So I wrote down twelve of the words in the Zane Williams novels in series order, which I sent to Mom, instructing her to keep them hidden in plain sight and to never get rid of them. To keep them for me until I needed them.”
“It seems like overkill.”
“I hacked into a huge illicit organization, Alan. I had to take every precaution. That last word—the thirteenth word—I kept in my head. In the unlikely event that someone got their hands on the other twelve words of the passphrase, they would need that last word to open up the cryptocurrency. They couldn’t kill me if they wanted the money back. At the time, they didn’t even know who I was. Bitcoins aren’t linked to real identities. That’s the beauty. It was just another tier of protection in case Simon came for me again.”
“But that would only make him angry and come for you.”
“If he ever found out who stole the money.”
“And someone did.”
“Yes. Malcom Fox did. I wanted to protect Rae, and I wasn’t careful enough when I threatened to expose him.”
“While that all sounds noble on the surface, you’ve committed crimes.”
“The worst crime of all is that I’ve put you and Callie in danger. Malcom’s people took me to find out the passwords. To get to the money. They couldn’t kill me, but they could use others. I escaped before they could learn anything from me. I had hoped they would think I had died so they would give up looking for the money. Without me, they could never get it.”
Alan released a long sigh. This was getting complicated. It wasn’t over yet. “Why would they think you’re dead?”
“When I was abducted this time, a man I knew from Wyoming contacted me. He said it was about my mother, so I left Callie to meet him. I thought I could trust him.” She stared at Alan but looked right through him. “But he took me. He would never have done that if Malcom Fox wasn’t holding something horrible over his head.
“I was held in a cabin in the wilderness surrounded by snow and a frozen lake. I knew I had to escape to get to you and protect you because of my mistake. I fell through the ice and would have died. But I’d heard a snowmobile earlier in the day. Some rifle fire. I knew that someone else was out there, and I just kept hoping I would find help. I hung on when I fell through and cried out for help. He made it to me before I succumbed to the frigid water. The snowmobiler pulled me from the ice. His name was Chuck. He took me to his home and let me recover enough. I told him my story. All of it.”
She covered her face and shuddered, then she dropped her hands. “I had to tell someone. And once I recovered, Chuck helped me get back here. I rode along with one of his trusted long-haul trucker friends to Denver.”
She exhaled. “It’s imperative that no one else knows I’m alive. Not yet. Too much is at stake. I’m so sorry, Alan. I know you were worried, but I had to wait to contact you. I had to wait until I could sneak into the house without a reporter or one of the officers spotting me.”
Alan struggled to comprehend all that she had told him.
“Chuck told me he had suspected something was going on at that cabin, so he would check it out when he saw smoke coming from the chimney. I wasn’t the first woman he’d helped. He said that the other woman had been afraid to go to the police. Afraid for her life.”
Alan took her hands and urged her to sit on the edge of the bed. He sat next to her and wrapped his arms around her. If only he could calm her trembling body—she was strong, so strong, to have survived. “You’re here, Zoey.” He wished that was all that mattered. “Why have you kept all of this from me for so long? Why have you kept silent about it?”
He wanted to understand. He needed to understand, because somehow he needed to restore the peace, security, and trust that had been taken from him and his precious family. Could they ever be the same again?
When Zoey disappeared, his world shattered. Now she was back, and the ground beneath him shook violently. He feared he wasn’t strong enough to hold everything together.