Reckless Abandon (Phantom Protector Book 1) (12 page)

****

Max watched the different emotions roll over
Jamie’s face. If he truly didn’t think she could handle it, then he’d take her
back to the hotel and just go himself. He owed it to her to allow her to make
the right decision, one that, in the long run, would help her as much, if not
more, than it would the people back at the compound. When she’d agreed, his
heart lifted. Whether her meeting her mother resulted in closure or something
else entirely, it was what she needed and what he intended to give her.

“So how exactly do you plan on finding Alicia?”

Max pulled out of the parking lot and took a
left. He reached up on the dashboard and handed her the fax he’d received. “Her
last known address indicates she still lives in town, two blocks from the
orphanage.”

“All of those years, she was within walking
distance, and I never knew? How could she do that?”

Max reached for her hand and gave a gentle
squeeze as he pulled up in front of a house in the old neighborhood. “Why don’t
you ask her?”

****

Jamie gazed up at the house. The butterflies in
her stomach fluttered. She felt as though she was going to be sick. She lifted
a hand and raised it to her stomach. Max squeezed her hand once more.

“Are you ready?” he asked in the quiet of the
SUV.

“No…Yes. I deserve to know why she threw me out
like trash.” Jamie pulled her hand from his and threw open the door. She
stepped out onto the cracked concrete sidewalk and looked up at the weathered
structure in front of her where weeds grew in what was left of the grass. Two pots
sat on the porch. Each had a crack in their base and dead flowers in their soil.
Max took her hand as they walked up the steps to the screen door that told of
better times. Two tears in the screen reminded her of the tears in her heart.

She steeled her nerves, pulled the screen open,
and knocked twice on the door. No sounds came from inside, no dogs barking, no indication
that anyone was home at all.

The door pulled open. A man taller than Jamie
filled the doorway. He glanced from her to Max and back. “Whatever you’re
selling, I don’t need one.”

He tried to shut the door. Max pushed against
the door, stopping the man’s retreat. “We aren’t selling anything. We have an
appointment to speak with Alicia.”

The man eyed them warily. He crossed his arms
over his chest and widened his stance. “That’s going to be hard to do. You’re
about a year too late.”

Jamie crossed her arms over her chest and gave
the same cynical look back at the man in the doorway. There was no way she was
leaving without finding out where Alicia had disappeared. She’d track the woman
down to the ends of the earth if it meant saving her friends. “It’s important
that we speak to her. Where can we find her?”

“Who wants to know?”

Jamie wasn’t within reaching distance, or she
would have touched the man to calm his suspicion. She held her chin high. “Her
daughter.”

The man let his hands drop to his side. His
mouth hung open wide. He reached for Jamie. Max stepped in front of her,
blocking the man’s advance.

“I don’t know who you are, buddy, but if you
don’t let me hug my niece, I’ll knock you flat on your ass.”

Jamie poked her head around Max’s broad back. “Niece?”

Max stepped to the side. “You mind explaining?”

The man looked up and down the street before he
stepped back out of the doorway. “Not out here. Hurry.” He motioned them to
step inside. “Come inside.”

Jamie shrugged at Max but followed the man
inside. Under normal circumstances, she could knock the older man on his ass if
she had too. She could even take him if he had a weapon, and she knew that Max
was capable. They weren’t in any real danger, but what the hell did she know
anyway? This man could be just as demented as her mother had been.

The man shut and locked the door behind him. He
walked to the windows and closed the curtains, putting them in a slight darkness.
He turned on a lamp and motioned for them to sit. She and Max took a seat on
the edge of the worn-out couch as the big man filled the recliner.

“You want to explain all of the cloak and dagger?”

The man dropped his face in his hands and
started to cry. He lifted his gaze to meet Jamie’s. His look held a hint of
compassion with a sadness she couldn’t describe. “You have to believe that I
didn’t know.”

Jamie glanced at Max before looking back at the
older man. “Know what exactly?”

“I only found out about you a year ago. I’ve
been searching for you, but the orphanage wouldn’t give me any information.
They said everything was sealed.”

Jamie felt a tear escape her eyes. “You looked
for me? Who are you?”

The man scooted closer to the edge of his own
seat.
 
“I’m your uncle, Dave. Alicia was
my sister.”

Was?
Jamie
had caught the word and what it implied. Her heart sank a little further into
her stomach. “Was?”

“She died a year ago. You have to believe that I
never knew about you or your sister until she told me on her death bed.”

Jamie’s head was spinning. She thought that any
minute she was going to pass out.

Max rubbed her back. He leaned over and
whispered, “Are you okay?”

“I have a sister?” It was no longer about only her
mother. It was the fact that she had a sister in the world. She jumped to her
feet. “Where is she?”

The man gave a sad look. “Please sit. I have a
lot to tell you, and you need to hear it all. We owe you that much.”

Jamie hesitated but did as he’d asked.

“Alicia, your mom, wasn’t a bad person. Don’t
get me wrong. She made mistakes, but she made them out of love. How much do you
know about your father?”

“Nothing.”

Dave nodded once. “He is a bad guy and the whole
reason she gave you and your sister up for adoption.”

She still couldn’t believe that she had another
blood relative that she knew nothing about.

“She loved him no matter how the bastard treated
her. She never told him about you. Hell, she never told any of us about you or
Sarah until she was dying. He broke more than her heart. I want to believe he
was a good man when they met. It wasn’t until they’d been together for a couple
of years that we started noticing the bruises and we connected the dots; when
he broke her arm that was the last straw.”

“He abused her?”

“According to her, she deserved it. Over the
years, his anger grew out of control, and he left her. He was talking crazy
about things that didn’t make any sense. She found out she was pregnant with
you and worried that he’d find out and come back and take you away from her.
That was why she gave you up. She couldn’t risk that he’d physically hurt you
too and she would be unable to stop him.”

He held out his hand. “None of us knew about you
or what happened to him until she was dying.”

If Jamie had been confused before, she was even
more so now. “When was my sister conceived, and what happened?”

“That was one thing about your mom. She loved
your dad almost to the point of obsession. When he was around, she couldn’t
seem to tell him no. He came back about eight years ago. We don’t know why, but
he did. She’d conceived before he left again. I don’t know why she kept you and
Sarah a secret. She withdrew from the family during her pregnancies. I guess as
a way to protect you or maybe even us. I guess we’ll never really know. She
told me she gave your sister up too. She’s still at the orphanage.”

He gazed toward the window as if lost in
thought. “I can’t tell you how many times I go and stand outside of that brick
building just trying to get a glimpse of her. To know that she’s still okay.”

He shook his head and returned his gaze to
Jamie’s. “She made me promise
 
that I’d
stay away from you two. She didn’t want me to risk accidentally leading him to
either of you. I don’t think she understood that I would have died to protect
all three of you. I still regret that promise.”

Jamie stood and went to kneel in front of Dave.
She took his hand. “It’s not your fault. And please don’t worry about Sarah,
I’ll keep her safe.”

Max rose from the couch and pulled out his
phone, pushed some buttons, and held it up to his ear. “General, Jamie has discovered
she has a sister, and I need you to send in a team to extract her.”

She watched as his brows pulled together.

“How did you know?” He nodded. “I should have
guessed. Lydia.”

He nodded again then his voice got louder and
strained. “You let her go with them to get her?” Max threw his free hand up.
“Did you forget that he’s here?”

He quieted. “Yes, I know she can be insistent.
It’s one of the Bennett traits.” He drew in a breath. “I’ll tell Jamie.” He
ended the call. “The General called in a favor and expedited the paperwork to
get her out of the orphanage. Lydia
and Rick already have Sarah and are safely on a jet back to the base. Apparently
Lydia
saw this coming.”

Jamie rose from her kneeled position in front of
her uncle. Max came to stand behind her.

“Did that bastard kill her?” Jamie asked,
determined to finally know the truth.

Dave stood. “We don’t know. He was back in town
when she’d turned sick. We took her to the hospital, and they couldn’t explain
what was happening to her. Within forty-eight hours of him showing up, she was
dead.”

“I’ll kill him. What’s his name?” Jamie asked.

“Benjamin Floyd.”

Jamie’s vision blurred, and the room spun. The
last thing she felt were Max’s hands on her arms, and the last thing she saw
was a worried look on his face before her whole world went black.

“Baby, you need to come back. Open your eyes.”

Jamie slowly fluttered her eyes and reached for
the wet towel resting on her head. A spring from the lumpy couch was sticking
uncomfortably into her back. Max continued whispering words into her ear.

“Is she going to be all right? Should I call an
ambulance?”

It took mere seconds for the realization of what
she’d been told to hit her. The lunatic that she and the team had been hunting
all of her life and her father were the same man. She squeezed her eyes shut
once more, hoping that all of this had been a nightmare. She opened them. Dave
stood silently, leaning over her, and Briggs knelt by the side of the couch.

“Well figure this out, but we’ve got to get you
out of here.” His words did little to reassure her that anything would ever be
okay again. Nothing would ever be the same. How could it? There was no way to
go back and undo the information she now possessed. She slowly pushed herself
up and caught the towel as it fell into her lap. “That old bastard is my
father.” She whispered.

“It’s going to be okay.” He kissed the top of
her head.

She squeezed the rag tight as she tried to calm
her heart. She lifted the key from inside her shirt. “Do you know what this key
fits?”

A slight smile lit her uncle’s face. He reached
and fingered the metal as she’d done all of her life. “I never thought I’d find
one. There are three of those keys, and we’ve been looking everywhere for at
least one of them. We didn’t want to break the box, it was your mom’s favorite.”

Max sat beside her and rubbed her back. “What
does it open?”

Dave turned on his heel and went to the hall
closet. He pulled out an old black chest and set it down in front of her. Jamie
ran her fingers over the Celtic knot lacing the lid. She slid her fingers down
to the lock. She pulled the chain over her head, put the key inside, and
turned. She hesitated before lifting the lid. “Here goes nothing.”

Max put his hand on top of the lid, stopping
her. “Whatever is in there, it doesn’t define who you are. Neither do your
parents.”

She nodded, knowing his words were meant to help,
but she couldn’t dismiss the damage that had already been done.

He removed his hand, and she lifted the lid. All
three of them couldn’t take their gaze off what was inside. She pulled out a
handful of pictures from the gobs inside. Pictures of her and Sarah taken from
afar had been carefully placed and stacked in the box. She flipped one over
then the next as Max took one of the pictures out of her hands. “They’re all of
you.” He looked up at her. “And I guess this is Sarah.”

Jamie frowned. “And they’re all dated.”

She reached for the trunk and dumped it upside
down on the coffee table. Pictures covered the surface. She shook it and set
the trunk down beside her. She ran her hands through the pictures. “There’s
nothing here but pictures.” She glanced at Max. “I don’t understand. Lydia said…”

She let her head drop.

“She said that what we found would be our only
hope,” Max confirmed.

“Come again?” Dave said. “What does that mean?”