Read Known Online

Authors: Kendra Elliot

Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Police Procedurals, #Women Sleuths, #Romance, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense, #Suspense

Known (28 page)

BOOK: Known
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At home Chris enlarged Frisco’s photos on his big monitor. He’d loaded them into software that allowed him to examine every pixel in detail. Since four a.m. he’d studied a dozen photos, and he still hadn’t found anything at the scene that would help figure out who’d targeted Gianna. He agreed that the criminals had been sloppy, but they hadn’t left any clues behind that had been caught in Frisco’s pictures.

Not that I’ve found yet.

He still had several more to look through.

He hadn’t slept well. Gianna had been on his mind all night. Walking out of the hotel and driving home had been two of the hardest tasks he’d done in years. He’d wanted to sleep in the hallway outside her door. Something evil was circling around her and every cell in his body screamed at him for leaving her alone.

She’s behind a bolted door. In a hotel.

But he couldn’t sit still.

How early is too early to call?

He decided to wait another twenty minutes until nine a.m. He felt like a teenager wondering when to call the pretty girl he’d met the night before. But this was different. He needed to hear her voice to know she was still safe. He didn’t want to wake her if she’d had the same trouble sleeping that he’d had. So instead he looked at the clock every ten minutes and made himself wait.

His phone vibrated on his desk and he jumped in his seat. He grabbed it and answered, not recognizing the local number.
Did something happen to Gianna?

“Is this Chris Jacobs?” a female voice asked.

“Yes. Violet?” The voice was young.

“No, are you asking about Violet Trask?”

“Who is this?”

“This is Cynthia James, with
Channel Six News
. I wanted to ask you some questions about the fire near your cabin in the Cascades a few days ago.”

“No comment.” The air pressure in the room abruptly increased.

“You were seen leaving the medical examiner’s office, where they have an unidentified body from that fire. Is this related to your captivity several years ago? Or is it related to Gianna Trask?”

Chris hung up, instant sweat beading his forehead.

He hated reporters.
Hated.

Call Michael. Have him handle it.

He didn’t want to run to his big brother, even though this was Michael’s area of expertise. He blew out a lungful of air and focused on breathing evenly as his brain picked apart the quick phone call.

The reporter had his phone number.

She was aware of Violet and Gianna.

She knew about the fire, John Doe, and Chris’s background.

He pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes, fighting back the headache that had started tapping on the inside of his skull.

What are the positives?

His son would be out of town for a few more days.

No one was knocking on his door.
Yet.

He breathed hard, mentally getting his feet back under him. The reporter had neatly cut him off at the knees with a few questions; he’d been caught unprepared.

She’s fishing for information.

He’d revealed that he knew Violet, so no doubt the reporter would assume he knew Gianna, too. In the news world, it was enough to keep someone digging.

He dialed Gianna, no longer concerned with the time.

Her groggy voice answered. “Have you heard from any news reporters today?” he asked, without identifying himself.

“No. Why?” she asked in a sharper voice.

“I just heard from one. She knows about the fire, you, your daughter, and that I’m involved somehow. I think she was fishing for more information, and my hanging up on her might have made her more curious.”

“Shit.”

“Yes.”

Violet’s voice sounded in the background. “What? Did you open the door?” Gianna asked, speaking away from the phone.

“What’s going on?” Chris asked. He shoved his wallet in his pocket and grabbed his keys, the phone pressed against his ear.

“Violet says there’re some reporters at our door. She didn’t open it, but they held up their ID to the peephole when she asked.”

“Call the front desk. Have security remove them. Now.”

Gianna relayed his order to Violet. “I can’t believe they had the balls to knock on my door,” she said to Chris. “How did they find us?”

Owen’s face flashed in Chris’s mind. “The only people who know you’re in that hotel are Owen and your uncle.”

“My uncle wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“And Owen?”

Gianna didn’t answer. Chris let the silence linger. “Is there bad blood between you two? Would he try to strike out at you for something? You’d be amazed how fragile the male ego is.”

“We ended on a good note.”

Chris wondered if Owen would agree with that statement.

“We both agreed we were on different paths that really weren’t going to coincide anytime soon. He’s been friends with my uncle Saul for a long time, and he encouraged us to date, but Owen’s mind-set is still like a college guy’s. He wanted to have fun and be seen together, not look down the road five years.”

“You were looking down the road?” Chris asked carefully. He was in foreign territory. He rarely posed personal questions. He seldom got to know anyone well enough to do so and was uncomfortable when people asked them of him.

“I have a teen daughter,” Gianna stated. “It’s not just about me. Owen understood.”

Chris wondered how true that was, but he couldn’t see how Owen could benefit by giving Gianna’s personal information to reporters. Except through spite.

“I can hear voices in the hall,” Gianna said. “Security is asking them to leave.”

“Good. But we need to find you another hotel or place to stay. And this time I don’t think your uncle should know where you’re staying.”

“I disabled the tracking on our phones,” Gianna said dryly. “I wasn’t happy about that stunt. I know he meant well, but it was too overbearing for my comfort. I’ll figure out another hotel.”

Gianna hung up and turned around to find Violet listening carefully. “The reporters are gone?”

“Yes,” said Violet. “Was that Chris?” The teen was dressed in pink plaid fleece pajama pants and a matching long-sleeved top. Her hair was pulled to the back of her neck in a messy bun. She would have had a just-woke-up look if not for the sharp curiosity in her eyes.

“Yes, he had a reporter call him this morning. Some sort of word has gotten out about the fire and deaths.”

“Have you read about Chris?” Violet asked abruptly. “Beyond what his sister told us?”

Caution settled on Gianna’s shoulders. “No, why?”

“I have. I Googled him. I swear there are thousands of articles about him and those other kids who disappeared so long ago.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Gianna, watching her daughter carefully. “It was a tragedy.”

“There were a million more articles published when he came back two years later.”

“Also what I would expect. It was amazing that someone suddenly reappeared.”

“He nearly died,” said Violet. “He had severe injuries when he came back.”

“Jamie told us that.”

“Horrible things happened to him while he was held captive.” Violet’s eyes dampened.

Aha.
“I know, honey.” She pulled her daughter into her arms. Violet was an empathetic girl. Nearly to the point of feeling things too deeply. Injured animals, friends with bruised feelings, people with sad stories on the Internet. Violet longed to comfort them all. Gianna had known she had a sensitive daughter when four-year-old Violet had begged her mother to find the injured kitten from a newspaper picture. “Look at her sad face. I just want to make her
happy
,” she’d cried. Violet hadn’t said, “I want a kitten.” Her primary goal wasn’t about herself; it had been the kitten’s happiness.

Chris Jacobs was now the kitten.

“What do you think he went through?” Violet whispered into Gianna’s hair. “How does he get up every morning? I also read about the adults the Ghostman killed. He had victims of all ages. I can’t think about all those children . . . and his burns. Did the other children watch while he burned Chris? Did Chris see him do it to others?”

Gianna was silent.
How much does it influence the person he is today? Does he suffer from PTSD? How many scars does he have that I can’t see?

Could he have a normal relationship?

She held her breath. Was she getting involved with a man who could be dangerous? It wasn’t often that people came out of that type of situation and went on to have normal healthy lives. There was baggage. Usually lots of it. Is that what she would find if she moved forward with Chris?

He seemed in control, but she’d seen his shields briefly drop. His eyes had reminded her of a wounded animal’s. Feral, ready to run at the slightest movement, self-preserving. Then the look had vanished.

“I think he’s had a long time to put it behind him. He’s not fully healed, of course,” amended Gianna. “I don’t think anyone can fully recover from what he went through. But he appears very grounded to me.”

“What do you think his son is like?”

“Brian? From the pictures and what Jamie said about him, he seems like a bright kid.”

“Do you think he knows what happened to his father?”

“I imagine he knows some version of the story. I suspect the only person who will ever know everything is Chris, and he doesn’t seem the type to share his burdens.”

“He likes you,” Violet said softly. “I’ve seen him watching you when he thinks no one else will notice. It’s like he’s looking at a movie star.”

“Oh.” Gianna couldn’t find a coherent reply.

“Be careful, Mom. I like him, but he’s been through a lot.”

“I like him, too. I think he’s a good man.”

“He is. He’s like a guy in a movie who steps in front of the bullet for his friend without an ounce of regret.”

“Selfless.”

“Yes, in an old-fashioned type of way.”

“Hi, Lacey.” Gianna answered her phone, her hands shaking. Her heart had nearly leaped out of her chest when she saw the odontologist’s phone number on her screen. She sat down on the hotel bed, thankful Violet had been picked up by Jamie and wouldn’t hear the conversation. Gianna had just finished packing, planning to switch hotels to avoid any more reporters.

“You were right,” Lacey blurted. “It’s a match.”

Gianna sucked in a breath, her vision darkening.
Daddy?

“Gianna, are you okay?”

“Yes,” she answered automatically, her mind racing.
Daddy?
The image of the burned corpse on the metal table in the medical examiner’s office was stuck in her mind, and her stomach heaved.

“Oh, my God, Gianna. Your father was alive all those years. How can that be possible?”

“I don’t know,” Gianna whispered. She lowered her head between her knees, pressing her cell phone against her ear until it hurt.
Why? Why?

Why didn’t you contact me?

“What made you ask for the DNA comparison?”

She strained to hear Lacey’s voice over the ringing in her ears. “I don’t know. It was just a hunch.”

“If he was alive, then why—”

“I don’t know why,” Gianna said harshly. She wanted to throw her phone against the wall and scream.

Why?

Lacey was quiet for a few seconds. “I know this is a huge shock, but you must have had some sort of inkling, since you asked me to run a test for you. It was more than a hunch.”

“It was the medallion,” she choked out.

“Just the medallion? Nothing else?”

“I didn’t know,” Gianna whispered. “‘Hunch’ isn’t the right word. It’s more like I was questioning a dream . . . a fantasy that I’d set aside a long time ago but that has been at the forefront of my mind since the autopsy. Something about the body made me think of my uncle, and I remembered how much my father resembled him. And every child who’s lost a parent dreams of discovering it was a mistake. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. I had to run the test so I’d have some peace of mind.”

Now she knew, but there was no peace.

My father isn’t alive. He died a few days ago and was left for me to find in that cabin.

BOOK: Known
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