and that someone was Andrei Markov. I have to know what you know."
"You do," Rick said.
"No, he doesn't," Carol said, giving her husband a pained look. "If he's in danger…" She turned back to Jax.
Maya's breath caught in her throat as she waited for Carol to tell him the truth. Her heart went out to Jax, who had frozen at the few words she'd already spoken. He was mentally preparing for the worst.
"We don't know very much," Carol said. "But your mom told me that they might be gone longer than a weekend. It might be weeks. She asked me if I would take care of you for as long as she was gone. She scared me with her words and with the fear in her eyes. I said, of course I would. I loved her and I would give you all the love I had to give. That seemed to make her feel better."
"Did you ask her where she was going? Why she wouldn't be back for so long?" Jax asked, his words clipped and harsh.
"Yes, I did. She wouldn't say. She told me it would be better if I didn't know anything. She also said that it was important that no one ever know where you were."
Jax shoved back his chair and stood up, walking over to the window. As he stared out at the yard, Rick put his hand over Carol's, and they exchanged a painful look.
"Jax," Rick said.
Jax turned around, anger in his eyes. "You had to know that there was something wrong."
"The only other thing your mom said was that your father was dealing with a situation that he wanted to keep away from you," Rick added. "They never told us they were spies. If anything, I thought maybe the Russian government was trying to pressure them to move back to Russia, because your dad was getting so famous in chess circles."
"Your mom wanted him to stop playing tournaments, but she said he couldn't quit yet," Carol said.
"Maybe because he was spying during those tournaments," Jax bit out. "How could you not tell me this before?"
"I promised your mom," Carol replied. "It was the only other thing she asked. She never wanted you to know anything but that they loved you very much. I'm only breaking the promise now because you said you might be in danger, and I don't want anything to happen to you. I know I'm not your real mother, but I've loved you like a son for most of your life."
"I've loved you, too, both of you. But the time for secrets is over. I'm not a boy anymore. I'm a federal agent. And if there is anything you are leaving out…"
"There's not," Rick said. "We told you what we know, which is very little."
"You must have thought something happened to them when they didn't come back," Jax said. "You must have known it wasn't an accident."
"We talked to the police and they said they were investigating, but when they died, all we could think was that we had to make sure you were safe. So we moved across the country to Portland. We gave you our name and we tried to make sure no one from your old life knew where you were."
"What about my grandmother on my dad's side and my grandfather on my mother's side? You used to give me cards from them. Where did they think I was?"
Guilt ran through Carol's eyes. "We made the cards up. We didn't tell them where you were. That was part of the promise."
"The promise you made gets longer and longer the more we talk," he snapped. "So I just disappeared?"
"Your mom said no one else could know where you were; that included family."
He shook his head in amazement. "I can't believe you made up fake cards from my grandparents but when I asked you if you thought my parents could have been killed, you said no way, it was impossible. And that was when I was an adult. That was five years ago."
"We didn't want you to be in danger, if it wasn't an accident. We'd kept you hidden away all these years. We didn't want you to turn over a stone that would destroy all that."
"But I did turn over a stone, and maybe I would have been more prepared if I'd known what I was getting into." His lips tightened. "Do you still have the chess set, the things I brought with me?"
"Yes," Carol said. "I told you