by Karen Fenech
“How did you find out where I live?” Clare asked.
A blush spread over Theresa’s cheeks. “It took some doing, let me tell you. I’ve been trying to track you down for two weeks. Your office wouldn’t tell me your address and in the end, I just had to visit all the Marshalls that lived in the vicinity of the FBI building.” Theresa rolled her eyes. “Do you have any idea how many Marshalls live in the city of New York?”
Theresa would have been surprised to learn that Clare did know the number of Marshalls residing in this location. Living in the highly populated area was just one precaution to remaining anonymous.
“Anyway,” Theresa said. “I found you. That’s all that matters.”
“A meeting at my office would have saved you a great deal of effort,” Clare said.
Theresa glanced over her shoulder, down the lit hallway, then back at Clare. “Yes, but what I have to tell you couldn’t be said in a public place. Especially the FBI office. I could get into trouble.”
For the first time, Theresa must have sensed that Clare wasn’t going to invite her inside the apartment. She dug her long painted fingernails into the handbag she held at her waist. Her nails sank into the buttery soft leather.
A door down the hall creaked open. Theresa glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the sound.
Clare noted the act. Was Theresa involved in something illegal, or maybe had fallen into something outside of the law? Clare knew she should advise the woman to leave and go directly to the nearest police station, but, clearly, Theresa trusted her since the incident in the alley, and Clare couldn’t bring herself to turn the woman away. Besides, Theresa had yet to release Clare’s arm. Her grip had tightened and now her nails were leaving their crescent shapes in Clare’s skin.
Clare gently broke Theresa’s hold and stepped back from the door. Theresa dashed into the apartment and Clare closed the door behind the woman.
Offering her a beverage might ease Theresa and bring her to the reason for the visit. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?” Clare asked.
She picked up her own drink from the coffee table then glanced into it and sighed. The thick frosted cubes of ice had melted to minuscule slivers. She returned the glass to the table then raised her gaze to Theresa, and awaited her reply.
Theresa didn’t answer. She wasn’t watching Clare, but had turned to face the scarred metal desk that backed against one blue wall. File folders and papers were piled high on the green blotter. More papers were tacked to a cork board on the wall above the desk. The files and papers logged Clare’s unsuccessful ten-year search for her sister.
Clare didn’t share Katie with anyone and she bristled at Theresa’s intrusion. Her voice came out sharper than she’d intended when she said, “Mrs. Sands, please state your business now.”
Theresa nodded. Long silver earrings shaped like spheres swayed with the movement. She smoothed a hand down the front of her dress in what Clare took as a display of nerves.
“Of course you’re wondering what I’m doing here.” Theresa’s dark eyes glowed and Clare realized that it wasn’t nerves driving her, but excitement.
“I haven’t forgotten what happened in the alley,” Theresa said. “I’m okay. Alive. Thanks to you.” Her eyes glistened with tears and she blinked quickly. “I think the thief wanted to kill me more than he wanted to get away with the money.” She shook her head and her hair fell forward onto her shoulders. “He didn’t need to grab me. He didn’t need to shoot the clerk. He had the money and could have just left.”
When the detective assigned to the case had spoken with Clare about her role in the alley, he’d said the same. Apparently, the man Clare killed had robbed another convenience store thirty minutes earlier. Again, he’d shot and killed the clerk and two customers.
Theresa cleared her throat. “I will never forget what you did for me.”
“It’s over,” Clare said. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Yes. Like I said before, I couldn’t speak with you in your office because I’m here on a personal matter. Personal to you.”
The phone rang. Clare’s voice came on, inviting the caller to leave a message.
“I don’t understand,” Clare said.
“No, of course you don’t. I’m not being very clear.” Theresa took a small step so she stood nearly toe-to-toe with Clare. “When I said that I will never forget what you did for me, they aren’t just words; I mean them.”
Clare shifted position. “Mrs. Sands. Theresa—”
“Please.” Theresa held up her hand. “Please hear me out. I wanted to do something to repay you for giving me my life. Before that day, I’d been going through some things and had stopped appreciating each day for the gift it is. I wanted to give you something that would come close to what you had given me. I remembered you’d said that you were a federal agent and I knew your name, so I started looking into your life to see what I could do for you.”
Clare’s stomach tensed. “What do you mean you started looking into my life?”
“Your name rang a bell—I couldn’t remember why at first—and then it struck me. Your name was in the paper a few months ago.”
Clare pressed her lips together.
“I looked up the story and read about your mother and that a date for her execution had finally been set.”
Clare narrowed her eyes on Theresa. “We don’t have anything more to say to each other.” Clare brushed by the other woman and gripped the doorknob.
“Please. Listen. Please.”
Clare pulled the door open.
“I read about what happened to your family all those years ago—about your brother’s death and that your baby sister was adopted afterwards.”
Clare’s face went hot with anger and she turned to Theresa. “You didn’t get all that from the one brief article about the execution date. You would have had to do extensive research to learn so much.” Now, Clare leaned forward, invading Theresa’s personal space. “If you came here looking for a story—”
“No. No.” Theresa shook her head quickly, and the earrings swung like a pendulum. “I’m not a reporter—”
Clare had heard enough. “It’s time you left. You can leave on your own, or I can have you escorted.”
“I read that you and your sister were separated and I found records of your inquiries at Children’s Services seeking information about her. You’ve searched for her, but haven’t been able to find her.” Theresa spoke quickly, barely pausing to breathe. “The laws regulating adoption have relaxed somewhat for children seeking information about their biological parents, but haven’t changed at all for siblings.”
Clare knew all that. She’d butted up against the system for years.
“And when I read of it, it broke my heart.”
Clare’s anger dimmed slightly at the sincerity she saw in Theresa’s eyes. “Yes. Well. The situation is what it is.” Clare didn’t add that she would never give up the search for Katie.
“That’s why I have to be careful,” Theresa went on. “Why I had to meet with you here. I could lose my job or face criminal charges if I’m found out. And you would be implicated too. I know you wouldn’t want that.”
“Are you threatening me, Mrs. Sands? I should have called the police when you arrived. I’ll rectify that now.” Clare went to an end table and picked up the phone.
“Please don’t make that call.” Theresa shook her head. “I work for Children’s Services. I investigate potential adoptive parents.”
Clare pressed the numbers for the local police station.
“You don’t understand, Agent Marshall.” Theresa’s eyes widened. “I found her. I found your sister.”
Chapter Three
“Wh-at?”
“I found your sister,” Theresa repeated.
This was not the first time Clare had met someone claiming to know Katie’s whereabouts. Over the years, Clare had met hundreds of people purporting to have information about her sister. The recent pr
ess about her mother’s execution had resulted in a new slew of claims.
A preacher touting the good book had spouted scripture at her—proclaiming that if Clare gave up her life of violence, the path to her sister would become clear. Another, a self-proclaimed psychic, declared that Katie had appeared to him in a vision. To find her location, though, he needed money for expenses—to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. He’d quickly recanted his offer when he learned that Clare was a federal agent.
As time passed, Clare had followed each lead, no matter how half-baked, to its ultimate dead end. She’d met the crazies and the crooks. That last time, with the psychic, she had been just desperate enough to consider selling everything she owned and borrowing the rest to accept his offer.
And here was Theresa now, with another claim—one that she couldn’t elaborate on at the Bureau office. Her guise of coming forward out of gratitude was a new one, as was her claim of employment with Children’s Services, which certainly lent her credibility. Theresa hadn’t yet given up her angle, but Clare believed that she had one. In time, Theresa would reveal what that was. Fresh on the heels of the latest con, though, Clare was in no mood for more of the same. She didn’t want to give Theresa that time but, how could she turn the woman away without hearing what she had to say? Clare closed her eyes briefly. She couldn’t.
A rush of anger spread through her—anger that Theresa Sands had struck her where she was most vulnerable. Clare clenched her fists at her sides, welcoming the anger because, despite it all, she felt a little thrill of anticipation that she knew better than to feel.
She slammed the phone back in its cradle. “You have two minutes, Mrs. Sands.”
Theresa fumbled in her purse. So far, she hadn’t been violent, but Clare knew nothing about this woman who’d shown up at her door. Fearing that she might have a gun in there, Clare knocked the bag out of her hand then clamped her fingers around Theresa’s forearms.
“Wait!” Theresa shouted.
A compact, lipstick, wallet, and a folded piece of pristine white note paper slid across the wood floor. No gun.
“That’s it. The paper.” Theresa reached down as far as Clare’s hold on her allowed and stretched out her arm, fingers wiggling. She couldn’t reach the page with her hands and used the slim heel of her coral shoe to bring it within range.
“Please, Agent Marshall.”
Clare relaxed her fingers marginally, granting Theresa another couple of inches of distance. She snagged the paper from the floor and held it out to Clare.
“I found her. I promise.” Theresa’s voice quavered.
Clare glared at the paper as if it were a snake. Theresa unfolded it herself and held it up. In handwriting as lovely as calligraphy, Theresa had written:
Elizabeth Linney. 54 Daisy Lane, Farley, South Carolina.
“Hank and Gladys Linney adopted your sister and changed her name to Elizabeth,” Theresa said.
Clare’s grip on Theresa slackened. Questions—thoughts scattered as she stared at the words. The woman slid her arm from Clare’s grasp. Theresa rubbed the red imprint that Clare’s fingers had left on her skin.
Theresa placed the paper on the small square table by the door, atop the mail Clare had stacked there earlier. “I’ll show myself out,” Theresa said softly as she gathered the contents of her purse. “Good bye, Agent Marshall.”
Theresa left the apartment. Clare eyed the paper. A hoax? If so, why? Theresa hadn’t made any demands for money in exchange for the information. She had given up the name without requesting anything at all. What could she hope to gain by simply fabricating such a wild tale? Clare shook her head. It made no sense that Theresa would do that. And because of that, Clare couldn’t dismiss the claim.
Clare’s mouth felt dry as dust. She picked up the glass of iced tea from the table and drank deeply. She drained the glass, but kept it between her palms, needing something to hold on to.
Was it possible? Had Theresa really found Katie? Theresa said she was employed by Children’s Services. Clare didn’t know the workings of the department, but thought it unlikely that Theresa would have ready access to such old records. It wouldn’t be impossible, however, for someone who knew the ins and outs to obtain such information. Clare sank her teeth into her lower lip. Especially if proper channels were waived, as Theresa suggested they had been.
Did she dare hope? Her heart began to thud.
The name and address were twenty-five years old, if Theresa’s information was good at all.
Elizabeth Linney. 54 Daisy Lane, Farley, South Carolina.
Clare plucked the paper from the table and clutched it in a tight fist.
* * * * *
Three days after Theresa’s visit, Clare paced her living room. A clerk at the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles had promised to send a fax of the driver’s license registration for Elizabeth Ryder of Farley, South Carolina. A problem with the department fax machine had delayed the transmission. Clare had chewed her thumbnail to the quick, waiting. Disgusted now, she looked away from it.
Somewhere outside a dog barked. The tantalizing aroma of steak grilling carried on the wind blowing in through the screen. Clare’s stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. Despite her intentions to keep her hope in check, she was strung as tight as piano wire, anticipating the fax from the DMV.
After her court appearance two days ago, Clare had returned to her office. She ran the name Elizabeth Linney through the Bureau’s database, and confirmed that one person by the name of Elizabeth Ryder was listed as a resident of Farley.
Further investigation through other registries revealed that Elizabeth Linney had married four years earlier and Ryder was her married name. Clare’s information revealed that Elizabeth no longer lived at the address Theresa supplied. She must have moved when she’d married. Clare wrote down the updated location.
So far so good, but she still had a long way to go before she could uncork the champagne. Clare kept a tight rein on her escalating hope. The Elizabeth Ryder in Farley may not be Katie.
Theresa’s information was accurate as far as she knew, but it was possible that a mistake had been made when the document was filled out or filed or at any point in between. Clare kept that thought at the forefront of her mind, and worked tight-lipped, contacting government agencies with requests for information on Elizabeth Ryder.
So far, though, she hadn’t seen a picture of Elizabeth, but a photo was mandatory with a registered driver’s license. Clare hoped a picture would reveal something to identify Elizabeth as Katie.
Her computer signaled an incoming fax. Clare whirled toward it and darted across the room to retrieve the message now being printed.
She closed her eyes briefly then focused on the fax. And there it was . . . a photo of Elizabeth Ryder, taken four years earlier when she’d renewed her driver’s license. The picture showed a face that was three years younger than Clare’s own thirty. Familiar wide brown eyes with dark stubby lashes glanced back at her. The face was angular, the features a little sharp with a nose that was slightly pointed at the tip, as Clare’s was.
There was no mistaking the resemblance. The woman in the picture had to be Katie. Clare snatched the fax from the printer.
“Yes!”
She shrieked, then laughed. Hands shaking, she clutched the page. Tears filled her eyes and spilled onto Katie’s photo.
Clare was across the room, picking up the telephone to call directory assistance to Farley when she realized that Katie wouldn’t know her. She’d been a toddler taking her first steps when the sisters had last seen each other. Katie had certainly forgotten her. For all Clare knew, Katie may not even have been told that she was adopted.
Clare replaced the phone in its cradle. She had two weeks of vacation time coming from the Bureau. She would ask Benny to take care of her cases, and then she would catch the first flight out to Farley.
* * * * *
Clare turned again in the bed. With a loud s
igh, she plopped down onto the pillow. She should sleep. The numbers on the nightstand clock glowed two a.m. She had a six o’clock flight into Columbia, South Carolina, the nearest airport to Farley, then a seventy-five mile drive in a rental car to the town itself. She should sleep, but sleep eluded her.
She’d sweated through the dark tank top and bikini panties she opted to sleep in, in deference to the heat and lack of air conditioning. The sheet beneath her was damp and she’d moved so many times in the hours since she’d gone to bed that there wasn’t a dry spot to be found.
To hell with it. She sprang up and left the bed in search of a cool breeze.
