The Hidden

Just then Brett’s cell phone rang, and it was clear from his side of the conversation that the FBI had come up with some new information.

“That was HQ,” he said as soon as he hung up. “They found out what Candace and Larry Parker were doing here. They lived in Denver, but they’d never been to Estes Park. They decided to drive up on the spur of the moment and see if they could get a room here at the ranch, so they asked a neighbor to keep an eye on the house and hit the road. And I think you’ll be very interested to know why.” He waited until they were all looking at him, then said, “Because Larry had gone onto one of those ancestry sites and found out that he was a descendant of Nathan Kendall.”

Scarlet felt a chill settle over her. “So Nathan and Jillian’s great, great, whatever grandchild and his wife were killed in the exact same way that Nathan and Jillian were?” she asked, shock evident in her voice. “Why? Why would someone do that?”

“I don’t know,” Diego said. “That’s what we have to figure out.”

“We have to warn them,” Scarlet said. “Ben and Trisha and Terry.” She tried not to think about the fact that she was one of Nathan’s descendants, too.

“I promise we’ll talk to them,” Brett said. “Right now there’s still a cop out front.” He paused and looked at her in a way that sent a shiver down her spine. “There’s one more thing, and it concerns you.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“When our guys found out about the connection between the Parkers and Nathan Kendall, they ran a computer search. There are about two hundred people living today who can trace their lineage back to Nathan and Jillian Kendall,” Meg said.

“That’s not surprising, with Zachary’s fourteen children,” Scarlet said. “What does that have to do with me?”

Brett held her gaze with his for a long moment, then said, “You’re one of them.”





5

Scarlet smiled. “Yes, I know,” she said.

Her smile deepened as she explained. “That’s part of why I’m here. Ben found that out years ago, when we were both living in New York. That’s why we met. He tracked me down when I was working for the Metropolitan Museum and told me.” She smiled and said, “I studied my whole genealogy after he told me about the connection. Zachary fathered eight boys and six girls. Infant mortality was incredibly high back then, but every one of them survived to adulthood. Must be something in the water out here,” she joked, then went on. “I’ve got it all memorized, dates and married names and everything, so at the risk of boring you... One of the girls, Annabeth, was born in 1890. In 1908, she gave birth to Valerie Banks. Valerie gave birth to Genevieve Osprey in 1930, and in 1949 Genevieve gave birth to Leanne David. Leanne married Anthony Barton, and in 1970 they had my father, Eric.

“My grandparents and my parents were all born in Florida, so it was quite a surprise to find out my ancestors had moved east when most people were moving west and I actually had roots in Colorado.”

Yes, she’d known about the connection. It had always been interesting, a fun fact about her family.

But now, in light of the current murders...

Now she was worried. No, not just worried. She was flat-out frightened.

*

Diego saw the expression on her face as she finished speaking and wanted to stride across the room, pull her into his arms and tell her that she didn’t need to worry, that everything was all right, that he would die before he let anything happen to her.

He resisted the temptation. This wasn’t the time or the place for something so...well, melodramatic. She’d called him for help, scared, but that didn’t change the pain that lay between them.

And just because he would die for her, that didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t step over his dead body to do her in anyway.