Alec stuck his head in tentatively, then opened the door wider so that he could enter. ‘I found Brandenberg.’
Thorne blinked. ‘So quickly? How?’
Alec gave him a look that was slightly annoyed. ‘Because I’m damn good at my job? I figured that if he’d gotten so upset that he had to be medicated during your trial—’
‘Wait,’ Gwyn interrupted. ‘What?’
‘I read the transcripts and I read Jamie’s notes. The behavior Jamie described sounded like a friend of mine who was on serious sedatives for anxiety and depression. Maybe even bipolar. I never asked him about his diagnosis. But he was a zombie, just like Jamie described Brandenberg. I figured if he was that upset, maybe we couldn’t find him because he’d changed his name. Just like you did.’
God, the kid is good. ‘Had he?’
‘Yep. I played with a few variations, looked at name-change records in Maryland around that time, and bada-bing. I sent the information to your phones.’ Alec paused a second, his gaze resting on Gwyn a few seconds longer than seemed necessary. ‘Okay?’
She nodded. ‘Sounds great, thanks. What’s his new name, and where is he?’
‘He is now Brandon Colt. He’s an old-fashioned country doctor, lives in Appalachia. Has a traveling practice. He works with communities in need. I sent you a link to an article that someone wrote about him last year. He owns a twenty-year-old truck and that’s it. No address, no property records. The reporter was doing a series on lung ailments in the old mining towns and mentioned him. Said he was “unfailingly humble” and didn’t want any credit.’
‘Penance,’ Thorne said quietly. This he understood.
‘That’s what I took away,’ Alec agreed. ‘Kind of like all the pro bono work you do. You were just lucky enough to have Jamie’s financial support coming out of your trial. Looks like Dr Colt has no one.’
‘Very few people have no one,’ Gwyn said. ‘His sister knows where he is. She just didn’t want to tell us.’
‘Fair enough. I found a phone number for him, but it went to voicemail when I called. I used a burner number, so he might not take calls from numbers he doesn’t know, but I kind of doubt that, him being a doctor and all.’
‘Thank you, Alec,’ Thorne said sincerely. ‘We have one more place to start in the morning.’
‘You’re welcome. One other thing.’ He took a few steps into the room, handing them each a Post-it note. ‘I’ve set all the house alarms. If you need to leave, use this code or the screeching will really hurt your ears.’
Gwyn took her note and folded it in half. ‘Not your ears?’
He grinned. ‘Nope. My room is rigged with a bed shaker and strobe lights that are activated with the alarm. When I take off my processors, I hear nothing. And I’m about to take them off for the night.’ He waggled his brows. ‘Just . . . give me two minutes to get settled before you two start anything, okay?’
He pulled the door shut, leaving both of them staring after him.
‘Well,’ Gwyn said with a half-laugh. ‘That was subtle.’
Thorne blew out a breath. Because he really wanted to start something with her. To lose himself in her body and get out of his own head. For just a little while. He’d wanted it all day, but now . . . She’d had a shock. She wasn’t herself.
But she’d also challenged him not to assume.
Cautiously he reached for her, sighing his relief when she crawled into his lap and put her arms around his neck. ‘We’ve got about a minute and a half that we have to be quiet,’ she said. ‘We can neck till then.’
He smiled at her. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
She arched one brow. ‘You mean I was right not to get on Joseph’s plane this afternoon?’
He kissed her lightly. ‘No. I still wish you were safe. But if you had to be stubborn, I’m glad you’re here with me.’ He rested his forehead against hers. ‘I really need to escape my own head right now,’ he confessed.
‘Me too. But . . .’ She drew a breath. ‘I need to tell you something. And it’s not going to be simple.’
He stilled, because he’d sensed something like this was coming. Ever since she’d looked into her closet and seen that her fire safe was gone. ‘What was in the safe, Gwyn?’
‘You noticed.’
‘Yeah. You didn’t care about anything else. Just the fire safe. Why? Birth certificates are replaceable.’
‘I know. Just about everything in the safe was technically replaceable. But if Anne, or whoever the hell she really is, opens that box, it . . . well, it gives them ammunition to use against me. To make me suffer. Which makes you suffer.’
He sat back, waiting. The dog, also sensing her distress, leaned against Thorne’s leg, his head on Gwyn’s thigh. Absently she stroked his ears. ‘I ran away from home when I was sixteen.’
‘That I knew. To join the circus.’
‘Well, actually it was to follow a boy. A man. He’d just graduated from the University of Maryland. He’d gone there on a music scholarship.’
‘So he was older. Like, twenty-one?’
‘Twenty-three. My father forbade me from seeing him, more because he had long hair and played the guitar than because he was older than me. So of course seeing him was what I wanted to do most in the world. I was rebellious.’
‘That I also knew,’ he said dryly.
Her lips tipped up. ‘Yeah, yeah. I fell for this guy. He had a job on the boardwalk at Ocean City, playing in a band at one of the clubs. That’s where I met him. I liked to hitch a ride into Ocean City because it was a lot more exciting than Anderson Ferry, where I grew up.’
Thorne knew about Anderson Ferry, because it was also where Lucy had grown up. ‘It doesn’t sound like a welcoming place.’
‘Not if you didn’t fit in. Which Lucy and I certainly didn’t. Anyway, I met Terrence that summer and we . . . got it on.’
‘You were sixteen,’ he said flatly, not wanting to picture her with anyone else, especially a long-haired musician.
‘I told him I was eighteen. He bought me beer. We had sex. It was supposed to be a fling, but then my dad found out I was seeing him and had a cow. I kept seeing him and my dad was exceedingly unhappy. My father was a believer in strict discipline. A church-going man. When he was unhappy, he hit with a belt or made us cut our own switch, which was . . . abuse. When he got drunk, his hits became serious abuse.’
Thorne gritted his teeth, hating that they had parental abuse in common. ‘How often did he get drunk?’
‘A lot. I pushed him. But that’s no excuse. He hit me hard when he found out I was seeing Terrence. I mean, really hard. I ended up dragging myself over to see Lucy’s mother. She was our town doctor then.’
Thorne swallowed hard, fighting to keep a lid on his fury, because he wanted to drive to Anderson Ferry and tear Gwyn’s father’s head right off his neck. ‘I know. I met her at Lucy and JD’s wedding. Did she report your father?’
‘No. She asked me if I wanted to report him, but I said no, so she just cleaned and stitched my cuts and bandaged me up. I told her that I wanted to get away, and she loaned me some money. I hitched a ride into Ocean City and went to Terrence’s room at the boarding house. He took one look at me and wanted to kill my father.’ She stroked Thorne’s tight jaw. ‘Kind of like you do right now.’
He swallowed again. ‘The thought has entered my mind.’
‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘Turned out Terrence was getting ready to go home. To Sarasota. His parents had supported him getting his degree, but agreed that he’d come home after graduation to be part of the family act again. He belonged to a circus family. Tightrope walkers. Terrence was also an archer. Did a William Tell type act where he shot an apple off his assistant’s head.’
Thorne’s brows shot up. He’d never heard this part of her circus story. ‘Were you his assistant?’
‘I was. And I was fabulous.’