Tracking His Secret Child
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Tara Taylor Quinn
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HarlequinChapter 1
Sitting in his luxury condominium overlooking Tempe Town Lake, Hudson Warner frowned, but didnât look away from the half circle of screens installed on his desk. Heâd just found his way into the dark web, using his IT expertise to investigate the computer dating record of an unfaithful spouse, and intended to snag the screen shots he needed, close out and go take another shower, as if he could wash the images out of his mind.
Sierraâs Web, the firm of experts heâd founded with six of his college friends, had clients all over the country and took all kinds of jobs, but there were some he didnât enjoy. The phone rang. His business cell. A number he didnât recognize, at a time he didnât want to talk.
He let the call continue to voice mail and then, guilt kicking in, pressed to listen to the message. Just in case.
Urgent calls were common in the Sierraâs Web world.
The message wasnât business and was one heâd never expected to receive.
âHudson, oh, God, is that you? Please let it be you. Iâm so sorry to bother you, and here I am needing you to do something for me, but, oh, God, Hudson, please call me.â The voice was female. Clearly panicked. And maybe even containing tears.
It wasnât identified. And a new message beeped.
He pressed to listen.
âHudson, Iâm sorry. This is Amanda. Amanda Smith. Please...please, just call.â
The hand holding his phone dropped to his desk. Hudson stared at it.
Sheâd rattled off a number. He could get it just as easily from his call log. Hit Call straight from there without even dialing.
Did he really want to do that? The door to that volatile period of his life had been closed a long time.
Opening long-shut doors usually didnât bring forth sunshine. Quite the opposite. And while he spent his life walking into other peopleâs darkness in an attempt to help them rediscover their light, he wasnât up for delving into his own deep holes.
Hudson, please.
Sheâd never begged. Even when her selfishness had forced him to walk out on her, she hadnât begged him not to go.
Sheâd wished him well, as he recalled.
Of course, those fourteen-year-old memories were sketchy from lack of use. He accessed them rarely. And only when some reminder sprang up before he could block it.
Please, please...
What the hell.
She never begged.
And heâd worked hard to get her out of his system, lest they both be destroyed. No, maybe just to save himself.
What. The. Hell.
Theyâd been eighteen, he reaching that milestone six months before her. Heâd been handed a miracle in the form of a full scholarship to an elite university heâd applied to with no hope at all. Heâd taken the only chance he was going to get to make something great of his life.
Coming from foster care and then a childrenâs home, he hadnât had much at his back. Or on his back, either, other than some hand-me-down clothes. And now, look at himâsomeone who people called when they desperately needed help.
Please let it be you.
Thereâd been no mistaking the desperation in her voice.
At home, pacing her spacious, sun-infused kitchen, Amanda didnât know what to do. Where to go. The police had told her stay put.
She couldnât just sit there. And hope.
Hope...oh, God, Hope...
Where was her baby girl? What was happening to her? Blocking the vision that immediately sprang to mindâher beautiful thirteen-year-old in tears, or worseâshe shook her head. Paced faster. Harder.
Just in the kitchen. The rest of the house...she couldnât handle it yet...
Oh, God...
The phone she clutched tightly in one hand vibrated a second before it rang, and she immediately pulled it up. Hope?
The number didnât belong to her daughter.
But the voice on the other end was still welcome.
âHudson?â Heâd called. Heâd really called? Tears sprang to her eyes again. Heâd called. Feeling like sheâd just had her first ray of hope since the school had phoned an hour before, she said, âHudson?â a bit shakily, and then sniffed.
âYeah. Whatâs going on?â His voice held urgency. And she started to cry harder. And forced herself to stop. Hope needed her.
Needed him. Though neither of them knew about the other.
A deep, dark secret that was going to be exposed because sheâd called him. And she couldnât worry about that. He could hate her. Hope could, too.
As long as Hope was safe.
âMy thirteen-year-old daughter, Hopeâsheâs missing, Hudson...â Breaking off as a sob bubbled up, she forced herself to take a small breath. To calm herself. âShe didnât show up in her second-period class and hasnât been seen or heard from since...â Going on two hours now.
Fear washed over her. Weakening her. The world felt surreal.
An awful sheâd never imagined...
âHave you called the police?â His voice...it was deeper. More mature. And still swept through her, leaving warmth in its wake. Thawing her chilled blood.
Like the first time theyâd met. Sheâd been Hopeâs age. The police had just come and carted her wealthy, respected parents off to jail. And sheâd been taken to a childrenâs home to spend the night. To stay until other arrangements were made for her. Four years later, sheâd still been there.
A person no one wanted to touch because she still associated with her imprisoned parents.
âYes, thereâs a team of detectives. Theyâre doing all they can,â she said, shaking her head again as she paced around the table. And then stood at the bay window looking out over the colorful vegetation in her perfectly landscaped backyard. And on to the pool. Hope loved the water, and Amanda remembered watching her long blond hair floating behind her as she swam.
âTheyâve...they said they have to get into her computer. Theyâre going to put their techie on it, but I...â She couldnât go back now. Sheâd called him. âIâve looked you up, Hud, and I know what you do, and that youâre local, and please, will you come? Go over her computer? If thereâs something...â God, no â...hidden there, I know youâll find it the fastest. They say the first twenty-four hours are the most critical.â
Silence fell on the line, and she held her breath. Heâd come. He had to come.
Opening her mouth to tell him why he would come, she didnât get a word out before he said, âIâm on my way.â
âMy address?â
âIâve got it,â he told her, repeating it for her. âI just looked you up. Youâre in real estate...â
A broker. With a team of licensed professionals who worked for her. And awards on her walls. None of which mattered at all anymore. She gave him the gate code to get into her community.
âThe police think she ran away,â she said, running a hand through her own long blond hair in a pathetic attempt to ease the ache in her head. One that had already spread through the rest of her body. Turning from the brightness at the window, she faced the double built-in ovens sheâd been so proud to own. âBut I know she didnât,â she said, hearing a door shut through the line, and then a car door slam. In another few seconds his carâs audio system had picked up the call.
âYouâre about forty minutes from here,â she told him.
âIâm not at the office. Iâm coming from home. Iâm in Tempe. Iâll be there in twenty.â
He paused. âIs her father there with you?â His question shot bullets through her.
âNo. Iâm a single parent,â she said when she could, swallowing the lump in her throat.
âAny chance sheâs just playing hooky?â he asked. She wished she could hold on to that hope, but knew better.
âHopeâs a good kid, Hudson.â She wanted him to know that. âWeâre...close. She tells me everything, even if she thinks itâs going to make me mad. No way sheâd just act out like this. Sheâs...not selfish like I was. Sheâd be aware about making everyone worry.â
Because Amanda had raised her to be aware. No way sheâd let Hope grow up as self-centered as her parents had raised her.
âIâm scared, Hudson. I...took her to meet my parents not long ago. Iâm scared to death that this has something to do with them.â
Heâd get it. Completely. Heâd lived through those awful first months in the childrenâs home with her. Shielding her from the news, from kids at her new school...and explaining to her the mass of white-collar crimes her parents had knowingly committed, robbing hundreds of people out of their life savings.
People whoâd thrown their hate and anger at her more than once.
âThatâs why I need you on her computer,â she told him. âIf theyâve got her doing something for them, youâll be able to follow innocuous-seeming trails. Multiple encryptions. Figure it all out. Youâll notice if anything that might look like an adolescent site to most is really a cover for something else...â
Sheâd read multiple articles about Sierraâs Web. He and his firm of experts from all different fields had made national news more than once, too. His reputation and honors had grown far larger than hers had.
And what if Hope had gone looking for the father sheâd never met?
Choices Amanda had made at eighteen, after Hudson had walked out on her, piled up, until she started to sink beneath their weight. Sheâd done what she thought bestânot just for herself. For the first time ever, sheâd consciously, knowingly, put someone else first.
And sheâd robbed her daughter of half her legacy, too. She hadnât realized how much Hope would need to know where she came from...how much not knowing had bothered her daughter, at least not until the discussion theyâd had six months before.
Which was why Amanda had finally told her the truth about her parentsâHopeâs grandparents. And then, at her insistence, taken her to see them, each in their own sections, on visiting day. Once a month for the past five months.
Hudsonâs voice broke into her thoughts. âLet me get off and call the police. Iâll offer to help with the investigation,â he continued, as though thinking aloud. Something she remembered from the past. Him saying his thoughts out loud. âNormally they call us in, but Iâll see what I can do. You got a name of the detectives on the case?â
Jeanine Crosby and Steven Wedbush. She gave him their numbers. Hardly able to stand. Weak with relief.
And fear.
âThank you,â she told him. But heâd already hung up.
All business.
And she was fine with that.
Falling down to a chair at the table, she buried her head in her arms and let herself cry. To get it out. Because once Hudson arrived, thereâd be no time for her at all. He was going to search, and she was going to be right there, thinking clearly, giving him every piece of information she had, helping him figure out passwords or anything else he might need to know.
Sheâd show him her bank accounts, and Hopeâs, so he could see that she wasnât anything like her parents.
Sheâd show him pictures, health records. Anything. Everything.
Sitting up, she started to think rationally. Grabbing the magnetic notepad off the refrigerator, she began making a list of anything that Hudson, or the police, might need to know to find Hope.
Sheâd already given the detectives a list of her daughterâs friends, teammates and activities, and the church they attended.
But there was more.
Thereâd been that boy whoâd asked her to the winter dance.
And the time sheâd gone to an inline skate park with a group of friends.
Things came rushing back, and she took them all down as fast as she could. Hope was out there...most likely in danger...and she needed Amanda to be strong.
To be there for her.
She needed Hudson, too. And he was coming.
Hope would be overjoyed to know that. Amanda tried to picture Hopeâs expression when Amanda told her who he was.
And couldnât yet.
It was enough that he was coming.
He was going to help her find Hope, just because sheâd asked.
She knew that she wasnât going to escape the inevitable, though. Sheâd broken too many years of silence, and there would be no going back.
Whether he found out immediately or not. Whether he found Hope or not.
And whether he hated her or not.
She was going to have to introduce him to the daughter he didnât know he had.
