Justine Davis - Operation Reunion

“What’s this foundation do?”

“What should be done but isn’t,” Quinn said, with a warm glance at Hayley that made Kayla miss Dane all the more.

“They—” Hayley caught herself, smiled and went on, showing Kayla she wasn’t used to saying it yet, “we work for people in the right who don’t have anyone else to help them.”

Curious now, she looked at them both. “Who decides who’s in the right?”

Quinn grinned suddenly. Kayla could have sworn she heard Hayley’s breath catch; she didn’t blame her, it was a killer grin. Nothing on Dane’s, of course, but still….

“That’s the joy of being privately funded. We decide. We have a crack research team to help in that.”

“Research team?”

“You’d be amazed,” he said, his voice taking on a wry note, “how many people sound like they’re in the right until you look into the other side.”

Kayla sighed. “Then you won’t want to help me,” she said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the other side is the police, and when you look into it you’ll probably find some notes saying I’m delusional, disturbed or maybe just crazy.”

“Are you?” Hayley asked, sounding merely curious and not at all bothered by the mention of the police.

“No!” Kayla stopped, sighed. “I’m…determined. Dane thinks I’m obsessed. But he and Chad never got along anyway.”

She realized she was starting to sound a little mental, talking to total strangers about people they didn’t know. She should get out of here. Whoever these people were, they couldn’t really do what they said they did. People didn’t just help strangers like that. Did they?

And even if they did, what she’d said was true. If they looked into this they’d find all the evidence the police had pointing to Chad and probably some mentions of his sister. Not nasty ones, she didn’t think; they had been kind, if unbelieving. They’d probably just gently suggested, in some police jargon, that the suspect’s little sister was a bit nuts, driven to the edge of insanity by what had happened.

She needed to get out of here. Getting one of these notes always revved her up, and she needed to calm down, to think. How she was going to do that when she no longer had the option to go to the one person who had always helped her with that, she wasn’t sure.

Oddly, the moment she decided to get up and leave the dog awoke from his snooze and scrambled to his feet. Before she could rise he was there, as if he’d somehow read her mind and was once more preventing her from leaving. The animal leaned into her, resting his chin on her leg as he stared up at her. And suddenly it was impossible to move.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Quinn suggested.

“And pet Cutter,” Hayley added. “It’s remarkably soothing.”

Kayla nearly smiled at that; people got so silly about their animals. But maybe if she did pet the dog, he’d be satisfied and get out of her way. She lifted a hand and ran it over the dog’s head, then, remembering what Quinn and Hayley had done, added a scratch below his right ear. The dark eyes never wavered, but he let out a sound that was amazingly like a happy sigh.

It was soothing, she thought, startled. She felt calmer, steadier. And when Quinn again suggested she start at the beginning, to her surprise, she did.

“Chad is my big brother. We moved here when I was fourteen. He was sixteen. Two years later, ten years ago, our parents were murdered in a home invasion robbery. The police suspected Chad. He ran. I haven’t seen him since.”

“Well,” Quinn said to Hayley without any of the horrified reaction Kayla was used to whenever she told the tale, “that could give Rafe a run for his money for succinctness.”

“I’m sure she’s had to tell it a few times,” Hayley said.

Although there was a world of sympathy in her voice, the auburn-haired woman didn’t gush. Nor did she recoil from the blunt, grim story. Kayla was a little amazed at how comforting that was. Like petting this darn dog, a motion she only now realized she’d continued the entire time she’d been speaking. And it really did soothe her at a time when she needed it.

“That,” Quinn said, gesturing at the note that began it all, “is from him?”

She nodded. “I get one every few months. He never says where he is, or has been, just that he’s sorry he had to leave, he didn’t do it and he loves me.”

“Where do they come from?” he asked.

“Oregon. Northern California. Idaho. Montana once.”

“So he stays in the northwest, generally.”

She nodded.

“And what do you do when you get one?” Hayley asked.

Kayla shrugged. “The only thing I can do. I go there, wherever he sent it from.”

“Have you ever found anything?”

She sighed. “Nothing useful. I don’t have a current photo, obviously. I tried an agency that aged up an old one for me, but it didn’t help. A few times in the beginning someone thought they remembered seeing him, but most times it’s like he was never there.”

“He’s gotten better at it,” Quinn said, sounding thoughtful.

They both seemed so open, so willing to listen, unlike the police, or even Dane, who had grown so weary of it all.

“I set up a page on a couple of social media sites,” she said, “but it’s the same problem. And I got more junk than genuinely helpful stuff. Even got some real creeps, pretending to want to help.”

She shivered at the memory; if Dane hadn’t insisted on going with her every time who knows what would have happened. Twice, guys who looked nothing like their own profile photos, had shown up obviously with something other than help in mind. They’d taken one look at Dane and departed hastily.

“It’s definitely a cold case after all this time,” Quinn said.

“That’s what the police say, too. So why would you help me?”

“I know something about worrying about a brother,” Hayley said. “I have one I haven’t heard from in months. Walker’s not on the run, or in trouble that I know of, but I don’t know where he is or how he is.”

So the empathy in the woman’s voice had been real, Kayla thought. It helped her decide.

“I believe Chad. He didn’t do it. I don’t care what the police think they know—I know he didn’t. He couldn’t.”

“If it’s true, then we’ll prove that,” Hayley said. “You’re not alone any longer, Kayla. You have—”

She broke off as Cutter’s head came up suddenly. His eyes had been closed as Kayla petted him—in fact, he’d seemed to be snoozing as she stroked her fingers over his soft fur—but something had clearly brought him to alert. She’d heard nothing, but her ears weren’t as keen as a dog’s. As Kayla glanced around, she saw nothing different than it had been moments ago. There had been a few people coming and going while they’d been here, and the dog hadn’t reacted at all.

She would have written it off to unfamiliar dog behavior if not for two things; Hayley never finished her sentence, and Quinn immediately stood up. And suddenly he was no longer the friendly man with the nice smile, but someone altogether different, alert, ready and capable. He glanced around much as she had, but then he looked at the dog, watching, waiting, as if for some signal.

Cutter’s head moved sharply in what looked, impossibly, like a nod.

“What have you got, boy?” Quinn’s voice was low, and Kayla heard something in it that hadn’t been there before, some edge that made her think Quinn could be a very dangerous man. The dog made an answering sound she couldn’t quite describe. Hayley stayed silent, her gaze flicking from man to dog and back, waiting.

The only thing Kayla was sure of was that this, or something like it, had happened often enough that none of the three found it unusual.