Copper Lake Encounter

by Marilyn Pappano

  She smiled again, that faint little smile that lacked the warmth and light of the usual one. “People used to say I was small for my age. Marieka was taller than me by the time I turned five.”

  He closed the pizza box and placed it in the refrigerator, and then he filled his glass with water again before rejoining her at the table. “What if you were adopted? If you’re not a Wilson but a Duquesne? Not Marieka’s sister but Anamaria’s? Could you deal with that?”

  Frank trotted into the room, yawning from his nap, and headed straight for her and the leftover pizza on her plate. She used feeding him small pieces of it to delay answering, but once it was gone, she looked up. “Having a sister who actually wants to be a sister would be a novelty. Not having a mother wouldn’t be a huge difference. But YaYa would always be my grandmother.”

  She said it with a fierceness that made him laugh. “No one would expect you to give up one family for the other. From what I understand, the Duquesnes are very accepting. Remember what you said last night? Glory’s daughter has a whole family out there who love her even though they’ve never met her.”

  For a long time she was silent and still, her only movement the easy scratches she was giving Frank. How would he feel in her place? If he found out that he wasn’t really a Gadney, would he feel lost, betrayed, as if he’d lost a part of himself? No doubt about it. But Granddad, his aunts and uncles and cousins, had always been a part of his life. They’d always loved him and treated him exactly the same as everyone else. He didn’t know about Nev’s extended family, but among the immediate ones, only her father and grandmother had done the same with her.

  From what he’d heard, he tended to think that finding out Lima and Marieka weren’t really her mother and sister might be a good thing. If nothing else, she would know that the failings in the mother/daughter/sister relationship weren’t hers.

  After a time, she apparently reached a decision, stopped catering to the mutt and picked up her cell phone. “I guess I need to talk to YaYa.”

  “You want privacy?” he asked, though the last thing he wanted to do was walk away right now. His place was with her, providing support.

  He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until she answered. “No. I’ll just tell you everything anyway.” She moved into one of the chairs closer to his, scrolled through the contacts list, pressed Send and then held the phone so he could hear, too.

  YaYa, it seemed, kept her phone handy, answering before the first ring finished in the handset. “Hey, sweet child o’ mine.”

  “Aw, I bet you say that to all your grandchildren.”

  Did her grandmother realize how forced the casual note to Nev’s voice was?

  “I do, but you’re the only one whose ringtone is actually ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine.’ That’s by Guns N’ Roses. Good song, though they’re not exactly to my taste. I missed talking to you last night.”

  “I know. Me, too. I was...busy.”

  “Dang! Did you meet a handsome hunk?”

  Ty felt Nev’s gaze as surely as if it were physical. “Yeah, I did.”

  “Ooh, mama! Good for you! What’s his name?”

  “I’ll tell you everything about him, but first...I need to ask you something.” Once more the fingers of her free hand began to flutter, seeking an outlet for her nervous energy.

  “You can ask me anything. You know I have no secrets. Shoot.”

  Pursing her lips, Nev swallowed hard and then blurted out, “YaYa, am I adopted?”

  The silence on the phone was the definition of deafening. Ty was pretty sure he could hear a heart pounding—Nev’s or his own—and that none of the three of them was breathing. Nev’s hand began to tremble on the phone until he laid his over it. In just that small touch, he could feel the tension rippling through her.

  “Ohh.” YaYa exhaled heavily. “Sweet girl.”

  It was a yes in every way possible without actually saying the word.

  “When...? How...?”

  “It was a private adoption. This man your daddy knew, he knew of a baby that needed a good home. It was the answer to their prayers, so of course your daddy said yes. You and your mama came to stay with me for a while—I was living down in Albany at the time—and when you all went back to Atlanta, Lima had her new baby girl.”

  “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?”

  “Your mama and daddy didn’t want anyone to know. Not even your aunties and uncles have a clue. Even your grandma Wilson never knew.”

  But Marieka did, Ty thought. Had it been a lucky guess, or had Lima confided in her, maybe wanting her favorite daughter to know she was special, the only real daughter?

  It wasn’t likely the Duquesnes could be worse family for Nev than Lima and Marieka had been her entire life. Anamaria, at least, would love her without reservation.

  As he did.

  “Honey, your folks wanted you. They chose to bring you home. No doubt, they should have told you, but it don’t make you any less their child or mine.”

  “Well...” Nev’s sigh echoed YaYa’s. “It explains a lot. And of course I’m yours. Always. YaYa, I’ll call you later, okay? I need time...”

  “I love you, sweet girl.” YaYa sounded troubled, but she didn’t argue.

  “I love you, too.” Nev put the phone on the table, got up and walked into the bedroom.

  Ty pressed the end button and then looked at Frank, lying in the middle of the floor. The dog looked back sorrowfully and then snuffled.

  Before he’d decided whether to give her a few minutes to process the information or to offer her a shoulder to cry on, she walked back into the room. She’d tied her curls back with a scarf and traded her heels for a pair of flip-flops. He hadn’t even known she owned shoes so casual.

  At the back door, she looked over her shoulder with him and made an offer he couldn’t refuse. “You and Frank want to walk with me?”

  * * *

  Frank heard the W-word and leaped to his feet, circling Ty twice on his way to Nev. As soon as she opened the back door, the dog shot past her, missing the porch and landing five feet away in the grass, tumbling and rolling before springing up again. Though she’d rather do just about anything at the moment besides laugh, she couldn’t help but chuckle at his exuberance. “He doesn’t do anything halfway, does he?”

  “No, ma’am. I hope I don’t, either.”

  Without her heels, the world seemed a little bigger. Inside she felt a lot smaller. She wasn’t sure she’d processed any information today. She wasn’t sure she could process it. Lima wasn’t her mother. Marieka wasn’t her sister. Anamaria believed Nev was her sister. Glory might have been her mother.

  As they followed Frank onto the trail that led to the river, she said words that had been in her mind the past three hours. Words that she never could have imagined herself saying, no matter how many crime dramas she watched on TV. “I guess Anamaria and I should have a DNA test done.”

  She didn’t want to get comfortable with the idea that she was a Duquesne without proof. Already she felt distanced from her own family. If it turned out that she didn’t belong to the Duquesnes, either, she would feel so alone.

  Though there were still the Gadneys.

  “I can get Marnie, the director of our crime lab, to run it.”

  She forced herself to smile up at Ty. “Oh, the perks of dating a police officer.”

  “We’re all one big mostly happy, somewhat dysfunctional family. Family helps each other out.”

  Family. She didn’t know hers anymore. That was scary for a twenty-eight-year-old woman who’d always known who she was and where she’d come from to suddenly discover she was fatherless, motherless, sisterless. She was changed from the inside out.

  Absently watching Frank’s muscular body darting in and out of the tall grass, she halfheartedly chided her
self. She still knew her family—all her aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins. She’d grown up with them. They believed she was as much a part of them as she had. Even if they didn’t share blood, they shared memories, upbringings, values, beliefs. That counted for something, didn’t it?

  She’d simply had another family before them. No shared memories, but blood. Genes. Gifts.

  The rest of their walk passed in silence. She didn’t acknowledge even to herself where they were headed until the tree came into sight and her steps slowed. There was a certain haunting beauty to the stark branches against the blue sky, reaching up, sinking down into the water, casting ghostly shadows.

  The tree had spoken to her, too, like the river, but she’d been too anxious to hear it. This was where Glory—her mother?—had passed, reunited with grandmothers and aunts gone before, some she’d known, all of them she’d loved. This was where she’d said goodbye to her daughters. Where she’d given birth to her last daughter.

  Nev walked to the tree, laying her palm against its trunk. The bark had fallen off a long time ago, the sun baking the wood underneath to a soft silvery shade. Was this where she had come into this world, delivered of a dead woman in a storm, delivered by the man who’d chased her mother to her death? Had the first breaths she’d taken smelled of the river, rain, vegetation, mud? Had the first touch she’d felt been Kent Calloway’s?

  In the heat of the bright August sun, her stomach knotted, emotion rising in her throat, eyes stinging. Kent hadn’t meant for Glory to die, but since she had, how easy would it have been for him to walk away? To leave her and her baby. To give them a nudge into the water, let the current carry them downriver and out of his life. What happened to them could have remained a mystery, his secret forever.

  Nev could have died in this spot as easily as Glory had.

  Shivers raced through her, carrying chill and sadness, sorrow and a heart-wrenching sense of aloneness. But she wasn’t alone. In an instant, Ty was there, arms wrapped around her from behind, holding her as if he never intended to let go. Lord help her, she never meant to let him go, either.

  After a long time, when the ache had eased and the sun had warmed her through to her soul, she twisted in his embrace to look up at him. “Let’s find out if Marnie can help us. I’ve always wanted to have a stranger sticking a cotton swab in my mouth like on TV.”

  Before they left, though, she took one last look at the damp ground around the tree trunk, at the place where Glory had fallen. There was no sign of the woman, no amazing smile, no shimmering waves disturbing the hot air. But as she took Ty’s hand and walked away, she felt an incredible sense of comfort wrapping itself around her, like the warmth and protection of a wool shawl on a cold, rainy night.

  * * *

  The Copper Lake Police Department crime lab was the envy of larger departments around the state. The county was home to a number of wealthy families who’d made significant donations to ensure the safety of their little slice of heaven. That included a substantial enough salary to lure Marnie Robinson to town and to keep her there.

  “She’s a good person,” Ty told Nev as they got out of his truck in the parking lot. “You know all those stereotypical geniuses you see on TV? Take all the extremes, and you’ve got Marnie. She doesn’t have a lot of social skills. Her IQ idles way above normal. She’s a germ freak—doesn’t eat in restaurants, doesn’t encourage physical contact—so don’t be offended if she doesn’t want to shake hands. She doesn’t get most humor, has no talent for small talk and doesn’t have a frivolous or careless bone in her body.”

  “But you like her.”

  He thought about that as he opened the door into the building. Like implied friendly feelings, and it was hard to be friends with Marnie. “I respect her tremendously,” he finally said. “And yeah, if she could ever loosen up or my IQ magically went up a hundred points or so, we could be friends.”

  Nev’s smile was anxious. “As long as she’s good at her job...”

  “If you’re talking about me, I am very good at my job.”

  They turned to find her coming out of the bathroom they’d just passed, hands in the air like a surgeon preparing to glove. She went straight to the sanitizer dispenser mounted on the wall and applied a generous squirt. “Detective Gadney, I don’t have any results for you. Our office hasn’t received any evidence for your cases in eleven days.”

  Ty didn’t need to think back to the last time he’d called the crime lab to a scene. If Marnie said it had been eleven days, it certainly had. “Marnie Robinson, this is Nev Wilson.”

  Marnie gave her an owlish look. He was sure Nev now knew how it felt for the bug under the microscope. “You’re here for a DNA swab.”

  Another weak smile. “Are you psychic?”

  “Psychic phenomena don’t exist. Scientists have made every effort to verify or duplicate events people have claimed, but after years of trials, there’s still no proof.”

  The smile that curved Nev’s mouth was stronger, warmer, though still not a thousand watts. “‘For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.’”

  Marnie nodded. “Stuart Chase. Studied at MIT. Died at ninety-seven.”

  “I think I heard it on Criminal Minds.” There was the real-thing smile, a grin that sent relief through him. The past few days had been tough for her, but she was going to survive.

  “I tend to not watch crime shows. Much of it’s melodramatic, inaccurate and in poor taste. And I don’t believe in psychic phenomena. No offense.”

  The last two words were an afterthought, as if she’d belatedly realized they were a bit blunt, and they were directed somewhere behind them. Ty glanced over his shoulder as Anamaria strolled out of Marnie’s office. Her gaze warmed with affection when it stopped briefly on Nev. “None taken,” she replied.

  Seeing them together really brought home the reason they were there: Nev and Anamaria might be sisters. Sisters. There weren’t obvious similarities between them—one short and curvy, the other tall and willowy. One sexy and passionate, the other elegant and serene. Anamaria’s skin was only a shade darker than Nev’s, reasonable since Nev’s father, if she was Glory’s daughter, was a white man. The shade and texture of their hair were very much alike, except that Nev’s curls were shorter. And their eyes...those high cheekbones...their mouths...

  They truly might be sisters, he thought with a sense of wonder. The biggest negative was Nev’s age, and that hadn’t been proved.

  Months ago, Anamaria had told him that he was the one meant to live in Glory’s house. He’d wondered what caused her change of heart, but he hadn’t cared enough to delay signing the paperwork that same day. Was it because of Nev? Had Glory somehow known that her baby would come back to the place of her birth and wanted him to share it with Nev?

  He’d been happy to get the house. He’d be damn grateful to get the girl, too.

  “Come on in,” Marnie said, leading them into her office. Not surprisingly, it was probably the most sterile place in the entire lab. Nothing personal except the rows of framed degrees and certificates on one wall, grouped by size and hanging exactly one-half inch apart. No work product spread around the desk unless the DNA swab kits counted. No chair except the one behind the desk. No reading material except reference books and journals, filed on the shelves with excessive attention to detail.

  He always had to fight the urge when he came in to shift the frames one way or another, to move the phone from the right to the left side of the desk or trade the books around. He could have even more fun in her lab, with all those machines, tools and tests going on.

  “I’m going to swab the inside of your cheek to collect saliva and cells,” Marnie said, her gloves snapping as she pulled them on. “As I told Anamaria, we’ll have the results in two or three days.”

  Anticipation an
d wariness both crept into Nev’s expression. Ty shared the feelings. If Anamaria was right and she was Glory’s missing baby, wonderful. She’d be Anamaria’s sister, Mama Odette’s granddaughter; she would be welcomed into the large and colorful Duquesne family as wholeheartedly as the infant would have been.

  But if she wasn’t, there wouldn’t be anyone to take Lima’s and Marieka’s places. No new loving family to help her adjust to the deception of the old, not-so-loving family. Unless she would accept a place in his family.

  Nev opened her mouth, Marnie swabbed and then Nev grimaced. “Tastes like foam.”

  “Of course it does. It’s made of—” With another of those birdlike looks, Marnie smiled stiffly. “You were making a joke.”

  “Not my best work,” Nev said conspiratorially.

  “They laughed.” Marnie inclined her head to him and Anamaria as she secured the swab.

  “You’re a tougher audience, aren’t you?” Nev took the few steps to the door, grabbed a glove from the box outside and pulled it on before approaching Marnie, hand extended. The older woman hesitated and then took her hand, glove to glove. “Thank you for doing this, Marnie. Ty says the police department is a family that helps each other out. I see that.”

  Ty had never seen Marnie flush. Because Nev included her as part of the family? A lot of people didn’t, he thought with regret. Kiki wasn’t the only one who called her freak. They were intimidated by her brains and put off by her awkwardness, but they all counted on her and her team to help solve cases with them.

  “I hope you get the results you want.” Marnie stuck the tube in her pocket, took off her gloves and walked out of the room. A moment later they heard the closing of the heavy door that led into the lab. Both of the other women looked surprised.

  “Stephen, her brother, says she never says goodbye. When she’s done with a conversation, she hangs up, walks out, whatever.” He shepherded them into the hall and then wrapped his arms around their shoulders as they headed for the exit.

  If they got the results they wanted, he mused, Anamaria would be Nev’s sister and, someday, his sister-in-law. The large, colorful Duquesne family would be joining with the equally large but more traditional Gadney family.