Page 39 of 2nd Strike
Before he can respond, Ethan's phone dings, and my pulse goes crazy again. He opens the chat room window.
"Holy crap," he says.
I'm glancing over his shoulder, and that's my initial reaction too.
"Let me see," Meg says.
First, Ethan pulls up a photo of the sketch Meg did eight years ago side-by-side with a class picture.
The young boy in the school photo does indeed favor Carl and looks enough like Ethan to be his brother.
Ethan uses his finger to scroll up to the next—another side-by-side shot. A current selfie of the boy we're chatting with holding up Ethan's picture from the news.
Ethan stares like he’s seeing his doppelgänger, and perhaps he is.
I do a mental fist pump. “Get his name as well as his mother’s,” I tell Ethan, "but don't make any promises. We need to research this thoroughly before we get ahead of ourselves and create an even worse situation."
He starts typing.
To Matt, I say, “Notify Taylor you have a potential lead,”—keep my name out of it— “but you want to keep it quiet for now. We don't want to upset another family until we have solid evidence to go on.”
Plus, if this kid’s mother is a criminal who participated in the kidnapping, I don’t want her alerted to the fact we’re on her trail.
But this will keep Matt out of trouble down the road, regardless of what we find. He nods and leaves the room.
“Got it," Ethan says, showing me the phone.
Jon and Anita Baker. No wonder the kid uses an odd Avatar name—Jon is so common.
“Good job.” I pat him on the shoulder again and scribble their names on a sticky note. “Tell him you have friends who’ll look into it and you'll be in touch within the next twenty-four hours, but ask him to keep silent about it for now."
The last thing I want is to rip someone else’s life apart if this doesn’t pan out.
And if there is something fishy about his mom, I need to know before she can disappear with Jon in tow.
Ethan nods and I rip the yellow note from the pad and hand it to Meg. JJ reads it over her shoulder.
“Let's get to work," I say. "I want to know everything about Jon and his mother, Anita Baker, and I want to know it now.”
18
Meg
It’s been an active few minutes. First, Jerome hits me with the idea of wanting to be unstuck, then JJ informs us of his suspension and Ethan—God bless him—has possibly found his brother from another mother.
Every one of my chakras might be blown. Completely busted to smithereens.
I’ll deal with that later. Along with Jerome, whose revelation damn near knocked me back a step, before JJ interrupted us. I was never so happy to see the emperor. Does that make me horrible? Probably.
All I know is I wasn’t ready to answer Jerome’s question. I adore him. More than likely, I could love him. Love-love him. Easily.
But relationships don’t always work out and losing him would kill me.
Yes, I’m chicken. Afraid to emotionally move forward with him.
And I sure as hell can’t contemplate that when we may possibly find the real Ethan soon.
I slap my hands together. “Okay. What can I do?”
