Because I Love You

by Tori Rigby

  Neil smiled against my lips as a blush rose in my cheeks, then I hopped off his lap and resumed my position next to Jill. A file was open on her computer.

  “A payroll report?” Neil leaned closer to the computer. “That’s perfect.”

  “It only shows me who was working that month, but when you break it down by position, there are only six case workers. One of them has to be Andie’s.”

  Six people; that was it. And we finally had names, a place to start. My pulse drummed in my chest.

  “Hopefully some are still living in the area. We’ll split the list and run searches on each person. Nice work, Pocahontas,” Neil said.

  Jill glared at him. “Do you want to be crotch punched?”

  He flashed her a grin and plopped back on the bed, pulling Owen’s computer onto his lap. With adrenaline forcing my energy level to ultra-awake, I sat next to him with a huge smile, ready to find someone who could tell me about my parents.

  chapter nineteen

  We didn’t stop until 2:00 a.m. Though we’d narrowed down who’d worked the month I was born, we weren’t able to dig up information about what cases they’d handled.

  “Because the government’s so involved in adoptions,” Jill said, “these personnel files are ridiculously secure. It might actually take me a few days to crack these.”

  I sighed. Great.

  “I didn’t get much, either,” Neil said. “Of the six case workers, two are dead. I was able to find current contact information for the other four, but that’s about it.”

  “You sure I can’t just hack the court’s files?” Jill asked.

  “No,” Neil and I replied at the same time.

  “It’s one thing to break into the adoption agency’s system. But going anywhere near the court’s is bound to set off immediate red flags,” Neil continued.

  “And I don’t want you going to jail for me,” I added.

  “Fine,” Jill mumbled, closing her laptop. “Where do the four live?”

  “One’s in Seattle now, but the rest are still in Denver.” Neil waved three notecards in the air.

  I squinted at her. “Why? What are you thinking?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe we show up and tell them you’re thinking about putting your baby up and have questions about your own adoption.” Her hand shot into the air before I could correct her. “I know you’re not. But they don’t have to know that.”

  Neil nudged my arm. “It’s a decent plan, Andie. If they agree to help, they might have access to old records. And if they don’t, we can keep doing what we’re doing.”

  I bit my lip. But wasn’t it a law that they couldn’t share details of my adoption? I didn’t want to visit and get my hopes up, just to have them come crashing down. Still, if the person who handled my case did agree to talk with me, they’d be able to tell me more than a piece of paper could.

  “Okay,” I said. “Who do we start with?”

  Jill smiled, and the three of us dove into making plans—and didn’t stop until 5:00 a.m. After Neil left, Jill and I slept until noon. I groaned when I sat up. Between sharing a twin bed with her and not moving a single muscle the entire seven hours, my body was stiff and exhausted.

  I checked in with Mom, then Jill and I proceeded with our agreed-upon plans. One of the four caseworkers happened to be a woman Neil did lawn work for—Regina Miller. She lived the closest, and Neil would be at her house today, ready to jump in if things got out of hand.

  “She’s a class A bitch,” he’d said last night. He wanted to be there when we talked to her, so we decided to stop by her place first.

  While I fixed my hair and makeup, Jill packed a duffel bag full of small, high-tech-looking devices from her closet.

  “What are those?” I asked.

  She jumped. “Oh. Uh, well . . . I just thought if she refuses to tell us anything, she might call someone to let them know we were there, like the person who handled your adoption.”

  I raised my eyebrows and leaned toward her. “And?”

  She cleared her throat then spoke super-fast, “And so I’d bug her house and record all her outgoing phone calls.”

  My mouth dropped. “Jill, no. That’s . . . that’s a stupid idea.”

  “How is that a stupid idea? It’s human instinct—you feel threatened, you call the most logical person. In this case, it’d either be her boss or the person who knows your parents. Either way, it’s a win-win. We’ll know who to talk to next.”

  I pressed my lips together and clenched my hands into fists. We’d already committed a crime by hacking the agency’s files. Did we dare add bugging someone’s house to the list? Sweat coated my hairline as I bounced on the balls of my feet. What if we got caught? I didn’t want to see her go to jail.

  But what if she was right? What if this was my only chance to uncover information about my birth parents? If I didn’t want to spend the next two years seeing my face in every blonde woman, I needed to figure out who she was now.

  Ugh, this is wrong. This is so wrong.

  I bit my lip, crossing and uncrossing my arms while Jill waited for me to make up my mind. I took a deep breath and shook my hands out at my sides. I couldn’t wait. I had to do this, whether I was comfortable with it or not.

  I closed my eyes, exhaled, then opened my lids. “Okay. But eavesdropping on her conversations is strictly Plan B.”

  With a smile, Jill zipped her bag, and I followed her to her car.

  A little while later, after we parked across the street from our target’s house, I jumped from the car with a smile. Neil’s cheeks were flushed from his morning of hard labor, and though the air had a slight fall breeze, he wore just a T-shirt over his jeans. His dark hair was a mess, and he leaned against his rake, grinning. How come when I did yard work I looked like Einstein, but he still managed to look like he stepped out of a magazine?

  “It’s about time you two showed up,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if maybe you kept partying after I left.”

  “Dude, the party began when you walked out the door,” Jill joked.

  Neil’s grin grew. He wrapped an arm around me and kissed the top of my head. I tried not to notice the small line of skin peeking out from beneath the hem of his shirt as it rose. Or the red waistband of his boxers. My face warmed.

  “So what do we need to know about She-Devil?” Jill asked.

  Neil shook off the leaves that clung to his rake. “Other than the fact she’s screwing my uncle—who’s married, by the way? I hear she likes to make fur coats out of kittens and smack Girl Scouts over the head with newspapers.”

  Jill laughed, and I shook my head.

  “Thanks, Neil. That was super helpful.” I patted his chest before following Jill to the door.

  Jill pressed the doorbell. My heartbeat was in my toes. Please don’t turn us away. Please don’t turn us away. A bead of sweat ran down the back of my neck, and my knees weakened. Jill grabbed my hand.

  “Breathe, Andie.”

  I squeezed her fingers and gripped my pants leg as Jill rang the doorbell again. Come on, come on. Someone turned the handle. My knees locked. Then the door flung open, and a woman resembling Cruella DeVille stood on the other side of the screen.

  “What is it?” she snapped the moment her glare fell on us.

  “Regina Miller, right?” Jill said. “I’m, uh, Jen, and this is Alex. She’s pregnant. We know you worked for Bethlehem Family Services, and Alex here had a couple questions about how your past clients are doing. We were hoping—”

  “How did you come by that information?” Her dark eyes narrowed as she crossed her bony arms over her chest.

  My hand tightened on Jill’s, and she flinched.

  “Through a family friend,” she said.

  “Right. Get off my porch.” Regina took a step back as Jill took one forward.

  “Please, Ms. Miller, if you’d just give us five minutes of your time. See, Alex is—

  “No. I’m not allowed to share information about my
clients, and even if I was, I don’t want to talk to you. Now, leave before I call the police.” Regina slammed the door closed and locked the deadbolt.

  My grip on Jill’s hand slacked as I stared at where Regina had once stood. My throat was on fire. Had we really come all this way for nothing? Jill removed her hand from mine then tugged me from the stoop.

  “I’m sorry.” Neil coaxed me down the stairs. “I told you she was a bitch.”

  Once on the grass, I wrapped my arms around his waist and leaned into him as we walked. He tightened his arm around my shoulders, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. What a waste of time.

  Jill snatched her car keys from her hoodie’s pocket. “Welp, looks like it’s Plan B.” She skipped toward her car.

  Oh, no. She was going to bug the house—and now Neil would be a witness, too. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I couldn’t let him get in trouble for our decision.

  “Jill, wait,” I said. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

  “Do what, exactly?” Neil asked as I let go of him, following me to Jill’s car. He peeked over her shoulder as she pulled bug after bug out of her duffel bag. “Whoa, are those what I think they are?”

  “Yep,” she replied. “We’re going to get info out of this chick whether she wants us to or not.”

  Neil snatched them from Jill’s hands.

  “Hey!”

  “No way. You’re not doing this.” He dropped the bugs on the ground and crunched them beneath his foot.

  Jill screamed, and I covered my mouth.

  “You little dick! Do you know how much those cost me?” Jill said.

  Neil held up his hands. “I will pay you back, but you are not going to get Andie involved in something like this. She could go to jail.”

  “She said it was fine!”

  Neil turned to me, his face red. “Please tell me that’s a joke.”

  I dropped my hand from my mouth, my skin flushing. I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

  Neil let out an exasperated chuckle and put his hands on his head. “Do you have any idea what would happen if Regina found the bugs and called the police?”

  “You were perfectly fine with hacking the agency’s files,” Jill said, her voice tinged with annoyance.

  “Yeah, on laptops with IP addresses bouncing off multiple servers across the world. But those things”—he pointed to the broken devices on the ground—“would have both of your prints all over them, and what you were about to do is a felony. If you went to jail, you’d be in there for years, and your baby would be taken away by child services. Did you even think about that?”

  I faltered backward, wrapping my arms around my waist. I hadn’t. He was right; I should’ve thought this through. The world wavered through my blurry eyes.

  The lines in Neil’s face softened. He sighed, stepping toward me. “Andie, I—”

  “No, I think you’ve proven your point.” Jill moved between him and me.

  “Jill, move. Please,” he said calmly.

  She looked at me, and I nodded before she turned out of the way.

  Neil reached me in two big lunges and took my face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have worded it like that.”

  My tongue felt two sizes too big, and I was afraid if I opened my mouth, the only thing that would come out was a squeak.

  He pulled me into his strong embrace and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll talk to Regina, okay? I promise I’ll get her to tell us what we want to know. Just . . . please forgive me. It’s been a long time since I cared this much about anyone but Mom and Beth, and I snapped. I’m sorry.”

  I nodded, my cheek pressed against his chest, and listened to his heartbeat, trying to calm the shaking in my legs and stop the tears that ached to flow. When Neil let me go, I wasn’t ready, and a single droplet rolled down my cheek. He caught it with his thumb.

  “We okay?” he asked, brushing hair from my forehead.

  “Yeah,” I replied, my voice as quiet as a whisper.

  He lifted my chin, gently pressing his lips against mine.

  “Well, that’s all fine and dandy,” Jill said, “but you still owe me, like, five hundred bucks.”

  Neil pulled away, sighed, and turned to her. “I said I’d pay you back, and I will.”

  She glared at him and crossed her arms. “You better, or your sexy times with Andie are gonna be over.”

  “‘Sexy times?’ How old are you, ten?”

  “Oh, shut your cake hole.” Jill picked up the pieces of ruined equipment off the ground and shoved them in her bag. She slammed the back door of her car closed before hopping into the driver’s seat.

  After ensuring Neil I wasn’t mad at him—which was the truth; I just felt like an absolute fool—I climbed into Jill’s Honda as he returned to work.

  As she drove away from Regina Miller’s house, two realizations sunk in: We might never uncover the details surrounding my adoption; and if Neil hadn’t been there to stop me from making the—second—worst mistake of my life, I might’ve lost the very reason I was so desperate to learn about my family history.

  My baby.

  That evening, Neil made a point to call me after work to make sure I was okay. At first, it hurt too much to talk, thinking about how close I’d come to ruining everything and how I might never learn anything about my birth parents. But he refused to let me go until he knew I was smiling. So, in typical, Neil Donaghue fashion, he joked until he had me laughing so hard I nearly peed. Since then, we’d spoken every night—or seen each other in person, which often resulted in make-out sessions. And every weekend, I stayed at Jill’s house, doing what we could behind the protection of her IP scramblers to uncover Regina’s role in my adoption.

  Four weeks to the day after we started investigating, I got a text from Jill: Tell Neil to ask Regina about a Miranda Fuller. I’m about ninety-five percent sure she’s your mom.

  I jumped off my bed with a squeal. My textbooks fell to the floor. She’d done it. She’d actually done it. Jill had found my mom. I fought the urge to twirl with my stuffed polar bear like we were starring in Disney on Ice. A glance at the time showed 1:00 p.m. Two hours until school let out. I paced at the end of my bed, trying to decide whether to wait for Neil or start investigating on my own.

  Aw, heck—he’ll forgive me.

  I raced to the computer.

  An hour later, the doorbell rang, and I swallowed a shriek. I’d gotten so wrapped up in reading about Miranda that I’d escaped into an alternate universe. Not anticipating anyone, I ignored the visitor. If it’s that important, come back later.

  My phone chimed with a text from Neil. Just so you know, by not answering the door, you ruined the surprise.

  Pushing aside the curtains on the office window, I spotted Neil’s truck in the driveway and smiled. After hurrying to the front door, I yanked it open then leapt into his arms, planting a kiss on his mouth. Neil smiled, his lips against mine, and with hands on my lower back, he guided me into the house and then kicked the door shut.

  “You’re early,” I said between kisses.

  “Skipped last period.” He kissed me again, sliding his hand behind my neck. “Test tomorrow.”

  My body vibrated. I held firmer to him, my knees weakening. One more time, Neil’s mouth met mine, then he pulled his lips away.

  Neil held my lower back. “I hope that’s not how you greet all your friends.”

  “Just the boys.”

  He smirked. “Well, aren’t you chipper today? Did we win the lottery?”

  I grinned and led him toward the office. “Even better.”

  “Please don’t tell me this is going to be one of those things where I open a lid and a puppy springs out.”

  I laughed. “No. There’s no puppy.”

  “Okay, good. I hate those things.”

  Stopping just inside the room, I stared at him, wide-eyed. “You hate puppies?”

  He looked at me innocently. “What? They pee and poop an
d bark and chew things, and they smell all the time.”

  “They’re adorable.”

  “They’re flea bags with rotten egg breath.”

  “You don’t have a heart.”

  “I know. For Valentine’s Day, I’m just going to send you a text that says ‘I.U.’” He grinned, and I shook my head before pulling him to the desk.

  “Jill sent a text earlier that she’s figured out who my mom might be.” I pointed at the computer, and Neil sat down. “I guess she won some humanitarian award a few years ago for her involvement in helping to stop sex trafficking.”

  “So, she’s like a modern-day Mother Teresa?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, then maybe she’ll be up to visiting with you.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. But my adoption was closed. She must’ve done that for a reason, right?”

  Scrolling through the webpage, he waved his other hand. “Yeah, but she gave birth to you. I’m sure there’s some maternal desire there. I bet I can dazzle her into meeting us for lunch.”

  “Unless she smacks you with her purse and calls you a confounded hooligan.”

  Neil tipped his head back and laughed. “Maybe I better call her on the phone.” He turned his face toward me, the corners of his eyes creasing as he smiled.

  My skin flushed, and if it weren’t for the sound of the door closing from the garage, I would’ve pulled him off the chair and kissed him until we couldn’t breathe.

  Ugh. What was Mom doing home so early?

  “Andie?” she called from the kitchen, her voice weak.

  “In the office.”

  I listened as her heels clicked on the foyer’s hardwood floor, then she stepped into the room. “Did you forget about Dr. Brandt?”

  Crap. My monthly appointment was today. “Yeah, kind of. Can we reschedule?”

  “No. It was hard enough to get her to squeeze you in every month.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Neil said, clicking out of the Internet. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” He stood and smiled at my mom.

  Her glare was hard as her lips barely turned up in a smile. I’d warned Mom a couple days before he started coming over that we weren’t just friends anymore, but she still hadn’t warmed up to the idea of Neil and me.