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 didnāt look away from the half circle of screens installed on his desk. Heād 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.
Sierraās Web, the firm of experts heād founded with six of his college friends, had clients all over the country and took all kinds of jobs, but there were some he didnāt enjoy. The phone rang. His business cell. A number he didnāt recognize, at a time he didnāt 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 Sierraās Web world.
The message wasnāt business and was one heād never expected to receive.
āHudson, oh, God, is that you? Please let it be you. Iām so sorry to bother you, and here I am needing you to do something for me, but, oh, God, Hudson, please call me.ā The voice was female. Clearly panicked. And maybe even containing tears.
It wasnāt identified. And a new message beeped.
He pressed to listen.
āHudson, Iām sorry. This is Amanda. Amanda Smith. Please...please, just call.ā
The hand holding his phone dropped to his desk. Hudson stared at it.
Sheād 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 didnāt bring forth sunshine. Quite the opposite. And while he spent his life walking into other peopleās darkness in an attempt to help them rediscover their light, he wasnāt up for delving into his own deep holes.
Hudson, please.
Sheād never begged. Even when her selfishness had forced him to walk out on her, she hadnāt begged him not to go.
Sheād 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 heād worked hard to get her out of his system, lest they both be destroyed. No, maybe just to save himself.
What. The. Hell.
Theyād been eighteen, he reaching that milestone six months before her. Heād been handed a miracle in the form of a full scholarship to an elite university heād applied to with no hope at all. Heād taken the only chance he was going to get to make something great of his life.
Coming from foster care and then a childrenās home, he hadnāt had much at his back. Or on his back, either, other than some hand-me-down clothes. And now, look at himāsomeone who people called when they desperately needed help.
Please let it be you.
Thereād been no mistaking the desperation in her voice.
At home, pacing her spacious, sun-infused kitchen, Amanda didnāt know what to do. Where to go. The police had told her stay put.
She couldnāt 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 mindāher beautiful thirteen-year-old in tears, or worseāshe shook her head. Paced faster. Harder.
Just in the kitchen. The rest of the house...she couldnāt 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 didnāt belong to her daughter.
But the voice on the other end was still welcome.
āHudson?ā Heād called. Heād really called? Tears sprang to her eyes again. Heād called. Feeling like sheād just had her first ray of hope since the school had phoned an hour before, she said, āHudson?ā a bit shakily, and then sniffed.
āYeah. Whatās going on?ā 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 sheād called him. And she couldnāt worry about that. He could hate her. Hope could, too.
As long as Hope was safe.
āMy thirteen-year-old daughter, Hopeāsheās missing, Hudson...ā Breaking off as a sob bubbled up, she forced herself to take a small breath. To calm herself. āShe didnāt show up in her second-period class and hasnāt been seen or heard from since...ā Going on two hours now.
Fear washed over her. Weakening her. The world felt surreal.
An awful sheād never imagined...
āHave you called the police?ā 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 theyād met. Sheād been Hopeās age. The police had just come and carted her wealthy, respected parents off to jail. And sheād been taken to a childrenās home to spend the night. To stay until other arrangements were made for her. Four years later, sheād still been there.
A person no one wanted to touch because she still associated with her imprisoned parents.
āYes, thereās a team of detectives. Theyāre doing all they can,ā 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.
āTheyāve...they said they have to get into her computer. Theyāre going to put their techie on it, but I...ā She couldnāt go back now. Sheād called him. āIāve looked you up, Hud, and I know what you do, and that youāre local, and please, will you come? Go over her computer? If thereās something...ā God, no ā...hidden there, I know youāll find it the fastest. They say the first twenty-four hours are the most critical.ā
Silence fell on the line, and she held her breath. Heād come. He had to come.
Opening her mouth to tell him why he would come, she didnāt get a word out before he said, āIām on my way.ā
āMy address?ā
āIāve got it,ā he told her, repeating it for her. āI just looked you up. Youāre in real estate...ā
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.
āThe police think she ran away,ā 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 sheād been so proud to own. āBut I know she didnāt,ā she said, hearing a door shut through the line, and then a car door slam. In another few seconds his carās audio system had picked up the call.
āYouāre about forty minutes from here,ā she told him.
āIām not at the office. Iām coming from home. Iām in Tempe. Iāll be there in twenty.ā
He paused. āIs her father there with you?ā His question shot bullets through her.
āNo. Iām a single parent,ā she said when she could, swallowing the lump in her throat.
āAny chance sheās just playing hooky?ā he asked. She wished she could hold on to that hope, but knew better.
āHopeās a good kid, Hudson.ā She wanted him to know that. āWeāre...close. She tells me everything, even if she thinks itās going to make me mad. No way sheād just act out like this. Sheās...not selfish like I was. Sheād be aware about making everyone worry.ā
Because Amanda had raised her to be aware. No way sheād let Hope grow up as self-centered as her parents had raised her.
āIām scared, Hudson. I...took her to meet my parents not long ago. Iām scared to death that this has something to do with them.ā
Heād get it. Completely. Heād lived through those awful first months in the childrenās 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 whoād thrown their hate and anger at her more than once.
āThatās why I need you on her computer,ā she told him. āIf theyāve got her doing something for them, youāll be able to follow innocuous-seeming trails. Multiple encryptions. Figure it all out. Youāll notice if anything that might look like an adolescent site to most is really a cover for something else...ā
Sheād read multiple articles about Sierraās 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 sheād 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. Sheād done what she thought bestānot just for herself. For the first time ever, sheād consciously, knowingly, put someone else first.
And sheād robbed her daughter of half her legacy, too. She hadnāt 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 theyād had six months before.
Which was why Amanda had finally told her the truth about her parentsāHopeās 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.
Hudsonās voice broke into her thoughts. āLet me get off and call the police. Iāll offer to help with the investigation,ā he continued, as though thinking aloud. Something she remembered from the past. Him saying his thoughts out loud. āNormally they call us in, but Iāll see what I can do. You got a name of the detectives on the case?ā
Jeanine Crosby and Steven Wedbush. She gave him their numbers. Hardly able to stand. Weak with relief.
And fear.
āThank you,ā she told him. But heād 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, thereād 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.
Sheād show him her bank accounts, and Hopeās, so he could see that she wasnāt anything like her parents.
Sheād 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.
Sheād already given the detectives a list of her daughterās friends, teammates and activities, and the church they attended.
But there was more.
Thereād been that boy whoād asked her to the winter dance.
And the time sheād 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 Hopeās expression when Amanda told her who he was.
And couldnāt yet.
It was enough that he was coming.
He was going to help her find Hope, just because sheād asked.
She knew that she wasnāt going to escape the inevitable, though. Sheād 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 didnāt know he had.
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