Page 39 of Tangled Past
Chapter Thirteen
By the time the sky started to pale, Asa’s hand had gone numb. He realized it when he tried to flex his fingers and felt pins and needles shoot up his forearm. He blinked the grit from his eyes and looked down.
Maya’s smaller hand was still wrapped in his.
Sometime in the night, she’d turned on her side, her hair spilling across the pillow, her face relaxed in a way he hadn’t seen since he’d come back to the island. No flinch, no tightness around her mouth. Just . . . sleep. Uneven, probably. Fragile but real.
He eased his fingers free, careful not to wake her. She murmured something he couldn’t make out and shifted, but her breathing stayed steady.
Thank You.The words slid through his mind before he could stop them. Not polished. Not pretty. Just a quiet flare of relief.
He straightened from the chair, his back protesting, and moved to the door. The hallway was dim, lit by a single bulb over the tiny table where someone had left a half-empty coffee cup and a stack of incident reports.
JT’s handwriting. Asa recognized the messy scrawl even from here.
He stepped into the hall, pulling the bedroom door almost shut behind him, leaving it open a crack the way he’d found it last night.
Rachel snored softly on the couch in the living room, one arm flung over her head, a blanket kicked half to the floor. JT sat in the armchair opposite, boots braced on the coffee table, a mug in one hand and his phone in the other.
His eyes cut up the second Asa appeared. “Morning, sunshine, or whatever this qualifies as.”
Asa scrubbed a hand over his face, ignoring the ribbing. “What’s the latest?”
“Will rotated with one of his guys around three,” JT said. “No more shots. No movement in the trees on the thermal. Tracks we had last night are mostly blown over now, but we got decent photos before the wind kicked up.”
“Did you find his vehicle?” Asa asked.
“None that we could find,” JT said. “Whoever fired those rounds stayed on foot or parked farther out and walked in along the tree line. No tire impressions near the lane that don’t match known vehicles.”
Of course, the killer hadn’t made it easy.
“He was making a point,” Asa said. “He wanted her to hear that shot and remember.”
“And?” JT asked.
Asa thought of Maya’s whispered words in the dark. Vanessa. Her mother’s voice. The way she’d described the killer’s boots, his hands, the smell of metal and chemical cleaner. “She remembered,” he said. “More than before. Enough to give us her mother’s name. Vanessa Warren.”
Something flickered behind JT’s eyes. “That’s big.”
“Big and twenty-five years late, but I’ll take it. I’m hoping we have enough to identify Maya and Vanessa and maybe figure out who the killer is.”
JT nodded slowly.
“Maya crashed hard after we talked,” Asa said, rubbing his eyes.
“Good. That’s the best thing for her.” JT took a sip of coffee. “What about you? You get any sleep?”
“Some.” He’d dozed off and on. “We need information,” Asa said. “Something concrete.”
“Adoption records were sealed, but Will believes that with Maya’s permission, we should be able to view hers.”
It was something. “I hope it reveals more than what we know right now.” Asa stared out the window before turning back to JT.
JT smiled. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up. There was no record of Vanessa Warren in the police report, and until now, we had no idea of her name. Whatever Raymond was investigating, he did his best to protect Vanessa and Maya. Unfortunately, that probably made it harder to identify them.” JT tipped his head. “Will’s not going to love the idea of moving her around after last night’s show.”
“He’s really not going to love us sitting in this cottage waiting for the next round, either,” Asa said. “We can’t keep reacting. We need to push back. That means following the paper trail while we still have momentum.”
JT studied him for a beat before sighing. “Fine. I need to stretch my legs anyway.” He stood, his joints popping, and headed for the door.
