years, though he cared about her enough to give her his power of attorney.

Jackson was lost in his own thoughts and almost missed what Luke said after a few minutes of silence.

“Sorry, man. You’re out of luck. Her phone has been powered off. The last signal I can track was when it was at her house.”

Jackson slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “Shit! What now? Ben can intercept her if she checks in with the police, but I don’t think she’s there. She was on foot when she ran, so she couldn’t have gotten far. Think Becky knows where this girl could have gone?”

“Considering Gish kept Reagan Barlowe a secret all these years, I’m surprised Becky knew about her at all. I doubt she knows enough to give us a lead. Just come back here, and we’ll regroup once Ben gets intel from the LEOs.”

Jackson braked at a stop sign, and he sat there, feeling like he let his family down.

“Why wouldn’t he tell us?” He couldn’t stop himself from voicing the question.

Luke sighed. “I wish I knew. I’ve thought about it all day. The best I came up with was he didn’t want us to think bad about him. We all came from rotten homes, and we probably would have looked at him differently if we knew he had abandoned his family.”

“I don’t think she knows.” Jackson had been mulling over the possibility on the ride to Reagan’s house, and he wondered if his brother would agree.

“You don’t think she knows what?”

“I don’t think Reagan knows about Gish’s life. About his work as Legend. About us and how he trained us to take his place. It makes sense he would want to protect her from it.”

“I guess,” Luke reluctantly agreed. “It doesn’t make sense why he didn’t tell us about her, though. I’ve tracked down her mom too. If they came after the daughter, they could go after the mom. She’s remarried and living at the beach in Gulf Shores. Easton said he would go and make sure she’s safe. Her new husband is a retired cop, so Easton said he may loop the man in on what’s going on in case he has contacts to help with a protection detail.”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to tell more people unless we absolutely have to. Gish lived his life off the grid for a reason. There aren’t many people who would know where to find him or to come after his daughter for that matter. Hell, whoever did this knew to wait until we left Gish alone to make their move. For all we know, the new husband could have orchestrated this. Being a retired cop, he could have connections to come after Gish on some sort of revenge mission or something.”

“That’s a reach, don’t you think?” Luke countered.

“Probably, but at this point, we can’t take anything for granted. We need to play this close to the vest until we get a handle on what’s going on.”

Jackson waited for Luke to mull over the situation.

“Yeah, okay,” Luke agreed. “I’ll tell Easton about the change in plans. I’ll also see if I can work traffic or security cams in the area to get a bead on the daughter. I’ll call if I find anything.”

“I’ll do the same. She can’t be too hard to find.”

Luke chuckled. “I don’t know, man. She’s Gish’s daughter. Even if she wasn’t raised by him, she could still take after him in some ways. She managed to get away from you and the two targets.”

“Damn. A woman with English Barlowe’s stubbornness and knack for attracting trouble combined with all the drama women seem to love? We’re in deep shit.”

“No shit. I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Later,” Jackson said before ending the call.

The drive back to Fire Creek wasn’t long, which was good for Jackson. He didn’t have much time to dwell on the turn his life had taken in a few short hours. His mind kept remembering English as he had left his old man last night.

English had seemed off the whole night. He was usually chatting up the regulars and laying bets with the newcomers that he could guess their drink of choice on the first try. After years of running a bar, he rarely guessed wrong. Last night, though, he had been more subdued, as if he was distracted. He and Easton both noticed, and they even mentioned it to Luke last night over beers and pizza.

None of them considered asking English about his odd demeanor or even calling last night or first thing this morning to check on him. English had his moods, and they were usually caused by ghosts from his past. His life as Legend hadn’t been easy. Being a clean-up man for the Central Intelligence Agency, being the one they called because he always got the job done no matter what it took, he had many memories rearing up at the oddest times, plaguing him with the consequences of the things he’d done or choices he’d made. He preferred to deal with them in his own way, and the boys had learned to let him be.

In this case, if they had checked on him to make sure he was okay, then he wouldn’t have spent the night in the alley, his life slowly slipping away. They could have helped him sooner. They could have preserved the scene for evidence later instead of the paramedics and Becky trampling it in their haste to care for English. Maybe if they had stuck around instead of leaving to shoot the shit with each other, they could have saved English and caught the people responsible.

English would smack the back of Jackson’s head if he knew his Jacky was chasing “what ifs.” He would say only the here and now mattered. The present was all a person could control, and they lost their control the more time they spent questioning the past. The advice was the closest to waxing poetic that English Barlowe ever got. Most of the time he got his point across with head smacks, arm punches or hand towel snaps. For four rambunctious boys who’d never had conventional parenting to guide them, the actions worked better than words.

As much as Jackson wanted to follow English’s advice, he couldn’t. The man was their family, the only family they cared to claim. Jackson’s childhood home was bad enough for him to walk away when he was thirteen. He was ready to make a life on the streets than live with the neglect and abuse he suffered because of his parents. Then English found him sleeping in the alley by the bar.