Page 47 of Silos and Sabotage

“On so many levels,” Gage growled, spinning around in the gravel and gunning it down the driveway.

The sense of urgency in the air brought a new flood of resurfaced memories crashing over her. “I was followed all the way here from Corpus Christi,” she announced feverishly. “I don’t know what alerted them to the fact that I was still alive. We’d been so careful.” The words couldn’t tumble out of her fast enough to keep up with the images flashing through her head.

“We?” Gage asked quickly. “Who’s we?”

“My mother and I.” It was as if the missing volume in her collection of memories had been returned to its rightful shelf at long last. “She was there for every one of my surgeries, from the kidney transplant, of course, to the stuff I had done on my face. It was her idea, but I agreed to it. All of it.” She wasn’t just repeating what her mother had told her. She was telling her own version of it.

“You’re remembering again, eh?” He hunkered behind the wheel, keeping his speed up.

“Yes. Everything.” Tears streamed down her face — tears of relief over getting the rest of her memories back, along with tears of terror over what was coming. “Someone must have figured out who my dad was.” She gulped. “Who hereallywas.”

“Creston Bolander’s son,” he supplied grimly.

“Whoa!” Johnny whipped his head around to stare at her in astonishment.

She angrily rubbed away the dampness on her cheeks. “As a kid growing up, I never connected the dots, and now I know why. I wasn’t supposed to. Everyone closest to me had colluded to weave an intricate web of lies around me. My dad, my mom, my grandmother…” She waved a hand helplessly. “My entire life has been one big lie.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Gage cut in sharply. “Your dad was a true American hero. They don’t hand out Medals of Honor to slackers. He risked his life to save an entire squad of comrades.”

“It was because he didn’t value his life.” Ella’s voice rose in agitation. “Not at the time. You can check the dates. It was right after my mom divorced him. He wanted to die. He volunteered for the next deployment and led a suicide mission straight into a mercenary-infested?—”

“And brought home ten hostages and lived to tell the tale,” Gage finished for her. “He was an incredible soldier and an incredible man. No way around it.” He briefly caught her gaze in the mirror. “And from what I understand, he was a pretty incredible dad.”

“He was the best,” she sobbed. “That’s why I’m so mad that his life was cut short! So mad,” she repeated between gritted teeth, “that I woke up one morning, determined to do something to avenge his death before I forgot what I ate for breakfast. I was staying in my mom’s vacation cottage on the beach, under the smothering eye of two muscle-bound bodyguards.” She rolled her eyes at the memory of their beach bods. “Since I rarely left the house, they had long since relaxed their guard, so it wasn’t too difficult to sneak off.”

“To empty your bank account, eh?” Gage nodded knowingly. “I suspect that’s what tipped off whoever your mom was protecting you from.” They reached the main road, and Gage hung a left.

“Wait a sec,” she spluttered. “Isn’t my personal financial information supposed to be private?”

“Yep.” He fisted his hands on the steering wheel. “But some folks have the connections and deep enough pockets to get around the rules. They might’ve had someone at the bank under orders to tip them off the moment your account was accessed.”

“Clearly you two have lived more exciting lives than me,” Johnny’s head swiveled between them, “I’m getting motion sick trying to keep up with y’all. Anyone want to give me the Cliff Notes version of what’s actually going on here?”

“Later.” Gage drove them around the lake, pushing the boundaries of the speed limit. “Right now, I need you to keep an eye out for Billy Bob Bolander’s black pickup truck.”

“I thought it was impounded,” Ella protested.

“So did I,” Gage said grimly, “but someone thought it would be cute to put a few identical trucks out on the road, presumably to kick dust on the case against Billy Bob. The police pulled one of them over an hour ago for speeding. It was an exact replica, right down to the VIN number.”

“Okay, it’s official.” Johnny slapped his hands on his thighs. “You PIs have all the fun. I’m switching to your department immediately.”

“Just keep an eye out for any more Billy Bob lookalike trucks.” Gage sounded impatient. “They’re jacked about a foot off the ground, with oversized tires and studded silver rims.” He reached a straight stretch, turned on his blinker, and veered into the passing lane. They whizzed past a muddy Jeep without the top on it. Even its roll bars were muddy. A group of rowdy teenagers hollered and waved at them.

Ella could see their lips moving, but that was it from inside the soundproof armored vehicle.

“I recently found out that the mother I thought was dead…isn’t,” she explained breathlessly to Johnny. She could sense his growing frustration over being left out of the loop. “Through a weirdly complicated set of events that I don’t completely understand, she felt threatened enough to divorce my father and pretend she’d miscarried me. A year later, she snuck me to him and convinced him to raise me alone, but only after drawing up more paperwork to make it look like he’d remarried and become a widower so the baby — that would be me — couldn’t be traced back to her.”

Johnny snarled something beneath his breath. “That’s messed up, Ella. You didn’t deserve that. No child deserves that.” The look he shot over his shoulder at her was full of anguish on her behalf.

Despite the gravity of the situation, she lightly swatted his shoulder. “Oh, look! Youdohave a heart.”

He swatted back, purposely missing her. “What I don’t have is a wife and six kids.”

“What’s that about a wife and kids?” Gage raised his eyebrows at him.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They don’t exist.” Johnny started to give him a dirty look, but froze as he caught sight of something else through the windshield. “Well, will you look at that?”

They were gaining on a dark pickup that was raised an extra foot or so off the pavement. As they drew nearer, Ella could see its blue-black paint gleaming in the afternoon sunlight.

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