Page 26 of Tracing Her Stolen Identity (Secure Watch #2)

“To what end, though?” she asked in frustration.

“I wish I could say,” he whispered, gazing over the water. “I do feel like they’ll reveal it soon enough. Killing Miles was a pretty strong escalation.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Land?” She turned in her chair and tipped his chin to face her. “Did something else happen today?”

“No,” he promised while holding her gaze.

She could tell by how his pupils didn’t react that he was telling the truth.

“I’m frustrated with all the dead ends we keep hitting when it comes to Camille Castillo.

She’s nearly as hard to investigate as Silas was.

Sure, we have her name and know where she last lived, but it’s like she’s fallen off the face of the earth, too. ”

“Do you think Camille was an alias?”

“We’re starting to think so, and now she’s using a different one, or she’s gone back to using her real name, neither of which we have.”

“After dinner, I’ll watch the Facebook videos again from the angle of Camille behind the mask. I’ll think about my interactions with her while watching them, and maybe I’ll pick up on something?”

Despite his skeptical expression, he nodded. “It can’t hurt. We’ve hit a stalemate with this until we get another video or they post something on the petition page.”

“Am I wrong, or does it feel like the person behind this has been bolder about posting on the petition page?”

“It’s not just you. Mina and Iris also agree. We’re hoping that works to our benefit. Since it’s a public page, if they want to send you a message, they could use that page to do it.”

“Do you still believe they don’t know we can see the page where they post the videos?”

“That’s a bit murkier, and even Mina agrees with that.

Facebook tells a person how many times their video has been watched.

Technically, since we’re using a dupe page, every time we watch the video, the count shouldn’t change, but we can’t be sure.

Secretly, I hope they know we can see the page.

If they know someone else is watching the videos, it might embolden them. ”

“I hope so, because my nerves can’t take too many more days of this.”

Land stood and put his hands on his hips. “Sadie sent dinner to the cabin. How about we share it and a movie? Take a little time to relax and think about something else?”

“I’d like that,” she agreed with a smile. “It’ll let me clear my head and get it back in the game.”

While he helped push her back to the cabin, she wondered if she’d ever get back into the art game. If they didn’t stop this soon, she would lose everything—including Reece Palmer.

* * *

D INNER HAD BEEN DELICIOUS , as always. Sadie’s meals were the reason Reece found a way to hang out at Secure One at least once a month.

She could cook and had honed her skills since marrying Eric and working full-time as a chef for Cal.

She usually cared for Mina and Roman’s daughter, Hannah Grace, when she wasn’t cooking.

He suspected the Secure One family might be growing, though.

Earlier, while looking for a cup of coffee, he’d walked down to the cafeteria to find Sadie in the kitchen looking a bit green around the gills as she fried ground beef.

He couldn’t help but wonder if Sadie and Eric would have an announcement of their own to share soon.

He glanced at Sky, sitting next to him on the couch as they watched the latest mystery flick.

She was as invested in it as he was, which was not at all.

They’d shared a wonderful dinner, laughing and kidding the way they used to as kids.

It was hard to remember their years apart now that they were together again.

It was as though nothing had changed, since they could still finish each other’s sentences.

“Why did you refuse to date me after we graduated?” he blurted out, groaning at the rough delivery. He’d been thinking about asking it for days and couldn’t hold back a second longer.

“What?” she asked, clearly pretending she didn’t understand the question when she most certainly did.

“Right after we graduated, I asked if you’d go on a date with me. You said no. You told me we could be friends but nothing more. Why?”

“You mean other than being paralyzed?” She pushed off his shoulder and sat up straight, grabbing the arm of the couch to steady herself.

“What did being paralyzed have to do with it? It was months after the accident when I asked. You were back to school and just doing outpatient therapy.”

“Using a wheelchair every day for the rest of my life had everything to do with it,” she said between clenched teeth.

“In a split second on that October night, we became different people, Land. You remained you, but I became someone new. Someone even I didn’t know yet.

There was no way I would subject you to the kind of life I would lead.

It was nonstop doctor and therapy appointments, expensive medical equipment, and procedure after procedure.

That was not the kind of life I wanted for you. ”

“Wait, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I refused to date you to give you a better life.

I didn’t want to saddle you with my unexpected circumstances.

You walked away from that accident and had a chance to do great things.

There was no way I was going to drag you down with me.

I wanted you to go out and live your dreams. I wanted you to find a woman who could do everything you loved to do and give you everything I couldn’t. ”

“You’re saying that you decided for me what I wanted out of life? What gave you that right?”

“This,” she said, transferring into her chair and smacking the tires. “This gave me the right. You should thank me for it!”

“Thank you? I should thank you for deciding my future on my behalf without consulting me? How is that fair?” His questions got louder with each one until he sat on the edge of the couch, vibrating with anger.

“Fair? You want to talk to me about fair? You got a broken wrist. I got this!” She smacked the tires again. “Yes, I decided to go out there that night, and I accept that, but there’s nothing fair about this!” Before he could react, she snapped the brakes off and wheeled around him.

“Where are you going?” he asked as she wheeled down the hallway.

“To bed! You’re not welcome to join me. Enjoy the couch!”

The door slammed shut, and he growled, slapping a cushion in anger and frustration. Dammit, why did he have to go and open his big mouth? Flicking off the television, he stormed outside to pace on the small porch that held an old-fashioned rocking chair and a small table made from a tree stump.

“Everything okay over there?” Roman had walked out onto his cabin’s porch and down the stairs.

“Fine,” he growled, running his fingers through his hair.

“It didn’t sound like it to me. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the tone was loud and clear.”

Reece rolled his eyes. “I figured Cal would have better insulation in these things.”

“Well, when the windows are open, sound travels.”

He’d forgotten about the windows. He’d opened them earlier to cool the house off after the heat of the day. “I totally forgot the windows were open. It’s fine. We just had a bit of a disagreement.”

Roman leaned against the railing, pulled a beer out of each jacket pocket and handed him one.

They popped the tops off and clinked the necks together before taking a drink.

The malty liquid turned his stomach when he swallowed, but it wasn’t the beer as much as it was having upset the woman in the bedroom.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Reece said, lowering himself to the rocking chair and taking another swig of the beer.

“Will what just happened somehow interfere with resolving this situation she’s in?”

“Probably,” he agreed, hanging his head to stare at the porch floor rather than at his friend.

“Did you make an unwelcome advance?”

“Absolutely not!” he growled as he rose to a standing position. “That’s not who I am.”

Roman tipped his beer at him. “Agreed, so what else would make her angry enough to lock herself in the bedroom?”

With a shoulder-sagging sigh, Reece sat again. “I finally found the courage to ask her why she refused to date me after graduation. She told me she decided I deserved to go out and live my life and not be saddled with someone in her situation.”

Roman lifted his brow before he took another sip of his beer. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“Excuse me?” Reece stood again, but this time, it was to pace.

“I remember the days right after Mina’s amputation. She decided that I was better off without her. I could do so much better than her and deserved someone who could keep up with me physically.”

“Those are the same words Sky used on me,” Reece admitted, pausing his steps.

“If you give women time to think in that situation, that will always be the answer they arrive at.” He shrugged as he took a drink from the bottle. “Hell, we might feel the same if the roles were reversed. Maybe not wanting to be a burden on someone is a human trait, not a gender trait.”

With a soft chuckle, Reece shook his head. “The way you say maybe tells me it’s not a maybe at all.”

Roman shrugged again, but this time, it was a confirmation shrug. “You can’t blame her for having a different view of life while sitting in a chair you weren’t sitting in. She was young, injured, scared and probably embarrassed by what had happened to her body.”

No doubt that was the truth. Reece still remembered how she had closed in on herself, refusing to talk to anyone for days while she did nothing but draw.

Her parents and doctors told him that drawing was good therapy to help her deal with her injuries and a new way of life, but he hadn’t thought so.

He’d always thought it gave her too much time to think and not enough time to remember she was still the same person, even if she had to use a chair to get around.

It was obvious to him now that he’d been correct.

“I’d venture to say that she’s still scared and embar rassed by what has happened to her body. She’s pushing you away equally as hard now to fight the attraction she still has for you.”

That drew him from his ruminations of the past. “Come again?”

“Dude, if you can’t see that girl still has feelings for you, you shouldn’t be an investigator. Of course, if you think you’re hiding your feelings for her, you’re also wrong.”

“We’re friends, Roman, and barely that. Until four days ago, I hadn’t seen her in nearly fourteen years.”

“Yet the first person she called when she was in trouble was you.”

Before Reece could object, Roman held up his hand and started for the cabin stairs. “I have to check on Hannah and make sure she fell asleep. Before you walk back into that cabin, I suggest you have a game plan for groveling. You’re going to need one.”

“Gee, thanks,” Reece grunted as Roman laughed. He gave Reece a cheeky salute before disappearing inside and shutting the door.

Reece swiped the half-empty beer off the table and finished it in one swallow. Maybe he did need a game plan. Then again, he could always try honesty and see where that got him.

Determined to make things right, he walked inside, closed all the windows and drew a deep breath before knocking on the locked bedroom door.