Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  work.”

  She drew a deep breath when he strode back toward his four-wheeler. She counted to ten. “I’m going to kill you for this, Leo. Kill you dead.”

  “You’ve worked together before. You did some of your best work, both of you, together.”

  “I want Nick. As soon as he’s available, I want Nick.”

  “Callie—”

  “Don’t talk to me, Leo. Just don’t talk to me right now.” She gritted her teeth, girded her loins and prepared to give her ex-husband a tour of the site.

  They did work well together. And that, Callie thought as she showered off the grime of the day, was one more pisser. They challenged each other, professionally, and somehow that challenge forced them to complement each other.

  It had always done so.

  She loved his mind, even if it was inside the hardest head she’d ever butted her own against. His was so fluid, so flexible, so open to possibilities. And it could, it did, latch on to the tiniest detail, work it, build on it, until it gleamed like gold.

  The problem was they challenged each other personally, too. And for a while . . . for a while, she mused, they had complemented each other.

  But mostly they’d fought like a pair of mad dogs.

  When they weren’t fighting, they were falling into bed. When they weren’t fighting or falling into bed or working on a common project they . . . baffled each other, she supposed.

  It had been ridiculous for them to get married. She could see that now. What had seemed romantic, exciting and sexy in eloping like a couple of crazy teenagers had turned into stark reality. And marriage had become a battlefield with each of them drawing lines the other had been dead set on crossing.

  Of course, his lines had been absurd, while hers had been rational. But that was neither here nor there.

  They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, she remembered. And her body still remembered, poignantly, the feel of those hands.

  But then, it had been painfully apparent that Jacob Graystone’s hands hadn’t been particularly selective where they wandered. The bastard.

  That brunette in Colorado had been the last straw. Busty, baby-voiced Veronica. The bitch.

  And when she’d confronted him with her conclusions, when she’d accused him in plain, simple terms of being a rat-bastard cheater, he hadn’t had the courtesy—he hadn’t had the balls, she corrected as her temper spiked—to confirm or deny.

  What had he called her? Oh yeah. Her mouth thinned as she heard the hot slap of his words in her head.

  A childish, tight-assed, hysterical female.

  She’d never been sure which part of that phrase most pissed her off, but it had coated her vision with red. The rest of the argument was a huge, boiling blur. All she clearly remembered was demanding a divorce—the first sensible thing she’d done since laying eyes on him. And demanding he get the hell out, and off the project, or she would.

  Had he fought for her? Hell no. Had he begged her forgiveness, pledged his love and fidelity? Not a chance.

  He’d walked. And so—ha ha, what a coincidence—had the busty brunette.

  Still steaming from the memory, Callie stepped out of the shower, grabbed one of the thin, tiny towels the motel provided. Then closed a hand around the ring she wore on a chain around her neck.

  She’d taken the wedding ring off—yanked it off, she recalled—as soon as she’d received the divorce papers for her signature. She’d very nearly heaved it into the Platte River, where she’d been working.

  But she hadn’t been able to. She hadn’t been able to let it go as she’d told herself she’d let Jacob go.

  He was, in her life, her only failure.

  She told herself she wore the ring to remind herself not to fail again.

  She pulled off the chain, tossed it on the dresser. If he saw it, he’d think she’d never gotten over him. Or something equally conceited.

  She wasn’t going to think about him anymore. She’d work with him but that didn’t mean she’d spend a minute of her free time thinking about him.

  Jacob Graystone had been a personal mistake, a personal failure. And she’d moved on.

  He certainly had. Their little world was incestuous enough for her to have heard how quickly he’d dived back into the single-guy dating pool to do the backstroke.

  Rich, amateur diggers, that was his style, she thought as she yanked out fresh jeans. Rich, amateur diggers with big breasts and empty heads. Someone who looked good on his arm and made him feel intellectually superior.

  That’s what he wanted.

  “Screw him,” she muttered and dragged on jeans and a shirt.

  She was going to see if Rosie wanted to hunt up a meal, and she wasn’t going to give Graystone another thought.

  She pulled open the door and nearly plowed into the woman who was standing outside it.

  “Sorry.” Callie jammed the room key in her pocket. “Can I help you with something?”

  Suzanne’s throat snapped shut. Tears threatened to overflow as she stared at Callie’s face. She fought a smile on her lips and clutched her portfolio bag as if it were a beloved child.

  In a way, it was.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” Callie said when the woman only continued to stare. “Are you looking for someone?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m looking for someone. You . . .I need to speak with you. It’s awfully important.”

  “Me?” Callie shifted, to block the door. It seemed to her the woman looked just a little unhinged. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you.”

  “No. You don’t know me. I’m Suzanne Cullen. It’s very important that I speak with you. Privately. If I could come inside, for a few minutes.”

  “Ms. Cullen, if this is about the dig, you’re welcome to come by during the day. One of us will be happy to explain the project to you. But right now isn’t convenient. I was just on my way out. I’m meeting someone.”

  “If I could have five minutes, you’d see why this is so important. To both of us. Please. Five minutes.”

  There was such urgency in the woman’s voice, Callie stepped back. “Five minutes.” But she left the door open. “What can I do for you?”

  “I wasn’t going to come tonight. I was going to wait until . . .” She’d nearly hired a detective again. Had been on the point of picking up the phone to do so. To sit back and wait while facts were checked. “I’ve lost so much time already. So much time.”

  “Look, you’d better sit down. You don’t look very well.” The fact was, Callie thought, the woman looked fragile enough to shatter into pieces. “I’ve got some bottled water.”

  “Thank you.” Suzanne lowered to the side of the bed. She wanted to be clear, she wanted to be calm. She wanted to grab her little girl and hold on to her so tight three decades would vanish.

  She took the bottle Callie offered. Sipped. Steadied. “I need to ask you a question. It’s very personal, and very important.” She took a deep breath.

  “Were you adopted?”

  “What?” With a sound that was part shock, part laugh, Callie shook her head. “No. What the hell kind of question is that? Who the hell are you?”

  “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Of course I am. Jesus, lady. Look—”

  “On December 12, 1974, my infant daughter, Jessica, was stolen from her stroller in the Hagerstown Mall.”

  She spoke calmly now. She had, over the years, given countless speeches on missing children and her own ordeal.

  “I was there to take my son, her three-year-old brother, Douglas, to see Santa Claus. There was a moment of distraction. A moment. That’s all it took. She was gone. We looked everywhere. The police, the FBI, family, friends, the community. Organizations for missing children. She was only three months old. We never found her. She’ll be twenty-nine on September eighth.”

  “I’m sorry.” Annoyance wavered into sympathy. “I’m very sorry. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, for your
family. If you have some idea that I might be that daughter, I’m sorry for that, too. But I’m not.”

  “I need to show you something.” Though her breathing was shallow, Suzanne opened the portfolio carefully. “This is a picture of me when I was about your age. Will you look at it, please?”

  Reluctantly, Callie took it. A chill danced up her spine as she studied the face. “There’s a resemblance. That sort of thing happens, Ms. Cullen. A similar heritage, or mix of genes. You hear people say everyone’s got a double. That’s because it’s basically true.”

  “Do you see the dimples? Three?” Suzanne brushed her trembling fingers over her own. “You have them.”

  “I also have parents. I was born in Boston on September 11, 1974. I have a birth certificate.”

  “My mother.” Suzanne pulled out another photo. “Again, this was taken when she was about thirty. Maybe a few years younger, my father wasn’t sure. You see how much you look like her. And, and my husband.”

  Suzanne drew out another photo. “His eyes. You have his eyes—the shape, the color. Even the eyebrows. Dark and straight. When you—when Jessica was born, I said her eyes were going to be like Jay’s. And they were turning that amber color when she, when we . . . Oh, God. When I saw you on television, I knew. I knew.”

  Callie’s heart was galloping, a wild horse inside her breast, and her palms began to sweat. “Ms. Cullen, I’m not your daughter. My mother has brown eyes. We’re almost the same height and build. I know who my parents are, my family history. I know who I am and where I came from. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can say to make you feel better. There’s nothing I can do to help you.”

  “Ask them.” Suzanne pleaded. “Look them in the face and ask them. If you don’t do that, how can you be sure? If you don’t do that, I’ll go to Philadelphia and ask them myself. Because I know you’re my child.”

  “I want you to go.” Callie moved to the door. Her knees were starting to shake. “I want you to go now.”

  Leaving the photographs on the bed, Suzanne rose. “You were born at four thirty-five in the morning, at Washington County Hospital in Hagerstown, Maryland. We named you Jessica Lynn.”

  She took another picture out of her bag, set it on the bed. “That’s a copy of the photograph taken shortly after you were born. Hospitals do that for families. Have you ever seen a picture of yourself before you were three months old?”

  She paused a moment, then stepped to the door. Indulged herself by brushing her hand over Callie’s. “Ask them. My address and phone number are with the pictures. Ask them,” she said again and hurried out.

  Trembling, Callie shut the door, leaned back against it.

  It was crazy. The woman was sad and deluded. And crazy. Losing a child had snapped her brain or something. How could you blame her? She probably saw her daughter in every face that held any remote resemblance.

  More than remote, Callie’s mind whispered as she studied the photographs on the bed. Strong, almost uncanny resemblance.

  It didn’t mean anything. It was insane to think otherwise.

  Her parents weren’t baby thieves, for God’s sake. They were kind, loving, interesting people. The kind who would feel nothing but compassion for someone like Suzanne Cullen.

  The resemblance, the age similarity, they were only coincidences.

  Ask them.

  How could you ask your own parents such a thing? Hey, Mom, did you happen to be in the mall in Maryland around Christmas in ’seventy-four? Did you pick up a baby along with some last-minute gifts?

  “God.” She pressed her hand to her belly as it roiled. “Oh God.”

  At the knock on the door she whirled around, yanked it open. “I told you I’m not . . . What the hell do you want?”

  “Share a beer?” Jake clanged the two bottles he held by the necks. “Truce?”

  “I don’t want a beer, and there’s no need for a truce. I’m not interested enough to have a fight with you, therefore, a truce is moot.”

  “Not like you to turn down a free beer at the end of the day.”

  “You’re right.” She snagged one, then booted the door. It would have slammed satisfactorily in his face, but he’d always been quick.

  “Hey. Trying to be friendly here.”

  “Go be friendly with someone else. You’re good at it.”

  “Ah, that sounds like interested enough to fight to me.”

  “Get lost, Graystone. I’m not in the mood.” She turned her back on him and spotted her wedding ring on the dresser. Shit. Perfect. She stalked over, laid a hand over it and drew the chain into her fist.

  “The Callie Dunbrook we all know and love is always in the mood to fight.” He sauntered toward the bed as she jammed the ring and chain into her pocket. “What’s this? Looking at family pictures?”

  She spun around and went pale as ice. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because they’re on the bed. Who’s this? Your grandmother? Never met her, did I? Then again, we didn’t spend a lot of time getting chummy with each other’s families.”

  “It’s not my grandmother.” She tore the photo out of his hand. “Get out.”

  “Hold on.” He tapped his knuckles on her cheek, an old habit that had tears burning the back of her throat. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong is I’d like to have some goddamn privacy.”

  “Babe, I know that face. You’re not pissed off at me, you’re upset. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She wanted to. Wanted to pull the cork and let it all pour out. “It’s none of your business. I have a life without you. I don’t need you.”

  His eyes went cold, went hard. “You never did. I’ll get out of your way. I’ve had a hell of a lot of practice getting out of your way.”

  He walked to the door. He glanced at the cello case in the corner, the sandalwood candle burning on the dresser, the laptop on the bed and the open bag of DoubleStuf Oreos beside the phone.

  “Same old Callie,” he muttered.

  “Jake?” She stepped to the door, nearly touched him. Nearly gave in to the urge to put a hand on his arm and pull him back. “Thanks for the beer,” she said and closed the door, gently at least, in his face.

  Four

  She felt like a thief. It hardly mattered that she had a key to the front door, that she knew every sound and scent of the neighborhood, every corner and closet of the big brick house in Mount Holly.

  She was still sneaking in at two in the morning.

  Callie hadn’t been able to settle after Suzanne Cullen’s visit. She hadn’t been able to eat, or sleep or lose herself in work.

  And she had realized she’d go crazy sitting around a dumpy motel room obsessing about a stranger’s lost baby.

  Not that she believed she’d been that baby. Not for a minute.

  But she was a scientist, a seeker, and until she had answers she knew she’d pick at the puzzle like a scab until it was uncovered.

  Leo wasn’t happy with her, she thought as she pulled into the driveway of her parents’ suburban home. He’d blustered and complained and asked questions she couldn’t answer when she’d called to tell him she was taking the next day off.

  But she’d had to come.

  Along the drive from Maryland to Philadelphia she’d convinced herself she was doing the only logical thing. Even if that meant going into her parents’ house when they were away, even if it meant searching their files and papers for some proof of what she already knew.

  She was Callie Ann Dunbrook.

  The elegant neighborhood was quiet as a church. Though she shut her car door gently, the sound of it echoed like a shot and set a neighbor’s dog to barking.

  The house was dark but for a faint gleam in the second-story window of her mother’s sitting room. Her parents would have set the