“Colter, before you say anything...” Kensie put a hand on his bicep.
An hour ago, he would have leaned into her touch, however small. Now, his arm flexed instinctively, like a shove to push her away.
She must have felt it, because she withdrew her hand and used it to stroke Rebel’s fur instead. His dog tilted her head up, looking for more, and Colter couldn’t help his frown.
“I know why you feel like I misled you—”
“Because you did?”
She huffed out a breath. “Yes, I did. But I wouldn’t be here if I believed the FBI. I flew 3,500 miles for this. I know it’s real this time.”
His anger melted a little at the quiver in her voice. She was on a fool’s mission. She probably knew it, too, but couldn’t admit it to herself any more than she could to anyone else.
Maybe reason would help her get there. “Why does the FBI think it’s a hoax?” He’d intended the question to be conversational, but it came out confrontational.
He really did need to work on his social skills. Before his accident, he’d had no problem relating to people. Apparently a year without practice was all it took to reduce him to a Neanderthal.
“The note said, My name is Alanna Morgan, from Chicago. I’m still alive. I’m not the only one.”
She said the words as if she’d more than memorized them. As if she’d internalized them. As if they were a direct link to the sister she hadn’t seen in fourteen years.
“Okay,” he said when she didn’t continue.
“We didn’t live in Chicago anymore. We lived in the suburbs. We’d moved there when Alanna was three, and Alanna knew her address. The FBI thinks someone just picked the details from a news story, because reporters usually simplified it to Chicago.”
“What makes you think that’s not what happened?”
“Who would do that, all these years later, so far away?” Her voice was plaintive, desperation seeping through, and he understood.
It wasn’t so much that she knew it wasn’t a hoax. She just couldn’t bear it.
“Kensie—”
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re right, okay? There have been so many false leads over the years. This can’t be another one. It just can’t. But there’s more to it than that. I feel it deep down in a way I can’t quite explain. There’s something here. I know there is. And the FBI had their chance; I thought they’d come up with something. When they didn’t, I knew I had to come myself.”
“The FBI has a lot of experience—”
Her hand stroked Rebel’s head more frantically. “The FBI didn’t know my sister.”
“So they can probably be more objective about this. Look.” He cut her off as she started to speak again. “Why would your sister say she wasn’t the only one? That sounds like someone looking for attention, not a real letter. If this were real, why wouldn’t your sister provide some detail to prove it was her?”
“She was five when she went missing, Colter. How much does she even remember about us? What would she say?”
Kensie sounded defeated, but then she took a deep breath and pressed on. “For years, my parents spent all their time doing everything they could to try and find Alanna. She was the baby. We couldn’t function properly as a family without her. And then my brother Flynn turned sixteen. I was twenty and Alanna had been gone for seven years, but my parents hadn’t given up. I tried to watch out for Flynn better than I’d done for Alanna, but he got into a lot of trouble. He crashed the car, almost died. And it changed everything.”
Colter sighed, knowing what Kensie was doing. The same thing she’d done with Jasper by telling the store owner personal details about the day her sister went missing. Playing on his sympathies to get him to continue helping her.
But as much as he sympathized with what she’d been through, dragging herself through a pointless search and him through the hell of a new mission wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“I’m sorry for what you and your family have been through, Kensie, but—”
“We all worked so hard to stay close, to be good to each other, but sometimes I feel like we’re just playing roles. That none of us has really been the same since Alanna went missing and we’ll never be until we find her.”
“Maybe you need to look for a new normal.”
“Like you have?” Her hand lifted from Rebel’s head and she crossed both arms over her chest.
“Yeah,” he snapped back. “Maybe it’s not perfect, but it works for me.”
“It works for you? All alone up in that cabin, locking out the world?”
Rebel whimpered, nudging Kensie’s thigh with her head, but Kensie ignored her this time.
“You don’t know anything about my life, Kensie.”
“And you don’t know anything about mine! You don’t know what it’s like to lose your little sister, to watch her be taken right in front of you.”
He clamped his jaw shut, trying to keep his words at bay, but they poured out anyway. “I know more about loss and grief than you can possibly understand. You come here and insist I help you, but at the end of the day, you’re selfish. You’re hiding the truth from me, wasting my time as much as your own. Are you really thinking about your sister, or is this about you, about making up for a stupid mistake you made at thirteen years old?”
He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth and he tried to backtrack. “It wasn’t your fault. But this mission you’re on is about you.”
Her lips curled up. “Right, and everything you do is for someone else? I don’t know what happened to your leg, Colter, and I’m sorry that you can’t be a soldier anymore, but maybe you should get over it! All I’m asking is for you to do something you’re already good
