Page 21 of A Colby Christmas Rescue

But she wasn’t ready to let him off the hook just yet.

“Your father was kidnapped as a child.”

The question startled her. Jamie glanced back at Poe. He knew about what her father had gone through. They were friends. Good friends. She’d shared more with him than she did with most. She shifted her attention to the driver. But she hadn’t shared any of that with this man. Finding this information wouldn’t be so difficult, but the question was why did he consider it relevant enough to look into?

“He was. He was taken at seven years old and wasn’t found until more than two decades later. My grandparents thought he was dead, so they had stopped looking.”

“You know what happened to him during that time?”

“Why are we talking about this?” Poe demanded.

“It’s okay,” she said to her friend. Then, to Abi, she said, “I do. Why do you ask?” To say this line of questioning was making her tense was an understatement. She did not like the idea of feeling a comparison between her father’s and her brother’s kidnapping situations. No one who knew those circumstances would.

“No reason. I was just curious.”

That was a lie. Until just this minute, she hadn’t really considered who his employer was. Now she was more than a little concerned. Was he somehow connected to her family? Or their past?

She suddenly wished she could speak to her dad.

“You ask a lot of questions,” Poe said, likely noting her uneasiness.

Abi laughed. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

He made a sharp turn and then gunned the accelerator. Oh, she got it now. He wanted to distract them from the fact that they had a tail.

“You got some idea of who our tail is?” She looked to Abi for his answer.

His jaw hardened. He never took failure well. “Not to worry. We will lose him.”

“Are you sure?”

He sent her a hard look and then took another treacherous turn.

This was a secret mission with a secret target and a secret benefactor. Who else could know their plan? At first, Jamie had wondered if it was part of some security detail. It didn’t appear to be someone Abi wanted on their tail.

As they drove, seemingly tail-free now, he watched the mirrors closely. Took several more unnecessary turns in Jamie’s opinion. She thought of the doctor—their target. He was just a man, but one with very special talents. At this time there was no one else like him in what he could do. He was uniquely necessary to fulfill a need that could be fulfilled no other way.

What was that ability worth? A lot, apparently. Enough to go to great lengths to make this happen.

There was still something—a piece she was missing. Perhaps it was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but she couldn’t shake the nagging sensation that there was something more she needed to know...to understand.

Poe could feel it too. She saw it in his eyes whenever they grilled Abi this way.

Jamie made a decision. She had to ask this burning question. “Before we move into position for the op, I’ll need to know the part you’re not telling me.”

Abi laughed. “You should let this foolish idea go. You have my word, Jamie. There is nothing else to know.”

Funny, that did not make her feel one iota better.

“And that answer,” she said, glancing at him, “is why I will never trust you, Abi.”

“You can trust me, Jamie. This is a simple matter of monumental importance. That’s all. The weight of the concept is misleading on a basic implementation level. Don’t overthink it.”

The man so loved throwing those opposing adjectives together.

“I hope you’re being straight with me, Abi. I don’t want either of us to regret this thing you’ve decided we must do.”

He flashed her one of those grins that made breathing difficult. “No regrets.”

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