by Style, Linda
Seconds later, she returned to the task, but found nothing. Where else would it be filed? M she decided. For Macy.
Nothing there either. Maybe D for Dr. Dixon.
Again, nothing.
After searching every possible file and coming up with zip, she sat in her father’s chair to regroup. All she wanted was to see the stupid thing. Then everything would be fine. But her father was so paranoid on the subject, so worried someone might find out, that he’d wiped away any trace of the child she’d had. Her indiscretion as he’d called it.
She closed her eyes. It wasn’t an indiscretion. The birth of her son had been a life-changing event. She had to know the truth. And her father had to have a copy of the death certificate. How would he have made funeral arrangements without it?
As she glanced at the clock on the desk, an idea formed. Haven’s Gate would still be open. She picked up the phone.
The receptionist answered. Thank heaven. “Danielle, this is Macy Capshaw.”
Danielle didn’t respond.
“I wanted to thank you for calling me. It was the right thing to do.”
She heard a muffled sound on the other end. “I—I wasn’t sure … but if someone finds out—”
“No one will find out. But I need something else from Haven’s Gate.”
Danielle’s breathing audibly deepened.
“It isn’t much. I need to get printouts from one of the Haven’s Gate files and I don’t want anyone to know about it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t —”
“It’s okay. It’s my own file.”
“Your file?” she said incredulously.
“Yes, I was there a long time ago. But I don’t want anyone to know I want to see it.” Which was why she couldn’t just fill out the forms and request the hard copy. But someone could pull it up on the computer for her. Easy peasy.
“I could get in trouble.”
A wave of guilt washed over Macy. She shouldn’t have asked the girl to do something that could get her fired. She was grateful Danielle had even called about her suspicions.
“I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. It’s my problem, not yours.”
“I get in trouble a lot,” Danielle said. “Sometimes I forget to lock the side door when I leave and, since I’m the last one here, the one who locks up, they get mad at me when I don’t do that. There are a lot of files that haven’t been computerized yet and someone might come in and look at them.”
Macy’s interest piqued. “Really? Even if they did, the security cameras would catch them, wouldn’t they?”
“No. There aren’t any.”
“Ah…” Macy paused, not wanting to end the call, but she couldn’t think of a reason to keep her talking to convince her. “You should be more careful then.”
“I know. Dumb me, I’ll probably forget again tonight when I go home. At six.”
Probably forget? Was she…? Macy couldn’t believe what the woman was saying. Was she offering…
“If I forget again they told me I’ll lose my job.”
“You won’t lose your job. I promise.”
Finished, Macy leaned back in the chair and Hercules jumped into her lap. What would Rico say if he found out what she was about to do? Well, it wasn’t illegal to enter an open door to a public building. That much she knew. Looking at the files, well, she wasn’t going to think about that.
It was the only way if she wanted a real answer. Fact was, she didn’t want to wait another hour, another minute. She was antsy, her emotions all over the place anticipating what she was about to do, what she was about to find. Her nerves were practically jumping out of her skin with a strange urgency.
A sudden gut-wrenching urgency.
***
IT WAS DARK WHEN Macy pulled into the alley and parked in a spot where her car wouldn’t be visible from the street. The side entrance to Haven’s Gate led directly to the office, which was a separate area from where the residents stayed. Luckily, there was no light outside this door as there was in front.
After killing the engine, Macy left the car keys in the ignition, told Hercules she’d only be a minute, slipped out and quietly closed the car door. As she climbed the steps, her breathing became shallow, her hands clammy with sweat.
God, after all this, she hoped to hell Danielle hadn’t had second thoughts.
She checked around the door for any sign of an alarm system but found nothing. Key-holder flashlight in hand, she reached for the doorknob and turned. One click and it was open. Her heart leaped to her throat. Thank you, Danielle.
She inched open the door just enough to step inside and then closed it again, shining her flashlight along the floor to guide her. Within seconds, she found the record room. All she was looking for was something that showed her child had been stillborn and that his death had not been caused by negligence.
She pulled out a file drawer. Damn. The files only had numbers on them — no names. She quickly determined the numbers correlated with certain dates. The date the client came into the facility and the client’s initials.
Knowing that, it shouldn’t take too long to find her file. March 21, 2002. But these were current files, she realized. She needed old files and they didn’t seem to be right here. She directed the flashlight beam from one corner of the room to the other, stopping at several stacked boxes on her left. Each had a label with a year on it. As she scanned them, her heartbeat quickened. There. There it is! 2002.
She couldn’t move. All she had to do was find her file and see what had been recorded. Simple. She took a deep breath and pushed a chair over to the rack. As she did, she had the oddest feeling—a feeling that she wasn’t alone—that someone was watching her.
Her gaze darted from one shadowy spot to another. Nothing. She was overreacting, that’s all. Perfectly natural since she was doing something illegal.
It was a stupid thing to do. She knew that. But her need to know about her child far outweighed the consequences. She pulled down the box and took off the cover, fingering through the manila folders inside. Yes. There. Her blood rushed.
Would there be a photo? Did she really want to see it if there was? All it would do is make her long for something she could never have. Her vision blurred with tears at the thought that her little boy never had a chance to live…or know his mother’s love.
Taking a deep breath, she felt a sudden pall of dread. A feeling that this would not end it.
Girding her resolve, she found the entry for the date of her baby’s birth and flipped through three boxes before she found her file and pulled it out. She skimmed over all the entries for each day she’d stayed at the shelter until she reached March 21. But…what… What the—? The entry for that date had been blacked out. She flipped another page and another. The only entries after that pertained to her discharge.
Her hands shaking, she pulled the page and stuffed it into her waistband.
She went to the same date and found Carla’s file. The entry verified that Carla’s child had been stillborn. She was right about that. So, why had she been told otherwise?
Still trembling, she closed the box and hoisted it back in place and, as she did, she felt that same eerie awareness, as if someone was watching her. Turning, she saw nothing. No cameras she remembered…and as far as she could tell, Danielle had been right about that.
She had what she needed. After making sure the door would lock behind her, she left the building and drove home like a madwoman, her mind conjuring one scenario after another. Had her visit the other day prompted someone to delete specific information in her file? Redact it? But why?
It was a question that needed an answer—and she was going to get it.
***
“RICO, IT’S MACY.”
Something was wrong. And he could tell by the agitation in her voice that it wasn’t a hangnail. He swiveled his chair to look the other way and keep the conversation private from Jordan. “What’s up?”
“I need you.”
�
��Well, I was wondering when you’d realize that.”
“Please don’t joke. I need your help.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“I know there’s a process to get information from a document even if it’s been blacked out.”
“Yes. CSU does it with forged checks. What about it?”
She hesitated briefly. “I have a document. If I gave it to you, could you ask CSU to look at it?”
“I can if it pertains to a case. But I can’t give them something personal.”
“It might be pertinent.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“Oh, man.” He took a deep breath.
“If you can’t take it to CSU, maybe you can find out what process they use, what chemicals and how they go about doing it. Maybe you could get some of their chemicals and—”
“What’s in it?”
“I have a page from my medical file at Haven’s Gate. And the information from the date I gave birth has been redacted.”
“How did you get it?” He hoped she’d say she requested it through the proper procedure to obtain confidential records, but he had a bad feeling that wasn’t the case. “Or don’t I want to know?”
“You don’t want to know. Can you help me or not?”
“I want to help you Macy, but I don’t think I can.”
“You don’t think you can—or you can’t. Which is it?”
“Can’t.”
She was silent for the longest time, and then she said, “This is really important.”
He heard the pain in her voice. Dammit. But he couldn’t just barge into CSU and ask them to do something with illegally acquired information that didn’t even relate to a current case. Or could he? What harm could come of it? He gritted his teeth.
“Have you tried the Internet? You can get almost any kind of information you want if you Google it.”
“No.”
“Look, Macy. I really want to help—”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” Her voice was distant, her words curt, and then the dial tone droned in his ear.
He slammed down the phone. “Son of a bitch.”
Jordan looked up. “That good, huh? Important call?”
“Yeah.” Rico leaned back in his chair, cracked his knuckles…thinking. “It could be significant.”
“Well, then, do what you have to do.”
When Rico didn’t respond, Jordan added, “Not everything in the world is black-and-white. You of all people should know that.”
Right. But, dammit. He liked things to be black-and-white. It’s one of the reasons he was in law enforcement. There was order in what he did. He didn’t want to be out there making his own decisions about what was within the law and what wasn’t. Right was right and wrong was wrong.
“We have to make decisions all the time,” Jordan said. “Right or wrong, we never really know until after the fact.”
“This isn’t in the gray area. There’s no question of right or wrong.” Rico stuffed his hands into his pockets and frowned at Jordan.
Jordan simply smiled and nodded.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MACY PUNCHED IN ANOTHER search on Google. Even if she found the information to get the ink off, she would have to find where to get the chemicals and it was probably too late for that. She slumped back in her chair and held the document up to the light one more time. If she could just see through the paper… No such luck.
She tossed it on the table. Damn. The sudden buzz of the doorbell made her jump. She shoved the paper under one of her law books and crossed to the door. No one she knew would stop by at this hour. No one she knew would drop by without calling first. And it had to be someone who had the security code. The only people who had that were her parents and her best friend, Amalia, both of whom were out of the country. And Rico. She’d given him the code when he’d come to pick her up for dinner at her parents.
But that wasn’t happening. He’d been adamant on the phone.
She pressed the intercom. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Rico.”
Barefoot and wearing a skimpy camisole top and boxer shorts, she wasn’t exactly dressed for company. But after checking the peephole she opened the door.
“It’s late. Has something happened?”
He shook his head. “I had an idea.”
She stood still. “An idea.”
He passed her and went into the living room. “Yeah. An idea. I have one once in a while.”
She grinned. He seemed to be able to make her smile even when she felt horrible.
“You know how people do those rubbings and it transfers to the paper, I thought maybe that would work with the document you have if the writing was done with a heavy hand.” He held up a brown paper bag and pulled out some tracing paper and dark pencils.
“Where’s the document?”
“It’s on my desk. But the writing is covered with black marker. I doubt it’ll work.”
In a few quick steps he was in her office. “Where?”
She pulled the document from under her books and handed it to him. His eyes bugged slightly when he saw the Haven’s Gate imprint on the top of the page.
“I didn’t break in or anything.”
His skeptical gaze said he wasn’t quite sure she told the truth. “Fine. But if someone didn’t give this to you through proper procedures, don’t say another word. I don’t want to know.”
It was hard to suppress a grin. He was determined to follow the damned rules, no matter what.
He shrugged off his jacket, laid the paper on her desk, right side down, placed a sheet of tracing paper on top of it and began to rub over it with one of the pencils. “Soft lead,” he said. “I use it for drawing sometimes.”
She liked watching him. Watching the muscles in his arms flex as he worked. He was dressed even more casually than normal in a white T-shirt and faded jeans. “You’re an artist? I never would’ve suspected.”
He kept rubbing. “No, I’m not. But I like to draw for my nieces and nephews. Cartoons and caricatures, mostly.”
This was a side of Rico Santini she hadn’t seen before, and she was even more intrigued. She knew he liked kids by his collection of keepsakes from his nieces and nephews. But she didn’t know he had a creative side. Maybe he wasn’t as inflexible as she thought. He was here, wasn’t he?
“No big deal. Just something I learned to do out of boredom when I was at summer camp one year. My parents sent me there because they thought it would get me away from the computer. I wasn’t even allowed to take my electronic games along.” He kept rubbing.
She moved closer to see how he was doing. “You poor thing. You were so deprived.” She would’ve given anything to go to summer camp with friends. Most summers she went to Europe with her parents. Hating every minute.
He stopped what he was doing, shook out his fingers and turned to look at her. “I thought so at the time, but now I’m happy I had the experience. I learned there was more to life than computers. And I made my parents happy.”
“You’re parents sound wonderful.”
“They’re all right. Hey, they’ll be here this weekend if you want to meet them. My sisters and brothers, too.
She didn’t know what to say.
“I’m having a barbecue. You can help me.”
Help with a barbecue? “I’m afraid my barbecue experience is limited.” Catered events for charity, usually. “You don’t want me to help. Really. Take my word on it.”
“Well, come anyway.”
When she didn’t respond immediately, he said, “I’d really like that. A friend thing. We are friends aren’t we?” He smiled. “Your mother thinks so anyway.”
Macy laughed. He had a way of getting her not to take herself so seriously. She’d been so focused on what she was doing, she’d forgotten how good it felt to simply let go — not think about consequences.
“Tell me you’ll come and
I’ll finish what I’m doing.”
Arching a brow, she said, “Sounds like blackmail to me.”
“Friendly coercion. When was the last time you spent time hanging out with a frien’s large Italian family, most of whom like to stick their noses into everyone’s business?” he asked, shrugging, hands spread, palms up. “What could it hurt?”
What could it hurt, indeed. She hesitated. “Okay. I’ll come. As a friend.” Friend, shmend. At this moment she wanted to throw him on the desk and ravish his body.
“Great,” he said and then went back to the paper.
“Does it look like it’s working?”
“I think so…I hope so.”
As she stood watching him, his cologne teased her senses, a fresh ocean breeze. Her stomach curled. She wanted to reach out and touch him, slid her hands down his broad shoulders, run her fingers through his dark hair.
“If this doesn’t work, infrared light or laser photography might. One of the CSU techs told me that’s how to separate the ink from the correctional fluid—or marker in this case.”
Her chest expanded a little. He wouldn’t do anything his ethics didn’t allow, but he’d gone out of his way to find out what he could do to help her.
“There,” he said and stood. “Let’s see if it worked.”
Her breath caught. She jerked back a few inches, raising her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, gosh.”She ran a hand through her hair. “I — I want to know what it says, but—” she whirled around “—but I’m afraid of what I’ll find out.”
His puzzled look lasted only a second. “Do you want me to look at it first?”
Her pulse pounded at the base of her throat. What a baby she was. She’d helped so many clients through terrible crises and most of them had weathered the storm with dignity. What kind of wuss was she? She straightened. “No, let’s look at it together.”
He took the tracing paper and walked to the couch. “The light’s better here.”
She followed him. “Let’s do it.”
He held the tracing paper to the lamp. The letters were smudged but she could make out a few words like breech baby and Cesarean. A bunch of numbers and then, Healthy baby boy, 7 lbs, 13 oz, 21 inches long. Vital signs normal.
