by Louise Clark
She stood stiffly in his embrace for a minute, resisting his attempt to connect, then she uttered a little sigh and laid her head on his shoulder. The rest of her body melted into his.
As she sank into him, Quinn registered a sound. He looked up and saw Christy Jamieson on the sidewalk, looking his way. Given the time, she must be just back from picking her daughter, Noelle, from school. She was wearing jeans and a loose blouse that nonetheless emphasized her curvy figure. The breeze had ruffled her short, red-brown hair and combined with the casual outfit, she could have been any young mother in the area. But she wasn’t. She was a Jamieson, something he knew to his cost. She quickly turned away, then hurried up her front walk. Seeing him with his arms around another woman was probably as much a shock for her as having Tamara ring his doorbell had been for him. Christy reached her front porch. She unlocked the door without looking his way again and went inside.
As the door closed, a little bit of himself closed too. He eased away from Tamara to smile down at her. “Where are my manners? Will you come inside?”
She gave him a relieved smile and said, “I hoped you’d ask.” Her voice wavered, as if she was uncertain of her welcome. Why? They’d been as close as two people could be and had still been consumed by passion for each other when she had apparently been killed. Why wouldn’t he want to talk to her, find out what had happened, the details of where she’d been for these past three years? Any normal man would. But Quinn was also a journalist. The reporter in him knew her experiences would make a story, a big juicy story.
Inside, he directed her up the half staircase to the living room, then his hand at her waist, he said, “My dad’s in the kitchen. Let me introduce you.”
She hesitated, frowning. “How is he doing?” Quinn decided he must have looked confused, for she colored and added, “The last time I saw you, you were worried about him.”
His expression cleared as he remembered. “When my mom was sick.”
She nodded.
It was his turn to hesitate, then he shrugged mentally. His family’s tragedy was not hers. “She died not long after you … disappeared. Dad was pretty torn up. That’s why I came home. Why I’m living here. That and—” He let the sentence hang unfinished, because he couldn’t bring himself to refer directly to the horrific scene that had caused him and others to believe she was dead.
Tamara reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Quinn!”
“Thanks.” The word came out too gruff. He cleared his throat and said, “Dad’s doing better now. We both are. Come and meet him.”
She nodded and let him guide her into the kitchen.
His father looked up from the laptop screen as they entered. Quinn knew him well enough to figure that meant he’d been listening in on the conversation with Tamara, but Roy didn’t acknowledge he’d overheard anything. He simply raised his eyebrows and said, “Hello.”
Quinn tried to see his father from Tamara’s point of view. Roy Armstrong was a man who followed his own path. He wrote successful novels, protested government decisions that didn’t fit well with his worldview, and always looked at what was behind words or actions. He dressed in casual, front button shirts, soft, faded blue jeans and he wore his greying black hair long and tied in a tail at the back of his neck. When he was writing, as he had been this afternoon, he ran his fingers through his hair, freeing some strands, while causing others, still bound in the tail, to bunch up into odd lumps and angles. The process could make him appear both scruffy and demented.
Tamara didn’t seem bothered by his appearance, though, which was a positive for Quinn. She smiled as he said, “Tamara, this is my father, Roy Armstrong. Dad, this is Tamara Ahern.”
As soon as Quinn said her first name, Roy stated to frown. By the time he had finished the introduction, Roy’s eyebrows were reaching for his hair. “The Tamara Ahern?”
Quinn nodded. Tamara stuck out her hand. “Hi, Mr. Armstrong. I’m pleased to meet you.”
Roy might be free spirited and independent, but he had manners and knew how to use them. He stood up and smiled broadly as he took her hand, clasping it warmly. “The pleasure is all mine, Tamara. I’m delighted you’re here. Please call me Roy.”
Tamara smiled, again looking relieved. “Thank you, Roy.”
The introductions over, Roy folded down the top of his laptop and picked it up. “I’ll leave you two to talk. Nice to meet you, Tamara.” He smiled as he headed out of the kitchen.
Part of Quinn was urging him to call his father back, as if this unexpected meeting with Tamara would somehow be impersonal, the visit of an old friend with whom he no longer had a lot in common, if the three of them sat down together to chat. “Dad … ”
Roy was almost out of the kitchen now. He waved his hand vaguely and didn’t turn around. “Have fun, you two,” he said and moved into the living room, disappearing from sight. Moments later, Quinn heard his footsteps on the stairs and realized he was headed outside.
Quinn turned back to Tamara. “I’m sorry, Quinn,” she said as they heard the front door close. “I’ve disrupted your day and your father’s.” She looked dismayed. “That wasn’t my intention.”
Quinn studied her, again thinking that this was not the Tamara he knew. That Tamara wore her dark blonde hair cropped close to her head, the bangs that fell over her forehead only concession to her femininity in the style. Her clothes were practical, medical scrubs during the day, jeans and a shirt in the evening. She’d never been overt in her sexuality, but it had always been there, in the way she moved, in the tilt of her head, or the promise in a glance from her beautiful dark eyes. The woman in front of him had longer hair, scraped back from her forehead and tied in a bun. Her clothes were shapeless and she seemed to be hunched into herself, as if she was hoping not to be noticed.
Whatever had happened to her during her captivity, she was now insecure and tentative. The old Tamara would have accepted Roy’s departure at face value and moved on, pursuing her goal with a straightforward determination. He realized he wanted the old Tamara back and he’d do whatever it took to help her get there.
He reached out and took her hand. “Dad doesn’t mind, Tamara. He can work wherever he is. I swear, if an earthquake happened and the house fell down around him, trapping him under the table, he’d be writing while he waited to be rescued.”
She laughed as he hoped she would, and her expression relaxed.
“Why don’t we go into the living room and you can tell me how you came to be here today.” Tamara nodded in agreement. Quinn shepherded her out of the kitchen. When they were seated, he offered refreshments, which Tamara refused.
There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence. Tamara had never been one to dance around issues, using polite nothings to smooth the way, but today she didn’t seem able to state the reason she’d come to visit. He thought about asking her outright how she’d survived that horrific slaughter in the barren village in the middle of Africa, but she seemed so fragile, so unlike the woman he’d known, that he couldn’t. Instead, he said, “How have you been?”
What he really meant was where have you been.
She fidgeted, her fingers plucking at the fabric of the trousers she wore with a simple cotton shirt. “It’s been tough,” she said. Her gaze slid away from his, lowered as if she was fascinated by whatever her fingers were playing with on her pant leg. “The terrorists who kidnapped me that day in Africa needed a doctor. Their leader had been wounded in a skirmish a few days before. Once I’d tended him, and the wounds were healed, he decided I was useful to have around. They kept me with them until a suitable ransom was offered. The negotiations took a long time to finalize.”
Quinn was quite sure Tamara had left a lot out of that brief explanation and his mind was going to places that made his gut clench. The man in him didn’t want to know what Tamara had suffered. The reporter in him needed details. “I saw your body,” he said, more bluntly than he’d intended.
She paled at his w
ords. “You saw—” Leaning forward, she took his hands. “Oh, Quinn, I’m so sorry! I had no idea. I thought you’d been notified I was alive, like my family was.” She stopped, drew a deep breath. “That wasn’t me. It was Ruth Ives. CMSA had just sent her in and her personal stuff hadn’t arrived yet. I loaned her some clothes that morning.” Tears leaked from her eyes. “She said something the terrorists didn’t like and they killed her. In front of me.”
Quinn sucked in his breath and wished he could be swallowed up by the floor. CMSA—Canadian Medical Services Abroad—was a private organization, funded through donations and some government grants, that sent personnel to fragile, poverty-stricken areas in need of medical help. Sometimes that meant working in villages or rural areas helping to cure illness and teaching better health practices, but too often doctors like Tamara were needed in war zones.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
She was shaking her head even before he’d finished speaking. “No, it’s not you. Or what you said. I’ve been back for a few months, trying to … readjust.” Her lips quirked up into a rueful half-smile. “The shrinks have been telling me I need to be open about my experiences, to normalize them and accept that they are part of what now makes me, me. My parents have been great, but they’re used to it. I forget other people aren’t.”
“Your parents are still in Toronto?” Quinn was relieved to be able to ask a normal question, but felt absurd at the same time.
“They are.” She eyed him in what Quinn thought was a speculative way. “Parents are part of the reason I’m here in Vancouver.”
That caught his interest. “Part of the reason?”
She said carefully, “Officially, I’m here to meet one of my sponsors.”
CMSA received some government grants, but most of their funding was through donations. These were personalized by linking the donor to one of the medical personal serving abroad. The doctor, nurse, or medical technician wrote a monthly newsletter, outlining the conditions they were working in, the people healed, the progress they had made in the area. The newsletters linked the donor to the person being funded and created a bond that kept donors loyal to the organization.
“I’m meeting her tomorrow,” Tamara said. She drew a deep breath. “I was hoping you would come with me.”
Quinn stared at her. He hadn’t seen her request coming and he didn’t know how to respond. “Tamara, I—”
“Please, Quinn. There are things I need to ask her and … ” She hesitated, shrugged, swallowed hard. Her beautiful brown eyes were wide and pleading, digging deep into his soul. “I need back up,” she said.
Back up? That was odd. “Why?”
She looked away.
His gut clenched and he thought again how much she had changed. “Tamara, I’ll come with you to meet the sponsor, if that’s what you want. But you know me, I like details and I want to know the background before I get into any situation. So what’s up with this one?”
She bit her lip, then sighed. “I’m hoping she will help me find out who my birth parents are.”
That was not the answer he was expecting. “Your birth parents? But … ” He hesitated. This was another new facet to Tamara. “You always said the people who raised you were your parents.”
“They are. And they always will be, but … When I was a captive it was hard to keep a sense of myself. I clung to memories. You. My parents. My work. But there were doubts too. Who am I really? My birth parents gave me up for adoption, but they set up a trust fund for me. Why? They had the money to support a baby. Was there something about me they didn’t want? That bothered me, and the more I thought about it, the more it ate at me. I was terrified that I might die without ever knowing who I really am. Once I was back in Toronto and coping again, I asked my mom who my real parents were.”
There was so much unsaid in this statement, Quinn wasn’t sure how to respond. He opted to stick with the facts, for now. “A trust fund?” During their passionate liaison in Africa she’d never mentioned having a trust fund behind her. It struck him that he was surrounded by women who were the recipients of trust funds. How weird was that? “Where does that fit in?”
She looked down at their clasped hands. When she raised her eyes to his, they were shadowed. “Even though my parents weren’t wealthy there was always money for extracurricular stuff—music lessons, swimming lessons, memberships in whatever clubs or organizations I wanted. I was a kid. I didn’t think about money or the cost of things. Then when I went to university I thought it was paid for by a full scholarship, because my parents sure couldn’t afford to put me through med school.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No. The trust fund paid for everything.”
“When did you find out?”
“Just before I graduated. I was angry. I felt betrayed.” She laughed without humor. “I probably would have done something stupid like dropping out if I’d found out sooner. Instead, I finished up the program, certified, then joined CMSA. I figured whoever my birth parents were, they had money and they probably had status and they wouldn’t want a daughter who spent her life with the poor and underprivileged in a third world country.”
He wondered how much of that anger had still fueled Tamara’s passionate intensity when he’d first met her. Or if that anger had turned inward as she re-evaluated her life during captivity. “What makes you think your sponsor can help you find your birth parents?”
“Whoever created the trust fund took care to cover their tracks. The fund is managed by a law firm in Toronto and they can’t tell me who the person or people behind it is. The information is buried under layers and layers of security.” Tamara drew a deep breath. “My sponsor can cut through those layers. I just have to convince her to do it.”
Warning bells were going off in Quinn’s head. People who covered their tracks with the kind of precision Tamara’s birth parents had were unlikely to take kindly to being revealed, even if the one doing the exposing was a child given up for adoption. Tamara was about to open up a wasps’ nest and she hadn’t a clue she might be swarmed the very angry inhabitants of that nest. “Who is this sponsor, anyway?”
“Olivia Waters, the cyber security guru.”
Olivia Waters. Well hell. Tamara was right. Waters had written the book on how to keep your information private in a cyber world. If anyone knew how to ferret out someone’s identity, it would be Olivia Waters. “It’s a big ask, Tamara. How well do you know her?”
“I don’t. All I know is that she believed in me enough to spend a ton of her money and a lot of her influence to ensure I got home. I thought … ” She nibbled her lip again, evidently one of her new unconscious nervous tells. “I thought when we met I’d mention that I’m searching for my birth parents. Maybe ask her if she has any ideas where or how I could find information on them.”
“Olivia Waters is into security. She’s probably has loose lips sink ships tattooed on her palm.”
Tamara frowned. “Loose lips?”
“World War Two security motto.” He smiled at her to lessen the impact of his next statement. “Listen, Tamara. Olivia Waters has the reputation of being tough and unbending. She’s a rules person. In an interview, she once described herself and her company as the ultimate shield. Nothing would get past the defenses she put in place. You’re not going to be able to coax information out of this woman.”
“See?” Tamara squeezed his hands. She didn’t look at all put out by his warning. She actually seemed to be pleased. “That’s why I need you there. You know about people and how they work. You can help me convince Olivia Waters that she wants to find my birth parents for me.”
“Tamara … ”
She must have heard the doubt in his voice for she opened her eyes wide. “Please, Quinn,” she whispered.
Hell. No matter how bad an idea he thought this was, he knew there was only one option.
He caved.
Chapter 3
“So where a
m I taking you?” Quinn asked as Tamara slipped into the car. She was wearing what he thought of as quiet clothes—jeans, a simple blouse that was a pale cream color and a slate gray all weather coat over top. The kind of clothes that didn’t stand out. The kind that helped a person fade into a crowd. Those clothes upset him as much as her self-effacing manners did. They were so not the Tamara he remembered.
He drove out of the shelter of her downtown hotel’s breezeway into a quiet downtown street. His wipers thumped back and forth regularly, fighting the steady rain and losing. Tamara consulted a piece of paper she pulled from her purse. “Olivia said to come to her office at English Bay University. She’s a professor there.” She glanced over at Quinn. “Do you know it?”
Oh, yeah, he knew EBU. He and Christy had investigated the murders of an EBU grad student and her faculty advisor. He pushed back memories of Christy and told himself to focus on the woman beside him instead. He gave Tamara a quick smile. “Not my alma mater, but yeah, I’m familiar with the campus.”
“She said to come at two. She has a meeting at three, though.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Quinn said. “If the traffic cooperates, we can be there with time to spare.”
“Oh, good,” Tamara said, with a small sigh and an apologetic smile.
She lapsed into silence while he maneuvered through traffic, heading south, then turning onto Broadway, which would take him directly out to the EBU campus. Traffic moved quickly, without a lot of problems, despite the rain. Tamara sat quietly, staring out the window, observing the mix of commercial, then residential buildings that lined the street. There weren’t a lot of landmarks Quinn could describe for her, leaving him free to indulge in more memories of Christy.
