Barbara Phinney - Fatal Secrets

Kristin bit her lip. Zane watched the motion intently, finding the little habit oddly attractive.

“I have very little information, I’m afraid. I know what the woman’s name was years ago, and her approximate age, but that’s pretty much it. I know she was living in Montana about twenty-one years ago.”

“Is she a relative?”

Again, she bit her lip. “I’d rather not say at this point. I need you to be very discreet.”

“I’m always discreet.”

“No.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping as her expression steeled. “I need you to find this woman without anyone ever knowing you’re looking for her.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “I can do that, too.”

She paused, as if wanting to add more, but not convinced that she should. Impatient, he pulled out his notepad and pen, and set it on the table between them to write. His iced tea arrived and he shoved the cold glass to one side.

“No!”

He looked up, meeting her wide, green eyes and noting the straight brown hair that threatened to fall into them. Her look could easily be interpreted as benign, innocent, had he not just seen a cool determination behind it. “No, what?” he asked.

“I don’t want you to take notes. I need you to remember everything I say. I can’t risk your notebook being stolen.”

His pen hovered over his pad, irritation tempting him to write anyway. But when her eyes filled with pleading, Zane’s hand froze.

He battled his capitulation. He didn’t like giving in. “You want me to remember everything you say to me? Don’t you think that’s a bit unreasonable? I can assure you that no one gets my notebook, Kristin. No one.”

“Just humor me, okay? For a little while?” Her voice developed a velvet tone to it. With her wide, innocent eyes and perfect cream complexion, this young woman could probably get whatever she wanted from any man in town.

Yet, if he was reading her right, he bet she’d never asked a soul for anything, never manipulated a man before. Until now. He was tempted to test her determination, to see if there really was silk over steel where her will was concerned.

But a battle of wills was pointless and he had no taste for such foolishness. He’d had his fill of that nonsense years ago.

And besides, he found himself not wanting to argue with the beautiful Kristin Perry.

Slowly, he put away his pad and pen.

“Thank you.”

Zane barely heard the words over the other conversations around them. But the gratitude rang clearly. “So, tell me about the woman you want me to find.”

“She’s around forty years old, has brown hair and green eyes, slim-boned and with a scar on her right cheek near her lips. It’s in the shape of a rose petal.”

He watched her hand drift up to her temple to smooth her hair. As if noticing his keen interest, she dropped her arm immediately.

“A rose petal?” he echoed. What on earth was the shape of a rose petal?

“Yes, you know. Rounded, with a slight point at one end.”

“Okay,” he began. “What’s this woman’s name?”

“Eloise.”

“What’s her relationship to you?”

A pause. “Like I said before, I can’t say. I mean, I don’t think it’s something we need to discuss.”

Zane pulled in a deep breath, then eased it out slowly to smooth over his growing impatience. Was this woman using him? Had he pegged her wrong when he’d thought she’d never manipulated men before?

This was fast becoming a big waste of time. He didn’t need any more evasive people in his life, not after dealing that last time with his own parents. “Look, Kristin, I can’t find a person with such vague information.”

“What I’ve told you isn’t vague, Mr. Black.”

“Call me Zane.”

“Fine. I told you her name, as I know it, and a basic description. She’s somewhere in Montana.”

“Which is a big state. How do you know she’s here?”

“An acquaintance told me.”

The person she’d spoken to a moment ago, the one who’d seemed to have dropped a bombshell? “And this person couldn’t tell you anything more than that?”

“No.”

“Have you begun to search for her by yourself?”

Color seeped into her cheeks, and her neck turned an attractive pink. “I asked around a few places.”

He leaned forward, trying a stern look to stem the pull of her perfect features. Pretty girls were a dime a dozen in a college town, more so in this small town of Westbrook, he thought. He refused to be lured by her innocent eyes and classic good looks. “Kristin, you need to be more forthcoming here. I don’t want to waste your money by doing things you’ve already done. So tell me. Where have you been?”

“I thought she’d gone south, to a bigger urban area like Missoula, so I went down there. But I could only go for the day. I’ve, um, been busy lately.”

Busy doing what? he wondered. “More than half the state of Montana is south of Missoula. You need to be specific about where you think she went.”

“I can’t be. I asked at the city hall in Missoula and the public records, and at the tech colleges and such, in case she’d taken some courses. But I found nothing.”

“Why those places?”

She shrugged. “I had to start somewhere. Getting an education is important. But I realized that I needed help. I’d lost a bit of my schooling this past spring because of personal issues, and I need to make it up this summer. The university offers summer courses. I can’t spend my time doing both things.”

Still a bit evasive, she was. He made a mental note to find out what kind of personal issues she’d dealt with this past spring. “Any other places?”

She paused, pursed her lips and then wet them. After swallowing, she answered him. “I found out that Eloise lived for a while at a foster home in Chicago. I talked to the woman who ran it. She’s supposed to, er, send me some info.”

She didn’t want to tell him, that, he noticed. Why? Was the idea of a foster home difficult? Or had the woman asked for anonymity? Surely she would know that she shouldn’t be offering information about the children in her care, even the ones who had probably aged out long ago.

Abruptly, Kristin leaned forward. “Please, Zane, I need your help. A friend recommended you, and I really need to find this woman. But it has to be done very discreetly.”

If his gut was telling him correctly, the woman was her mother.

A mom. Supposedly the one person in a child’s life who should love unconditionally. Yeah, like that happened.

Still, didn’t he already love unconditionally the brother he’d come to Westbrook to find? Without even knowing him?

He did. Zane noticed Kristin’s hand slip from her lap up onto the table between them, to rest there like a shy, stray animal in search of food or affection.

Did he really need this case? No, not for the money. He was sensible enough to have saved so that he could spend his summer searching exclusively for his lost brother, though he had yet to start. He didn’t need to follow weak clues from an evasive woman. He’d only agreed to meet her because he’d been intrigued by that smooth, velvet voice.

He stood. “I’m sorry, Kristin, but I’m going to need more than just the few things you’ve told me. If you’re not willing to say more, then you can’t expect anyone to find your mom.”

She gasped. “How did you know she was my mother?”

“I’m good at my job. I know how to read people.” He’d learned that the hard way, the way any battered kid learns to watch a parent for those subtle signs that a beating was imminent. “I see.”

He watched as her eyes welled up. Great. Feeling he was being a bit too hard on her, he planted his hands on the table, one on each side of hers. Her body tensed as she eased her hand closer to her body.