Hot Target

by Marliss Melton

  Glancing at the card, Tristan wasn't surprised to find Hilary's full name written in lime-green cursive next to the silhouette of a black cat. Her cell number and email appeared in bold font under that. He wondered if she wasn't angling for some internet romance.

  "Sure," he said, pocketing the card.

  Juliet eyed him severely, her hands on her hips.

  "What?" he asked innocently. Hack could use a little romance, internet or otherwise. Tristan couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his friend talk to a woman.

  "Nothing." Juliet focused her attention back on Hilary. "You said you found another match to the composite," she reminded her.

  "Oh, yeah." Hilary swiveled to face a different screen. "This guy came up in a more recent search. He's a retired police officer living in San Francisco, sixty-six years old. While he was on the job, he received some award for getting gang members off the streets and got his picture in the paper. That's how I found him."

  She brought up a picture of a policeman shaking the hand of a long-ago Mayor of San Francisco. Next, she tossed up two more images—the man's LinkedIn photo and California driver's license.

  Tristan watched Juliet's reaction. Seeing the blood drain from her face, he took a closer look at the pictures.

  "My God, that's him!" Juliet whispered, her voice conveying a depth of fear he'd never before heard from her.

  "Wait," Tristan protested, thinking she had to be wrong. It was true the man resembled the composite drawing, but.... "What are the odds that a mole for East Germany is living in California doing police work?"

  Juliet just looked at him. "It's possible," she insisted. "We don't know what his job was back in Germany."

  Hilary glanced back at him. "Facial recognition pegs this hit at eighty-three percent accurate," she informed them. "That leaves only a seventeen percent chance of error."

  "What's his name?" Juliet asked, leaning closer to the monitor. "Hans Coenen. Isn't that German?"

  "I think it's Dutch," Hilary replied.

  "Dutch. German. What's the difference?" Juliet leaned toward the monitors to skim the news article and peruse the LinkedIn page. "Nothing here connects him to Goebel, though," she said straightening. "We need to keep digging."

  "You got it, boss." Hilary looked at Juliet. "You want to tell Tristan what we found for him?" she asked.

  Tristan's antenna went up. "What?"

  Both women fell quiet, and Juliet's expression became unreadable. "Hilary found your birth mother," she announced. "She got confirmation just this morning."

  Tristan felt like the walls were slowly spinning around him. "My what?"

  "Your real mother, Tristan."

  His heart started to thump. "Why'd you do that?" he asked.

  Juliet visibly hesitated. "I don't know. It just seems like something you should know. Maybe it explains—" She cut herself off and crossed to her side of the office to busy herself with the coffeemaker. "If you don't want to know who your mother is, that's your prerogative."

  He eyed her stiff back, conscious of Hilary's owl-like gaze as she watched their tense exchange.

  "Finish what you were going to say," he demanded. "Maybe it explains what—why I'm always in a relationship? I've been single for the last six months. You really think Bullfrog knows everything about my life?"

  Juliet swung around with a K-Cup in her hand. "That's not what I was going to say."

  "What were you going to say?" He refused to back down.

  "I was going to say maybe it explains why you sing so well," she said, taking the wind out of his sails.

  "What?" He didn't understand what singing had to do with anything.

  Juliet gestured to her assistant. "Go ahead and show him, Hilz," she said, turning back to brew herself a cup of coffee.

  Tristan pivoted toward Hilary, who leaned back in her chair to look at him. "Here's how I found your mother," she explained. "I started by contacting the detective division in Wilmington—"

  "Where I was born," he finished.

  "Right. In October of '88, they investigated the case of an infant left in the lobby of the emergency room at New Hanover Regional Medical Center."

  "That was me. The authorities never found out where I came from." Behind him, the coffee maker gave a whine and a hiss.

  Hilary snorted derisively. "True, they didn't. But they still had the security footage from the hospital, on VHS tape, and they let me look at it."

  "The security footage never showed anything."

  She shot him an arch look. "It did, actually. The police were looking for women coming into the ER. That led them to overlook the man who came in carrying a backpack. He loitered for a few minutes, pulled a baby out of his pack, and left it wrapped in a blanket under a chair."

  Tristan nodded. According to his adoptive parents who'd both worked as doctors in the ER, that was where he'd been found, sound asleep under a chair in the hospital lobby.

  "Lucky for me," Hilary continued, "this man wasn't just some random unidentifiable person. Facial recognition software found a match immediately—Mike Fontana. He's been active in the music industry for decades as the manager of several country music stars."

  Tristan's imagination caught fire. "So who's my mother?"

  "Well, this is just an educated guess, but at the time Fontana was acting manager for the country music phenom, Cassidy King." Hilary shared a look with Juliet, who'd finally turned around.

  Tristan glanced her way and found Juliet watching his reaction through the steam rising from her coffee mug. He had recognized the name, Cassidy King, but only a vague image of a cute, blonde singer came to mind. "How long have you been looking into this?" he asked.

  "Since Emma's wedding," she admitted.

  A buzzing filled his ears. That Juliet had gone to the trouble to find his mother might have been touching under certain circumstances. However, Tristan had a feeling her motives weren't that altruistic.

  "Are you OK?" she asked when he didn't say anything.

  He wasn't sure. Hearing that his mother might have been a famous country music star didn't bother him. Finding himself the object of Juliet's investigating did. "When were you going to tell me?" he demanded.

  She shrugged uncomfortably. "When the time was right," she said vaguely. "Anyway, Hilary only recently found out where she lives. Where does she live, Hilz?" she asked, managing to dodge his question.

  "California," Hilary said, glancing back to observe Tristan's reaction. "You've heard of Carmel-by-the-Sea, haven't you? Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor."

  "I like Clint Eastwood," he said irrelevantly.

  "If you see her picture, you'll know she's the one." Juliet nodded at Hilary. "Go ahead and show him, Hilz."

  As Hilary brought up photos of Cassidy King, Tristan edged closer to the monitors. Images of a blonde beauty populated three screens at once, driving the breath out of his lungs. Hilary enlarged one photo in particular. The young woman with a mane of golden curls and devil-may-care blue eyes reminded him of his middle school class picture.

  "Holy shit," he breathed. There was no question he was looking at his biological mother.

  "Here, have a seat." Juliet wheeled the chair from her desk over and shoved it behind his knees. He sank wordlessly into it, his emotions too tangled to sort out. The excitement of finding the mother he had never known vied with the realization that Juliet, despite her assertion to the contrary, thought he had abandonment issues. Why else would she have gone to the trouble to locate his birth mother?

  "I looked through tabloids that dated from around the time she would have been pregnant with you," Juliet volunteered from her spot directly behind him. "Cassidy disappeared from show biz for about six months, right around the time you were born."

  "Why'd she leave me in Wilmington?" Tristan's voice was hoarse.

  "That's where she's from, originally," she explained. "She must have gone home to have her baby."

  He struggled to process all the information at once. "So
, my birth mother's manager left me in the hospital." He wondered if Cassidy had instructed Fontana to do that or if the man had just whisked her baby away, hoping she'd get back to work.

  "It would seem he did," Juliet agreed. "There's no way to know if Cassidy told him to leave you there, or whether she was left out of that decision since she was only sixteen. The only way to find out would be to talk to her in person."

  And there it was again—the suggestion that Juliet wanted him to leave, just like when she'd ordered him out of her apartment earlier that morning. The confidence he'd felt last night was leaking from him like air out of an old balloon.

  Hilary turned her head to look at him. "Mike Fontana's been dead for years. Your mother changed her name, which made it really hard for me to track her down. She goes by Casey Edwards, now. This is the most recent photo I could find online."

  Facing forward, she brought up and enlarged a photo of a middle-aged, bleached-blonde in dark sunglasses who only vaguely resembled her younger self.

  "Her stardom tapered off in the early nineties when she went to jail," Hilary explained.

  "She went to jail?" Dismay added itself to the mélange of emotions swirling inside him.

  "For stabbing a boyfriend," Juliet clarified, her tone suggesting that the guy might have deserved it. "She served a four-year sentence. After Cassidy got out, she changed her name and all but disappeared. I don't know how Hilary managed to find her."

  "Through her veterinarians." The assistant smiled smugly as she leaned back in her chair. "She's either had the same dog for twenty-five years, or she names them all Dolly." Her magnified gaze conveyed sympathy as she looked at Tristan. "It's up to you if you want to meet her again. I have her address but she doesn't seem to own a phone. You could write to her and see if she responds."

  "I think he should fly out and meet her in person," Juliet suggested.

  Tristan tensed. Yep, she was trying to get rid of him. He swiped a hand over his face. The queasy feeling that had ambushed him earlier hadn't subsided. The need to escape the confines of Juliet's office had him rising from the chair and patting down his pockets for the key to his motorcycle. Then he remembered it was parked back at Juliet's apartment. They'd driven her SUV to work.

  "I'm going to get some air," he announced, heading for the door.

  The uncertain look on Juliet's face heartened him only slightly.

  "Do you want company?" she asked.

  "No, I'm good. I just need some time to think."

  "OK, well... Keep in touch."

  He regarded her more closely. Wearing slender black slacks and a pale pink cardigan that clung to her curves, it almost hurt to look at her. Especially with his memory of how she'd looked naked in her bathtub, climaxing.

  What did "Keep in touch" mean? Send her a postcard from the road? Or catch up with her later that evening? He wanted to ask, but Hilary was all eyes and ears waiting for him to say something. Too proud to ask for clarification, he stalked out of the office.

  Fresh air and a long walk would help him sort out his thoughts.

  Concern tugged at Juliet as the door closed in Tristan's wake.

  "I thought he'd be more excited," Hilary confessed.

  "Well, it's a lot for him to take in." Juliet crossed her arms and hugged herself. She realized she'd never asked for nor received Tristan's cell phone number. She deliberated chasing after him to get it, but what would that accomplish? The whole point of finding his birth mother was to toss him a bone so he wouldn't resent her when she pushed him away.

  She did want to push him away, didn't she?

  Yes, but maybe not just yet. If Tristan took off to California right away, he might not get around to putting out the fire he'd stoked in her the night before.

  "Maybe I should go after him," she mused aloud.

  "Oh, no, you can't."

  Hilary's assertion wrested Juliet's gaze from the door. "Why not?"

  "You're working the Royer case today, remember?"

  Juliet rolled her eyes and groaned. "Seriously?" Rolf Royer, a wealthy investor, had hired her to gather evidence that his wife was cheating on him. If not, she would take him to the cleaners when he filed for divorce. "I hate these adultery cases," Juliet declared.

  "Yeah, but they pay the bills." Hilary pushed her wheeled chair toward the printer to pluck up a printout. "Here's Mrs. Royer's itinerary." She glanced at it before holding it out to Juliet. "She's probably still at the nail salon on Main Street. If you hurry, you'll get there before she leaves."

  Chapter 5

  Tristan eyed the George Mason University campus across the street from Juliet's office with reservation. The substantial buildings, expansive lawns, and tree-lined sidewalks all screamed higher education—an experience he had personally avoided, though his adoptive siblings had both pursued postgraduate degrees.

  Students taking advantage of the mild weather lounged on grassy areas flecked with crimson and gold leaves. Making up his mind to tackle the unknown, Tristan crossed the street to cruise a walkway that appeared to lead to the heart of the campus. A hum of intellectual curiosity sharpened the air. Looking at the bright faces of the young adults around him, he realized he was seeing the next generation of doctors and lawyers, teachers and scientists. Suddenly, the future didn't look so bleak.

  Would he have become a different man if he'd taken the academic route? As a kid, he'd been too restless to sit in a classroom using only his brain. He'd wanted to challenge his body at the same time. That's what made Special Operations the perfect fit for him. Yes, he'd been the oddball in his family, but his parents had celebrated his uniqueness, and he'd never felt any less worthy. Until now.

  He wondered if the young woman coming up the sidewalk toward him could tell he was the by-product of a sexual liaison between a teenage entertainment star and what had most likely been some groupie?

  The pretty redhead blushed at his greeting, smiled, and looked away.

  Apparently not.

  He didn't need to feel like a worthless, unwanted bastard just because Juliet was rebuffing him. His valiant efforts to woo her were evidently failing, even though he'd endured six months of abstinence for her sake. Apparently, that wasn't enough for her. Now she wanted him to meet his birth mother. What next, jump off a bridge?

  Arriving at a plaza boasting a life-sized statue of the university's namesake, Tristan followed the stream of students swarming into a building designated as the Johnson Center. He found himself in an atrium-style food court looking up at the second, third, and fourth levels. The building looked more like a luxury mall or a high-end office complex than a college. His gaze snagged on a door labeled Gateway Library, and he wondered if there might be information not readily available on the internet in a brick and mortar library.

  Only one way to find out, he supposed. Climbing the stairs, he pushed into the hushed, multi-level library only to come face-to-face with endless shelves of books. He almost turned and fled. But Tristan reasoned if he could ferret out insurgents hiding in the ruins of a bombed city, he could sure as hell find books about the Main Intelligence Directorate for the Stasi and its mysterious leader.

  An elderly lady smiled at him from behind the checkout desk. Aha, an informant! He headed straight for her, determined to make an ally.

  Ten minutes later, he sat at a window-side table, about to wade through five books on Dieter Goebel. While he'd never been much of a reader, SEAL training had taught Tristan to be observant. Cracking open the first book, he began his quest for information.

  The books proved engrossing—various accounts of moles like Juliet's mother, people whose ideals had led them to risk their lives sneaking information through the Wall and into Dieter Goebel's hands.

  Setting the first book aside, Tristan realized he'd been reading for an hour.

  The second, third, and fourth books contained much of the same information, making them redundant. He pushed them aside. In the fifth, he stumbled upon a chapter devoted to Goebel's artwork
.

  "Hooyah," he muttered, thumbing through the pages and skimming the passages that caught his eye.

  The author had included photos of several paintings from Goebel's private collection, which went to auction shortly after his arrest. On each work of art, Goebel had marked his ownership using the Stasi emblem in lieu of a signature. The author provided a close up of that symbol, along with an explanation.

  Goebel inked the emblem of the Main Directorate for Intelligence on the back of every painting in his collection. It consists of a hammer signifying the workers of the Democratic Republic, a compass representing the community's thinking men, and a ring of rye representing farmers, all surrounded by a twelve-point star, for the People's Police, as he was its leader.

  With rising excitement, Tristan teased his cell phone out of his pocket and took a photo.

  Call him naïve, but his instincts told him this emblem was significant. If, in fact, Goebel had identified all the pieces of his collection in this manner, that might make them traceable.

  Tristan sat a minute wondering what to do with his discovery. Hilary would want to know, of course. He pulled out her business card while recalling her comment about Hack. Making up his mind to connect the two techno-nerds, Tristan dialed Hack's number instead of Hilary's. He glanced at his watch while waiting for Hack to pick up.

  It was just after four. Tristan had become so caught up in research he hadn't realized the sun was already setting on the campus below him. Juliet hadn't sent him so much as a text. Since she'd never asked for his number, how could she?

  "What's up?"

  Hack's Vermont dialect always tickled Tristan's funny bone.

  "Hey, I'm calling from a library," he whispered, gaining several sharp looks from students close enough to overhear him.