Page 2 of Shadow Lies

She’d enjoy hanging up on this person as soon as she heard what they were selling. She didn’t have much control over anything in her life, but she had the power to do that.

"The same Alexis Jackson who is an acquaintance of Kane Lee?" The stranger’s question was delivered in a cultured, silky-smooth voice.

She didn’t sound like anyone who lived in any of the five boroughs. Or even like anyone Alexis knew.

More confusing than that, waswhothe woman had mentioned by name that had her complete attention.

Kane Lee.

The way her heart jumped at just hearing his name proved her teenage crush on her older sister’s college boyfriend had not gone away.

"Um, yeah. I know Kane. Can I ask why you’re asking about him? Is he okay?"

Oh, God. Was he hurt or in the hospital?

Was she the only person they could track down to tell? What about his parents? Oh, no. Were they dead? They couldn’t be. They weren’t all that much older than her own parents.

“We were hoping you could tell us if he’s well…and where he is.”

“Me? I can’t tell you anything. I haven't seen him in years. Who are you?” she asked, her sixth sense in overdrive.

“You can call me Charley.”

Nice to have a name to attach to the voice, but that didn’t answer a whole lot of questions. She asked the next one in her roster. “Okay, Charley, why are you looking for Kane?”

“We’d like to offer him a job,” the woman explained, as if it was the most perfectly normal thing in the world to contact job applicants through their ex-girlfriend’s sister a decade after the break-up.

Wait. Did Kane need a job? Last she’d heard he was in the Navy. A SEAL. That had been years ago though. Did he get out?

There were too many questions and not enough answers in this conversation. Alexis decided to work on that. “Who is thisweyou keep mentioning? Who do you work for, Charley?”

“An entity that would prefer to remain nameless until we speak to him directly.”

That was a polite way of saying it was none of her business.

She sighed. This woman was good at avoidance.

“It’s nice that you want to hire him, but I don’t know what I can do to help. Like I said, I haven’t seen him or even heard anything about him in years.”

Certainly not from her sister Brittany.

Kane had beenpersona non grata—he who shall not be named—ever since he broke up with Brittany to join the Navy after dating her for two years while they’d both attended CUNY City College.

Once she was done ranting about it, no one was allowed to even breathe his name in her presence.

“We’re reaching out to you because we think you might be able to locate him,” the woman continued, still speaking on behalf of the as yet unidentified ‘we’.

“Me? What makes you think I can find him if you can’t?” she asked.

Seriously, this person and her mysterious organization managed to uncover that she knew Kane and find the number to her cell phone. Why couldn’t they locate Kane themselves?

“Because you two have a past.”

She let out a snort. “No. I don’t have a past with him. Kane andmy sisterhave a past. And that’s long over. I’m not even sure my parents still get Christmas cards from his—” She stopped herself.

His parents. They would know where Kane was. And her own parents might still be in touch with the Lees.

Even if they weren’t, knowing the Lees, traditional to the bone, they probably still had a landline and their home number listed in the local phone book.

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