Tracker. Lenora Worth

this to Zeke, but she wasn’t ready to share yet another shameful truth with him.

      Pushing all that away, she said, “As I said before, I’m tired of going down memory lane. I want my son back.” The ache of not knowing if Kevin was okay cut like a knife slowly slashing at her insides.

      “We’ll find the man who took Kevin,” Zeke promised. “Cheetah can pick up vapor scents in the air and any other kind of scent on the ground. He’s a smart, highly trained K-9 officer. One of the best.”

      Penny looked back at Cheetah. The furry dog gave her a long stare to reassure her. She knew Zeke was trying hard to keep her sane, but right now her insides burned with a raw ache and every nerve in her body hummed with the need to find her child.

      “Why don’t you tell me what you think about Jake?” she asked, hoping to take her mind off the horror of not having her son with her. “Did he and his mother get along?”

      “He used to say Velma Morrow was weak,” Zeke said. “She died a few years ago and Jake barely made it to the funeral. He left right after the service and after that, things seemed to shift between us. We stayed close but his moods changed like quicksilver, so I never knew what to expect with him.”

      Penny could relate to that. “He was moody and he’d hold everything inside. I never knew what he’d been through. He talked about a few friends he’d made along the way, but nothing too revealing.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I wish he’d told me about his past. About you. You’d think he’d mention having a half brother and that you worked for the FBI, too.”

      “He’s always been secretive,” Zeke said. “But now he’s in a bad way. Too late for him to turn this around.”

      He sounded almost sympathetic, but Penny refused to feel sorry for Jake right now.

      “According to my mom, our dad was also moody and easy to anger,” Zeke continued. “But he could be a real charmer when he wanted something. He was a successful lawyer and my mom worked in his law firm as a secretary. She fell hard for him but she didn’t know he was married. It was a real mess. He left Jake’s mother and after they divorced, he married mine but left when I was too young to understand. I found out I had a brother one night when they were arguing about it.”

      “And...is your mother still alive?”

      “Yes. She lives in Salt Lake City. I don’t see her much.”

      Penny didn’t press him on that. Her heartbeat echoed with each bump in the rugged lane. They’d only been on the road for about fifteen minutes, but it seemed like hours to her. What if they didn’t get to Kevin in time? “I...I need to find Kevin, Zeke. My son shouldn’t have to pay for Jake’s criminal activities.”

      “And neither should you.” Zeke’s expression became etched with slashes of remorse. “You fell in love with him when he still had some good in him. Kevin is part of that good.”

      Penny teared up again. “Kevin is so precious. He’s my entire world. I changed my life and found my faith again because I wanted to be the best mother possible. I miss him. I don’t know what I’ll do if anything has happened to him.”

      “Even if Jake has him, he won’t hurt Kevin,” Zeke said, trying to reassure her. “You have to keep telling yourself that.”

      Penny stared ahead. “He wasn’t happy about my pregnancy at first but once Kevin was born, he changed and tried to be a good father to him. I have to remember that. And...at first he seemed to love me, too.”

      Zeke shook his head. “That sounds like Jake. He always loved the ladies but I’m thinking he saw something special in you. You gave him a son.”

      “But he didn’t love me enough to stay,” she lamented, tears she refused to shed burning at her eyes. “He would come and go and he made me promise to never mention him to anyone because of his work. But now I think he didn’t want anyone to know about us, either. I thought we had something solid between us but when I refused to leave with him, he turned ugly. Almost desperate.”