Mariah Stewart - Cry Mercy

He returned to the screen with the pictures and pulled up the ones Ali had sent Lori from the front of the art museum. Those were the ones that bothered him the most. He enlarged one of the frames and cursed under his breath. Granted, no one looking at the pictures would know it was him there in the background-why would anyone even notice?-but still, it was a mistake that should not have happened. This girl was clearly going to be the death of him.

Or actually, he reminded himself as he turned off Lori's computer, it would be the other way around.

Emme had always considered herself a patient woman, but by three in the afternoon, when she hadn't heard from any of the boys, she'd just about exhausted what patience she had. She dialed Nick's cell phone again and was prepared to leave a message when he picked up.

“Hey,” he said. “I was just about to call you. My client just left-finally. I say finally because he's been here since eight fifteen this morning. And I say that with all fondness and gratitude, because he brought me one hell of a car.”

“What kind of car?”

“A very sweet 1949 Cadillac. There were less than eight thousand of this model made, less than fifty are registered.” He sighed happily. “Like I said. It's one sweet car.”

“Well, good luck with it.” She wasn't exactly sure what one said under the circumstances, but figured that would suffice.

Nick laughed. “So what good news did today bring? Aaron cough up the name of Donor 1735?”

“I wish it was going to be that easy.” She related the gist of her conversation with Aaron that morning.

“So whatever DNA Belle used had to have come from one of her male donor siblings?”

“Right. I emailed the four of them but no one's gotten back to me yet. Of course, there could be a lot of reasons for that. It's summer, they could all be working today. Or the one who gave her the DNA could be reluctant to speak up.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. I don't know how kids that age think. But I do think there's a high probability that Belle sent a copy of the DNA profile to whomever gave her their DNA. I did ask, but so far, nada.”

“Aaron is still going to try to retrieve Belle's emails, though, right?”

“He's going to consult with a buddy who apparently knows a lot about computers.”

“I thought you could retrieve just about anything from a hard drive.”

“I don't think it's quite that cut and dried. And Aaron didn't know if email, once deleted, could be retrieved. But he said he'd do his best and I have to trust him to do that. In the meantime, though, I think we need to be prepared in case we can't get the information from him.”

“So your thoughts for plan B would be…”

“I think we need to go through all those boxes of Belinda's. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure she'd have printed out copies of whatever information she had on her computer. She'd have wanted a hard copy. And besides, if she was successful in getting a DNA profile, she'd have sent it to one of these genealogy services that tracks DNA, right? She'd have kept a record of that, too.”

“You're right. We need to go through her stuff. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Well, I was hoping to start on that, but if you have this car to work on…”

“The Caddy can wait. How early do you think you can get there?”

“I can drop Chloe off at eight.”

“It'll take you about two hours to get to the farm. Get a pen and paper and I'll give you directions.”

“I guess I didn't put things back too neatly last time.” Nick and Emme stood in the farmhouse's foyer, surveying the pile of boxes, some half-opened, some with articles of clothing draped over the sides.

“Well, we'll start with those, then, the ones that are already opened.” She poked into the nearest carton, which appeared to contain mostly sweaters. “We'll go through every single item and when we're done, we'll pack the box up again and move it into the living room.”

“Okay.”

He'd already opened all the windows to let in some cool morning air. Now he opened the front door. “It's going to get pretty hot in here,” he told her. “By one, the sun is going to be coming right through those windows.”

“Maybe we'll get lucky before we have to worry about the heat.” She dove into the box and began removing things item by item. She held every sweater by the shoulders and shook each piece vigorously. “Just in case Belinda hid something inside,” she told him when she found him watching her, one eyebrow raised. “And check every pocket. You never know what you're going to find.”

She straightened up, a red hooded sweater over her arm. “You can start any time now, you know.”

“I just like watching you.”

“Watch me later. We are going to get through all these boxes today.”

He pulled one of the cartons closer and pushed the lid all the way open. “This one had a bunch of skirts and pants and jackets.”

“All things with pockets.”

“Right.” He stuffed his hand into the pocket of the pair of black pants he'd drawn out of the box. When he was convinced that it held no hidden treasure, he folded it and set it aside.

“She sure had a lot of stuff,” he muttered.

“Girls that age do,” she smiled. “Clothes… can there be too many clothes? Shoes. Oh, and bags… I'm still fighting my addiction to good bags.”

“Bags? You mean, like handbags?”

She nodded and shook out another sweater.

“One of these boxes only contained handbags.”

“A girl after my own heart.”

“What's with that?” He frowned. “You can only use one at a time, right?”

“This from a guy who thought nothing of having nineteen cars? Dare I say you can only drive one at a time?”

“Hey, it was only seventeen. And I sold most of them.”

A knock on the back door was followed by a voice calling for Nick.

“That sounds like my neighbor, Herb,” he told Emme. “In here, Herb. Front hall.”

“Nick, I've got the estimates for the repairs to the… oh, hello.” Herb Sanders stopped midway through the door. “I didn't know you had company.”

“This is Emme Caldwell. Emme, meet Herb.” To Herb, Nick said, “Emme's helping me look for Belinda.”

“You a cop or something?”

Yes was on the tip of her tongue, and then she remembered. “No, I'm a private investigator with a firm working with Nick.”

“Well, it's nice to meet you.” Herb nodded. “I hope you find that girl. Seems she's been missing a long time.”

“We're doing our best.”

Herb waved a fat envelope at Nick and said, “I have some estimates here for you to look at. Three for each of the projects you asked about. I'd have a fourth, but Greg Burton, he said he wanted to take another look at that back wall in the barn, so he'll be stopping out. Want me to just leave these on the kitchen table? You can give me a call when you're free, and we can go over them.”

Nick glanced at Emme hesitantly.

“I can go through this stuff by myself,” she told him. “Go do what you have to do.”

“It shouldn't take too long.”

“It's okay.” She turned back to the box she was working on and resumed sorting. When she was finished, she repacked the sweaters and dragged the box into the living room, then started on the next box, this one filled with books. She dragged it over to the stairs where she sat and began to search through every book and notebook.

“Find anything?” Nick came back into the foyer with two bottles of water. He handed one to Emme and put the other down on the top of an old desk that sat to one side of the front door.

“Not yet.”