Page 57 of Fierce Hope
Gillian let out a brittle laugh. “I didn’t expect to be calling. Trust me, my lawyer would kill me if she knew. But you need to know the truth—about Kent.”
Deke’s stomach knotted. What was the woman up to?
“What truth?” Jade pressed, her expression watchful but no longer overshadowed by her own personal shame. She was in professional mode now.
“Not over the phone,” Gillian insisted. “He’s not who everyone thinks he is. People see me as the crazy wife who hired a stalker, but there’s more to it. Meet me tomorrow at the Starlight Diner in Reno, nine a.m. It’s far enough that no one from church should see us together.”
Jade flicked her gaze to Deke, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. They had to hear Gillian out, especially with Kenji’s trace failing to lock onto anything concrete. “Alright,” Jade said. “Nine a.m.”
“Come alone,” Gillian added sharply. “Kent has friends everywhere.”
“I understand,” Jade replied. The call ended a second later, and the room exploded into quiet but intense activity.
“Starlight Diner off I-80,” Zara read off her screen. “Truck-stop vibe, easy highway access. Not really the scene for a woman who travels in country-club circles.”
Kenji shot Jade a worried look. “Could be a trap.”
Deke nodded. “Which is why we’ll be in place well before 0900.” He turned to Jade, lowering his voice. “Are you okay with this? Meeting a woman who’s been arrested for harassing you?”
She took a breath. “Yes.” The momentary tremor in her eyes reminded him how different everything felt after last night’s revelations. Still, she steadied herself. “If there’s even a chance she’s telling the truth about Kent, we need to know.”
“So we hit the storage place now, and meet with Kent’s wife in the am,” Deke said.
Kenji made a sound deep in his throat and looked up from his monitor. “Negative, big guy.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “Lady Luck is not on our side right now. It turns out the storage place is in the middle of installing a new security system.”
Deke narrowed his eyes. “In the middle, how?”
“Like deeply in the middle.” Kenji blew out a breath. “They’ve got an outside security contractor on-site until late tonight finishing up installation. So you can plan on multiple technicians and probably the facility manager. System goes live at 0600 for testing.”
Deke frowned. "So we've got technicians crawling all over the place tonight, and an untested system tomorrow morning."
"Exactamundo. Not ideal.” Kenji nodded. "We'd be walking into unknown variables on both ends. Best window would be mid-day tomorrow after your meeting. The new system’ll be fully operational by then and we’ll know what we're dealing with. I'll need a few hours to analyze the new security protocols anyway."
“This changes our schedule,” Zara note. “The storage unit can wait.”
“Agreed,” Deke said. “We’ll deal with the diner meeting first, then handle the storage facility. We can’t do both in the morning without spreading ourselves too thin.”
The team nodded and broke away to plan the next day’s logistics, leaving Deke and Jade momentarily alone. He hovered near her, hands in his pockets, aware that they had to go back toher condo again tonight, where the conversation from last night still crackled like a live wire between them.
“I don’t like the idea of you face-to-face with Gillian,” he murmured, keeping his voice low. “Even if my team’s on-site, it’s risky.”
She offered a small, strained smile. “I’ll have the best security team in the state watching me, remember?” Then, more quietly, she added, “And … you’ll be there, right?”
It was a gentle reminder of the new distance that had formed. He nodded, mouth tight. “You’re not getting rid of me yet.”
Her eyes flickered, something like gratitude and regret mingling together. “Thank you.”
The hush that followed was almost painful. But the weight of DJ, of Jade’s father’s crimes, and the vow he’d made to keep professional boundaries left Deke mute.
He wanted to say he understood—that her past changed nothing about her worth in his eyes. Which it didn’t. Not for him. But he had DJ to think about.
Who could her past expose him to? These were the kinds of things a father had to consider.
Finally, Jade exhaled, putting on a brittle mask of composure. “We should finalize details for tomorrow.”
“Right,” he said. “If you change your mind about meeting Gillian, you tell me. We’ll call it off. Got it?”
“I got it.” She hesitated, as if she might confess another secret or perhaps ask him to talk more about last night. Then she shook her head. “But I won’t change my mind.”
