Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  in a way I can’t fully describe.”

  He took off his glasses as if they were suddenly too heavy for his face. “Who would take an innocent child that way? What would they do to you? How could this have happened? For weeks, there was nothing but you to think of, to worry about, to pray for. There were leads, but they never went anywhere. The simple truth was you’d vanished, without a trace.”

  He paused a moment, folded his hands tidily on the table. “We were normal people, living ordinary lives. This sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen to normal people living ordinary lives. But it did, and it changed us. It changed Suzanne and Jay.”

  “How? I mean, other than the obvious.”

  “Finding you was Suzanne’s entire focus. She hounded the police, she went on television, talked to newspapers, to magazines. She’d always been a happy girl. Not brilliantly happy, if you understand me. Just content, cozy in the life she was making. She had no extraordinary and driving ambitions. She wanted to marry Jay, raise a family, make a home. She’d wanted that, only that, most of her life.”

  “Ordinary ambitions are the foundation of society. Without home, we have no structure on which to build the more complex levels.”

  “An interesting way to put it. Structure was certainly the goal. For both of them. Jay was, and is, a good man. Solid, dependable. A fine teacher who cares about his work and his students. He fell in love with Suzanne, I think, when they were about six.”

  “That’s sweet,” Callie said. “I didn’t realize they grew up together.”

  “Suze and Jay. People said their names as if they were one word.” And it hurt his heart that they were no longer one. “Neither of them dated anyone else seriously. Even more than she, Jay preferred the smooth and quiet road, which is what they had. They were married, had Doug, Jay taught, Suzanne made the home. They had their daughter. A perfect picture. The young couple, two children, a nice little house in their hometown.”

  “Then it dropped out from under them.”

  “Yes.”

  He’d never forget the sound of her voice when she’d called him. Daddy, Daddy, somebody took Jessie. Somebody took my baby.

  “The stress broke something in her, and broke something between her and Jay neither knew how to mend. Oh, they’d fight now and again when they were dating.”

  He put his glasses on again. “I can remember how she’d come storming into the house after a date, vowing never to speak to that Jay Cullen ever again. And the next day, he’d be at the door with that sheepish smile on his face.”

  “But this wasn’t a fight.”

  “It was a transformation. It drove Jay into himself even as it drove Suzanne out. Suddenly this young woman was an activist, now she was a woman with a mission. And when she wasn’t actively working to find you, attending support groups or seminars, she was horribly depressed. Jay wasn’t able to keep up, not the way she needed him to. He wasn’t able to fuel her, not the way she needed.”

  “It had to be hard on Doug.”

  “It was. Being caught between the two of them. They would create an illusion of normality for a while, but it would never last. They tried.”

  He touched her then, had to. He laid his fingertips lightly on the back of her hand. “They’re both decent, loving people who adored their son.”

  “Yes, I understand that.” And because she understood, she turned her hand over, hooked her fingers with Roger’s. “But they couldn’t rebuild that ordinary life when a piece of it was missing.”

  “No.” He let out a sigh. “Something would set Suzanne off—a new lead, a news report on another missing child, and it would all start again. Last couple of years they were living like strangers, keeping it together for Doug. I don’t know what made them cross over that line into divorce. I never asked.”

  “He still loves her.”

  Roger pursed his lips. “Yes, I know. How do you?”

  “Something he said when she was out of the room. The way he said it. I’m sorry for them, Mr. Grogan. But I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Nothing you or anyone else can do. I don’t know the people who raised you, but they must be decent and loving people, too.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “For everything they gave you, I’m grateful.” He cleared his throat. “But you were also given something at birth from Suzanne and Jay. If you can accept that, can value that, it can be enough.”

  She looked down at their joined fingers. “I’m glad I came in today.”

  “I hope you’ll come back. I wonder . . .Maybe we’d both be more comfortable with each other if you called me Roger.”

  “Okay.” She rose. “So, Roger, do you have to open up again right now?”

  “One of the perks of owning your own place is doing what the hell you want some of the time.”

  “If you feel like it, you could ride out to the site with me. I’ll give you a tour.”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time.”

  Callie, hey!” She’d barely pulled up at the dig when Bill McDowell rushed over, hastily combing his fingers through his disordered hair to smooth it. “Where you been?”

  “I had some things to do.” She climbed out. “Roger Grogan, Bill McDowell. Bill’s one of our grad students.”

  “Yeah, hi,” Bill offered before his focus zeroed back on Callie. “I was hoping I could work with you today. Wow! What happened to your face?”

  She didn’t snarl. It would be too much like snarling at a big, sloppy puppy who couldn’t stop himself from humping your leg. “I ran into something.”

  “Gee. Does it hurt? Maybe you want to sit down in the shade. I could get you a drink.” He swung the gate open for her.

  “No, thanks. I’m going to show Roger around, then . . .” She trailed off when she saw Jake standing nose to nose with the big man from the bar. The big one who’d given her Rover a new paint job. “What the hell’s going on there?”

  “Oh, that guy? He was looking for you. Jake got in his face.” Bill barely glanced back at Jake, his imagined rival for Callie’s affections. “We’ve had enough trouble around here without Jake starting more.”

  “If Jake was starting trouble, that idiot gorilla would be on his ass. Sorry, Roger, I need to take care of this. Bill, why don’t you show Mr. Grogan the knapping area?”

  “Sure, sure, if you want me to, but—”

  “I could speak to Austin,” Roger offered. “I used to sneak him peppermints when he was a boy.”

  “I can handle it. Won’t take long.” She strode across the site, giving a quick head shake when anyone spoke her name. But Dory popped up, tugged her sleeve.

  “Do you think we should call the police?” she hissed. “Do you think we should call the sheriff? If they get into a fight—”

  “Then it’s their business. Go help Frannie with the spoil for a while. Stay out of the way.”

  “But don’t you think . . . What happened to your face?”

  “Just stay out of the way.”

  Callie was ready to rock by the time she reached Jake and Austin.

  “I hear you’re looking for me,” she began.

  “I got a check for you. I just came to bring you the check. For the damages.”

  Silently, she held out her hand. After he’d dug it out of his pocket, dropped it on her palm, Callie unfolded it, read the amount. It matched the total of the estimate she’d given Hewitt.

  “Fine. Now go very far away.”

  “I got something to say.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m gonna tell you just like I told him.” He jerked a thumb at Jake. “And just like I told Jeff, Sheriff Hewitt. I was home last night. In bed with my wife by eleven o’clock. Didn’t even watch the late news or Leno because I had a job this morning. A job I’m missing to be here and tell you up front. Now maybe me and Jimmy were out of line with your four-wheeler—”

  “Maybe?” Jake’s voice was much, much too quiet for safety.

  The muscles in Austi
n’s jaw quivered. “We were out of line, and we’re making restitution for it. But I don’t knock women around, or go out shooting at people, for Christ’s sake. Neither does Jimmy. Jeff, he comes out to where we’re working today, tells us we’ve gotta say where we were last night, ’round midnight, and what we were doing and can anybody swear we’re telling the truth.”

  It was the mortification on his face that had Callie throttling back her temper.

  “If you hadn’t vandalized my car, Hewitt wouldn’t have embarrassed you at work. I figure we’re even, because it’s pretty damned embarrassing to drive around with ‘lesbo freak’ on my hood.”

  Austin flushed until his face looked like a bloodstained moon. “I’m apologizing for it. For me and Jimmy.”

  “You draw the short straw?” Jake asked.

  The slight twitch of Austin’s lips was acknowledgment. “Flipped a coin. I don’t know what happened last night, but I’m telling you I never raised my hand to a woman in my life. Not once,” he said with a quick glance at Callie’s forehead. “Never shot at anybody either. I don’t want you here, and I’ll say it plain to your face. Ron Dolan, he was a good man, and a friend of mine. What happened to him . . . It ain’t right. Just ain’t right.”

  “We can agree on that.” Callie tucked the check into her pocket.

  “Seems to me maybe what people are saying is true. About this place having a curse on it.” He shot an uneasy glance toward the pond. “Can’t say I’d work here now anyway.”

  “You can leave that to us then. Bygones,” she added and held out a hand.

  Austin looked momentarily confused, then took her hand gingerly in his. “A man who hits a woman that way,” he said with a nod toward her forehead, “he deserves to get his hand broke for it.”

  “Another point of agreement,” Jake told him.

  “Well . . . that’s all I got to say.” He gave another nod, then lumbered back across the dig.

  “Well, that was entertaining.” Callie patted her pocket. “No way that goofball shot at you. Why were you about to challenge him to the best two out of three throws?”

  “He walked in with a chip on his shoulder I felt obliged to knock off. Said he didn’t have dick to say to me, and so on, which, naturally, meant we had to insult each other for a little while. What might have been some good, bloody fun was spoiled when you walked up and he saw your face.”

  Jake reached out, gently fluttered her bangs. “I hope this is a new look and not an attempt to disguise that knot.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Because it’s not a bad look, but it’s a pitiful disguise.” He leaned down, touched his lips gently to the bruise. “How’s it feel today?”

  “Like I got hit with a tree.”

  “I bet. Who’s the old guy?”

  She looked back to see Roger hunkered down at a segment between Bill and Matt. “Roger Grogan. Suzanne’s father. I went by to talk to him this morning. He’s . . . he’s pretty terrific. I’m going to show him around.”

  “Introduce me.” He took her hand. “We’ll show him around.” He only tightened his grip when she tried to tug away. “Be a sport. It drives Bill crazy when I touch you.”

  “Leave the kid alone. He’s harmless.”

  “He wants to nibble on your toes while he worships at your feet.” Deliberately he brought her hand to his lips. “If he had a gun, I’d be bleeding from multiple wounds right now.”

  “You’re a mean son of a bitch.”

  He laughed, released her hand only to sling an arm around her shoulders. “That’s what you love about me, babe.”

  Callie was just setting out her tools the next morning, mentally reviewing her sector for the day when Lana pulled up.

  Mildly amused, Callie watched her go through the gate, look down at her pretty heels, roll her eyes and begin to cross the field.

  “Isn’t this a little early for a lawyer to be up and about?” Callie called out.

  “Not when the lawyer has a kid to get to preschool and a dog to get to the vet.” She tipped her sunglasses down as she got closer and winced as she studied Callie’s forehead. “Ouch.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “I’d like to point out that hearing about my client’s nocturnal adventures second- and third-hand is a bit embarrassing. You should’ve called me.”

  “I don’t know who to sue over it.”

  “The police don’t have any suspects?”

  “They dug a slug out of a poplar. They find the gun it came from, I guess they’ll have a suspect.”

  “Why aren’t you scared?”

  “I am. Jake said the shot missed him by five feet, and I have to believe he’s being straight about that. But the fact is, someone was out there shooting. Somebody was out here, doing worse than that.”

  “Do you think they’re connected incidents?”

  “The sheriff doesn’t seem to think so but he’s pretty tight-lipped. It’s just speculation. Some people don’t like having us here. One way to get us gone is to mess up the project. A dead body and gunfire mess it up pretty good.”

  “I have some news that’s not going to make you any happier.”

  “The investigator.”

  “We’ll start there. Carlyle’s son isn’t being forthcoming. He told the investigator he doesn’t know where his father is, and if he did, it wouldn’t be any of the investigator’s business.”

  “I want him to keep at it.”

  “It’s your nickel.”

  “I’ve got a few more to spare.” She blew out a breath. “Just a few,” she admitted. “But I can handle it for another couple of weeks.”

  “Just let me know when you need to reevaluate the expenses. I like the bangs, by the way.”

  “Yeah?” Callie gave them a little tug. “They’re going to annoy me when they get in my eyes.”

  “That’s why salons were invented. The next portion of my morning’s agenda has to deal with town gossip.”

  “Should I get the coffee and cookies?”

  “You could come up here. If I come down there, these shoes are toast.” She glanced around the dig as Callie set her tools aside.

  There was, as always, the clink of tools on rock, the swish of them in dirt. Running over it was a babble of music. It was hot, the kind of hot that made her feel sticky two minutes after she stepped outside.

  She could smell sweat, insect repellant, earth.

  She’d had no idea it would all progress so uniformly. So many squares and rectangles taken out of the ground. And trenches being formed foot by measured foot.

  There were tools in piles, shovels and trowels, wide brushes. Canvas duffels were tossed here and there. Someone had laid a clipboard over a camera. To shade it, she imagined. Near every segment were jugs and water bottles, and shirts that had been stripped off lay baking in the sun.

  “What’re they doing over there?”

  Callie looked over to where Jake and Dory stood close together. “Jake’s flirting with the sexy project photographer.” Then she shrugged, surprised that it no longer brought a green cloud of jealousy over her vision when she noted the easy way he touched Dory’s shoulder, her arm.

  “He’s probably explaining what he wants out of the pictures, which angles.” Absently, she rubbed at a shallow scratch on the back of her hand. “They’ve been finding potsherds in that area.”

  “I’ll have to take a look before I go. So . . .” She turned her attention back to Callie. “You went to see Roger yesterday.”

  “That’s right. So what? I liked him.”

  “So do I. Very much. Afterward, you took him somewhere.”

  “I brought him out to see the dig. What difference does it make?”

  “There was someone in the store when you were there.”

  “Yeah, she had some books she wanted to sell.” Callie bent down for her jug of iced tea. Since she’d misplaced her cup, she drank straight from the jug. “She said she was the guy who dug up the first artifact’s sist
er-in-law. Why is this interesting?”

  “She recognized you.”

  “What, from TV?” It only took a beat for it to sink in. “That’s just not possible. No way she talked to me for two minutes and pegged me as Jessica Cullen.”