Leann Sweeney - Shoot from the Lip

“I guess I should try, too,” I said. “Did Jeff say anything else?”

“No hint about coming back, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

I smiled. “You read my mind.” Just then, a kid in the back of the car ahead of me must have thought the smile was for him, because he began playing games with me-hiding and then popping back up. I said, “I’ll follow up on the Crime Stoppers lead, see if this guy really did know Christine O’Meara and for some reason backed off on the ID.”

“Go for it. It’s probably a dead end, but it’s all we’ve got. Guy’s name is Jerry Joe Billings. No rap sheet-which would have helped, but-Wait a minute. The O’Meara woman was a drunk, right? If this guy knew her, maybe he was a drunk, too. He might have been arrested for public intoxication.”

“But I thought you said he didn’t have a rap sheet,” I said, confused.

“Anything less than a Class A or Class B offense isn’t listed in our criminal database, but there’s somewhere else I can look for minor violations. If I do find out he was arrested, then we’ll have his social.”

“I can do plenty with that,” I said.

“I have a copy of his driver’s license, but he’s not living at his last known address. You want me to fax you the copy so you’ll have a picture of him?”

“Send it as an e-mail attachment straight to my computer phone.” I gave him the number. I always keep the new BlackBerry with me, but found I liked my smaller cell phone with the camera for regular use.

I’d moved only about a city block during our entire conversation. Up ahead I could see a car being moved to the side of the road. The flashing lights of about ten wreckers glittered in my rearview. Up ahead the little boy was still playing his jack-in-the-box game.

And that game suddenly brought it all together when I realized that there were two boys, close in age but one with darker blond hair and different clothes from the other. When one went down, the other popped up.

That was why there had been no report of a kidnapping in ‘92. Since Emma’s sister had been born at home, there was no official record of her birth. No record would make a switch far simpler. That had to be it. One baby-Christine’s-had been exchanged for another. Evidence or not, I had little doubt that if Christine hadn’t put that tiny body under her house, she knew who had.

I clenched my fist and banged the steering wheel. She’d given up or sold her own newborn for another child, a baby who may have already been dead or about to die. A child was left under a house-hidden, nameless and forgotten. It made me sick. And where was Emma’s sister? Continents away? Or still in Houston? With what little I had, finding her might be impossible.

If Kravitz’s people hoped to follow me to Murray Motorcycles once the highway clog cleared, I disappointed them. I pulled off the freeway first chance I got and went to a coffee shop with wireless access. When I checked my computer phone, I discovered I’d been sent more than Billings’s driver’s license. DeShay e-mailed the man’s arrest records-the ones he hadn’t found when he checked his computer earlier. Billings had nine arrests for public intoxication.

I would need access to one or more of my person-locator databases now that I had Billings’s social security number from the arrest sheet. I wanted to find out where he was-and I sure hoped he was a local-but I wanted to tell Emma about the latest round of DNA results before anyone else did.

I sat at a tiny table with my extra-large latte, double shot of espresso, and called her hotel. No one picked up in her room. I then tried her cell. When she answered, I was surprised to learn she was at work.

“You drove?” I said.

“Yup. The rental car company delivered a Cadillac, Abby. I couldn’t believe it. I have to thank Kate for doing that. I’ve never even sat in a Cadillac before. It will be so nice for taking clients to properties.”

“What about your shoulder?”

“Doesn’t hurt much. But the reporters? Now, those people are harder to deal with than a cracked collarbone. They followed me. I told them if they came inside my office I was calling the cops. But then the cops called me instead. Sergeant White.”

“Why did he phone you?” I asked.

“They got the new DNA report. Neither my mother-and she is my biological parent-nor I is related to that baby. I’m supposed to keep those results to myself. But I told him I was telling you. He didn’t like that much. He’s worried the whole world will find out.”

“DeShay already gave me the news. That’s why I was calling. I’m sorry you had to hear that over the phone from White. He’s not the most sensitive man I’ve ever met.”

“It’s okay. Really. This means my sister could be alive. We’re back to the beginning, back to why you agreed to help me in the first place-with one added problem.”

“What’s that?”

“The other baby. She belonged to someone, Abby. She didn’t deserve to be buried under a house, left in a hole like trash.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “That’s the part that’s given me a lump in my throat. I want to find out who she was and why this happened.”

“Me, too,” she said quietly.

“This means that learning everything about your mother is more important than ever. A dead baby about the same age as your sister is no coincidence. I-”

“Don’t say it. My mother had something to do with this. She would have given up anything for money to keep her drug of choice in plentiful supply-even her own child. She’d certainly given up the rest of us for alcohol, though in a different way.”

We talked for another minute, mostly about Emma’s schedule and how she was supposed to do her job with people following her all the time. After I hung up, I turned to my BlackBerry and the matter of Jerry Joe Billings. Wherever he was, I would find him.

First I checked his driver’s license photo and decided Billings must have fallen from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. All DPS photos are gruesome, but Billings had wild hair, half-open eyes, a day’s growth of beard and a mouth that made me think he might have left his teeth in a jelly jar by the bed. He couldn’t possibly look like this every day, and I worried the photo might be worthless. Would I recognize him if I saw him in person? Then I noted he was an organ donor. I hoped he had decent corneas, because his liver was probably pickled.

I checked the arrest record. The last offense had been in 1998, which could mean he was either dead or he’d gotten sober. If sober, he probably had a job. I hit a few keys with my computer pen and opened a person-locator database, a very expensive but trustworthy tool. I entered Billings’s social security number, and within a minute I knew where to find him.

The man who answered the phone at the warehouse discount store in the NASA area where Billings worked was happy to tell me he’d return my call after he finished mounting a set of tires. I didn’t bother to leave a number, just packed up and left the coffeehouse to find him. Trouble was, when I arrived I was told that since I didn’t belong to the club store, I’d need a membership to enter. When you live alone-except for frequent and wonderful Jeff sleepovers and extended visits from sisters who’ve dumped their boyfriend-you don’t need a hundred of anything. Besides, where would I store that many rolls of toilet paper?

Once I’d filled out the application and been approved, it was my turn to have a truly awful photograph saved for posterity on my brand-new plastic member card-my ticket to overconsumption on a massive scale. I had to admit, however, that the places I shopped could take a lesson from the bare cement floors and unfinished ceilings. Might bring the price of a little black dress down to within reason.