Finding North by Claudia Hall Christian Page B

Throw it out, and he might
miss something of value. Keep it, and get lost in it. I asked if I
could help, but he didn’t want to ‘get me involved.’”
    “ And it had to do with
this symbol?” Alex asked.
    “ Yes,” Raz said. “This
exact symbol.”
    “ Is this Dex still
living?” Rebecca asked.
    “ I think so,” Raz said as
he looked up at Alex. She nodded.
    “ Looks like we’re going to
New York,” Alex said.
    “ Sounds fun,” Rebecca
said.
    Raz looked at Alex, and
she shrugged.
    “ I don’t think it will be
very fun, Mom,” Alex said.
    “ You’re right,” Rebecca
said. “How could being away from these gorgeous babies be
fun?”
    “ Exactly,” Alex
said.
    F

Chapter Six

    Sunday evening
    May 15 — 7:27 p.m.
MDT
    Denver,
Colorado
     
    “ Samantha,” John said from
where he was sitting at the dining-room table, working on his
laptop. His London accent made the sound of her name seem like a
proper invitation. “I was hoping to catch you.”
    “ I was looking for Alex,”
Samantha said. Uncomfortable with her own lie, she shifted from
foot to foot. Maggie got up from her dog bed to say hello. Samantha
bent down to cuddle the dog.
    “ She’s speaking with your
father,” John said. “Max, too.”
    Samantha looked up at him.
She went over to pick up Joey, who was sleeping in a bassinette on
the table.
    “ I heard she’s leaving,”
Samantha said. She kissed Joey’s cheek.
    “ Tomorrow morning.” John
looked up at Samantha. “She and Raz are going to New York for what
we hope is only a week.”
    Samantha
nodded.
    “ You knew that,” John
said.
    “ Colin told me,” Samantha
said. “He told me that I should talk to . . . well,
you know.”
    “ I do,” John said. “That’s
what I was hoping to catch up with you about.”
    “ Oh?”
    “ I wanted to show you
these photos,” John said.
    He turned the laptop
around so the screen was facing her. She set Joey in his bassinette
and took a few steps closer to the table. There was a picture of
Alex with a man. He was a few inches taller than Alex. He had brown
hair about her color and similar skin tone. They looked like they
were going to a party. The man seemed enraptured with
Alex.
    “ That’s Alex,” Samantha
said. “Who’s the guy?”
    “ Her first partner,” John
said. “Notice anything?”
    “ They look like
they . . . belong together,” Samantha glanced at
John and bit her lip.
    “ They do,” John said. “She
was assigned to him a couple months after we got married. You can
imagine how awful that was for me. When she wasn’t working with her
hunky team, she was wandering the globe with . . .
Mr. Awesome. That’s what I called him — ‘Mr. Awesome.’”
    John grimaced at
himself.
    “ I didn’t learn that he
was gay until
long after he was no longer Alex’s partner,” John said.
    John turned the laptop
around and clicked a button. He turned it back for her to
see.
    “ This was her second
partner,” John said.
    Alex was standing next to
another man. This man had thick, brown, shoulder-length hair that
had an almost perfect curl to it. His arm was around her shoulder,
and she was looking at him with what looked like
fondness.
    “ Wow,” Samantha said. She
took a seat across the table from John.
    “ By this time, I was
beginning to understand that looking like she was married to this
guy was her job,” John said. “The whole ruse was designed to
protect her, to save her life in dangerous situations.
But . . . I was young. We were young. It was very
hard on me. I was an orphan, a college student, and the
‘left-behind husband.’ That’s what I called myself. I’m not proud
to say that I made things difficult for her.”
    John turned the laptop
around again and changed the photo. Joey made a small noise. John
picked him up.
    “ This is Carlos.” John
tucked Joey into the crook of his arm. “I can attest to the fact
that Alex hated Carlos.”
    “ You can’t tell it here,”
Samantha