Authors: Jory Strong
Shane whistled softly. “Whoever Bio-dad is, he’s confident.”
They exited at the next ramp. thirty-nine minutes later Alma
opened the door holding a chubby-legged boy sucking a fist.
Madison looked beyond Alma, who was probably only a few
years older than her mother had been when she lived in this apartment. She
strained for a memory of the place, for some recollection of being held in the
doorway as this child was being held. There wasn’t even a glimmer of something
from her own past.
“I need proof of who you are,” Alma said.
Madison provided it by pulling out her driver’s license.
Alma nodded. She took an arm off the toddler, reached for
something out of sight, her hand returning with a business-sized envelope.
“The lawyer said to tell you that you’re close to the end.”
Madison took the envelope, feeling the press of a key
against her fingers.
“What was the lawyer’s name?” Tyler asked.
Alma shook her head. “He said you might ask but not to tell
you, not if I wanted the rest of my money.”
“What about a description? That’s not the same as a name.”
“No. Sorry.”
She stepped backward and closed the door without them trying
to stop her.
“You’re losing your touch,” Shane told Tyler.
“Like I could compete against a thousand bucks paid out in
cold, hard cash.”
“You’re not looking in the mirror if you believe that,”
Madison said, grasping the front of his shirt and pulling him forward for a
kiss.
Tyler returned it and was smiling afterward. “Thanks for the
vote of confidence.”
“And yet again, he gets
his
ego stroked.”
“Poor baby.”
She hooked her hand in the front of Shane’s jeans.
He grinned and let her tug him in.
She wriggled her fingers against taut abs. “Consider my hand
placement as an indication of where your ego lies in relation to Tyler’s.”
“Works for me,” he said, swooping, and there was added heat
because her lips were still wet from Tyler’s.
Shane’s tongue stroked hers. Deepened the kiss, extended it
into a moan that slid into a sigh of frustration before he ended it.
She pulled her hand from his waistband. Opened the envelope
then tilted it. A key dropped onto her palm.
Shane picked it up. “Belongs to a car or truck.”
She pulled a Stanford brochure free of the envelope.
“That it?” Tyler asked.
Madison widened the envelope, showing him there was nothing
else.
Opening the brochure, they could all see that there were
letters and numbers highlighted in green.
Shane rolled the key between his fingers. “I’m guessing
we’ll be looking for a car parked on campus. I’m also guessing that Alma has
already made the call so the next clue can be put in place. Keep going to Reno?
Or head to Stanford?”
“Reno. But I want to stop by Mr. Bergdorf’s apartment to see
if he recognizes the woman who went by the name Suzanne Turner.”
They took the stairs.
The old man didn’t answer his door.
“We can come back if we decide it’s important,” Shane said,
handing her the car key.
She put it with the brochure, folding the envelope and
jamming it into a back pocket.
They returned to the Jeep.
From the backseat, Tyler said, “We could get Braden or Lyric
looking for the car. It’s not like they’d need the key to get into it.”
Shane glanced at her. “Want to farm it out? Or do it
ourselves?”
“Let’s do it ourselves,” she said, wanting more time with
Shane and Tyler.
“Anyone up for a bet?” Shane asked.
Tyler groaned. Madison said, “What’d you have in mind?”
He hit the trip reset, returning it to zero. “A hundred
bucks says we’ll see a red Porsche, traveling either direction in the next
twenty miles.”
“You’re on.”
“Tyler?”
“I’m in.”
Madison was ahead by three hundred and seventy-five dollars
when Shane pulled the Jeep into the Gold and Silver Casino’s parking lot.
“Should I take your car keys,” Madison asked Shane. “In case
you get sucked into a game?”
“Not even tempted. I’ve got to win my money back from you.”
They entered the casino, weaving through banks of slot
machines being played by senior citizens, then past blackjack tables, most of
them with only two or three players.
In the area roped off for poker, all of the dealers were
men.
Madison called Tanya’s cell.
“You’re here?” Tanya asked.
“Yes. Right next to the ropes.”
“I’m in the smoking lounge near the Pai Gow tables.”
They reached it a few minutes later.
Madison’s pulse did a quick leap at spotting a blocky
blonde, but settled when Tanya looked up from her cell phone.
“Thought for minute…” Shane muttered.
Tyler gave a small nod. “Me too.”
Tanya was no longer scrawny, the way Mr. Bergdorf had
described her, but the face didn’t match the one belonging to Suzanne Turner.
They joined her, introducing themselves.
Tanya fished out a cigarette from a pack on her thigh. She
put it between her lips and used a lighter to fire the end, her eyes never leaving
Madison.
“It’s you all right,” she finally said.
Madison scrolled to the picture of the girl whose real name might
not be Suzanne Turner. “Do you recognize her? From when you hung out with
Desiree?”
Tanya shook her head. “No. Who is she?”
Share the information or not?
Madison glanced at Shane.
He gave a tiny shrug. It was her call.
Tanya’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Her name is Suzanne Turner,” Madison said. “We think she
might have had something to do with convincing Desiree to give me up. This picture
came from my adoption file.”
Tanya took a long draw from the cigarette, exhaled. “I don’t
know what to tell you, except I didn’t think Des would give you up. But then, I
didn’t think she’d disappear like that either.”
Madison rubbed the cell against her jeans. “Why did her
leaving surprise you?”
“We were supposed to meet up, kind of a moral support thing
after a guy I was seeing ditched me, but she never showed. I went by her place
a couple of times. I left messages but she never called. Finally I got worried
enough to go to the police.”
Madison’s skin tingled. “You filed a missing persons
report?”
“Yeah, for all the good it did. Lazy cops wouldn’t get off
their asses. And I got plenty of shit for asking them to.”
“There’s no record of the report.”
Tanya snorted. “Fucking cops.”
“Do you remember who took the report?” Shane asked.
“You’re kidding me, right?” She took a long pull from the
cigarette.
“Who gave you shit?” he asked.
“Friends. The bad kind to have, not that I was totally
convinced back then.”
“The friends Desiree lived with before moving to Cantaloupe
Springs?” Madison asked.
“The same. Most of them are locked up. Or at least they were
when I finally decided to get my shit together.”
“So you never saw her again?” Madison asked.
“The third day after we were supposed to meet, I went by and
her stuff was cleared out.” She touched her heart. “It hurt, you know? Her rent
was paid up, she didn’t take trouble back to her place, so I knew she hadn’t
been kicked out. Eventually I figured maybe she had decided she needed a clean
start, a clean break from the old and she wasn’t sure she could do it if she
had to say goodbye. Still, it was a slap in the face.”
“Do you know who my father is?”
Tanya shook her head. “Look, this isn’t pretty but it’s the
truth. Des didn’t even know who he was, unless she lied about that. Back before
she found out she was pregnant, she was all caught up in the party scene. That
and doing what she had to do to keep from living on the street. She slept with
whoever she had to sleep with. Been that way since she was thirteen.”
“She ran away from home?”
“Walked, more like. And no one came looking for her. Happens
all the time. Fuck all those people who guess what’s going on and can’t be
bothered to step up and do anything about it.”
“She grew up in Modesto?”
Tanya took a draw off the cigarette. Held the smoke,
released it. “Sacramento. Some trailer park.”
“Do you remember the name of the park, a general location?”
She shrugged. “Close to where Highway 80 runs alongside
Lincoln Highway. A couple of months before she disappeared we were driving to
Reno. Out of the blue Des pointed and said, ‘I’m a hell of a lot better mother
than she ever was. She cared more about her stupid pixies than me.’”
Most of the remaining cigarette disappeared on an inhale.
Tanya held her breath, then vented the smoke through her nose.
“Des only started trying to get straight when she came off a
high and realized she had a baby bump. The guy she was with kicked her out. And
no offense, I told her to go to the clinic, handle the situation that way. I
mean, she hadn’t even turned sixteen. She didn’t talk to me for a couple of
months. That’s why it blows my mind that she gave you up for adoption. She’d
gotten mostly clean to have you. We still went out, but she partied light
because of you. As far as family goes, you were all she had.”
Tanya clenched her hand, gave two knocks above her heart.
“But what do I know? She ditched me and left without bothering to say goodbye.”
“Back when she would have gotten pregnant with me, were any
of the guys she was hanging around with rich? From San Francisco?”
“Not hardly. Doesn’t mean she couldn’t have gotten knocked
up after hooking up, but she wasn’t going around with anybody who had cash.
Everyone was scrambling to get high the same as she was.”
“Can you remember her being with a drummer?” Madison asked.
“Or hanging out with a band?”
“The only guys I remember her being with are the losers she
shacked up with.”
Tanya polished off the cigarette and jabbed the butt into an
ashtray. “I need to get back on the floor.”
“Thanks for talking to me,” Madison said. “If you think of
anything…”
“Sure. I’ll call you.”
Truth?
Maybe.
Outside the lounge, Shane took one of her hands and Tyler
the other.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Tyler said, “I think Bio-dad showed up, wanting to make
amends—but Shane’s right—Bio-dad’s version of it included cleaning up old
messes so the past wouldn’t be dragged into
his
future. I think he made
an offer that was too good for Desiree to turn down, one that included a new
start.”
Shane’s arm moved, swinging hers like the pendulum on a
grandfather clock.
“Puts a new slant on Officer Grimes not being able to find a
missing persons report,” he said. “Money and influence could have made it
disappear.”
Madison nodded. “The same way Bio-dad made Bio-mom and me
disappear.”
Shane squeezed her hand.
They stepped out of the casino.
Madison lifted her face to the sun, absorbing it through her
skin. “When he sent us to Modesto, I don’t think he meant for me to learn
who
Bio-mom was. I think he wanted me to get a sense of how she was struggling, so
he’d be the hero who made sure I ended up in a good place.”
“That could fit,” Shane said. “It fits even better if you
look at how he handled it—a lawyer showing up, paying Alma to hand off a
package. The promise of more money, but only if she keeps silent. It’s like a
reenactment.”
Tyler touched his lips to her hair. “You okay with this?”
“Yeah, yeah I am.” Maybe she shouldn’t be, not after seeing
the photos of Desiree holding her, but she couldn’t dredge up any anger and
hate, or even a sense of loss for someone she couldn’t remember.
All her memories contained the parents who’d raised and
loved her, who’d always been there for her. And whether it was truth or
fantasy, it was hard to look at the pictures and think Desiree had given her up
only for the money. It was easier to believe it had been about both of them
gaining a better life.
“I’d like to take a stab at finding the trailer park.”
“Mad,” Shane said, swinging around to get in front of her
and walking backwards. “You know what we find there isn’t going to be pretty.”
“I know.”
“So let’s head to Stanford. Bio-dad’s clue this time is
simple enough I didn’t even complain. True?”
“True,” she said, warmth surrounding her heart.
He glanced at Tyler. “Your vote’s for skipping Sacramento
and going to Stanford, right?”
Tyler’s hand squeezed hers. “Right.”
“There you have it, two against one. Majority rules.”
Shane stopped when he hit the Jeep. He tugged her to him.
Tyler let her go.
“Majority rules?” Shane said.
She touched her fingertips to his lips. They were straight
and serious, and still managed to be totally sensuous.
“Not this time. I need to do this. I need to see where she
came from.”
Tyler leaned against the Jeep, a short reach away. She put
her hand on his chest, trailing it up and down over the buttons on his shirt.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.
Shane made a little growly sound. “
We
don’t want you
to get hurt.”
“I’m not going to get hurt. I think I’ve already confronted
the worst of Bio-dad’s revelations. He’s always known where I am. He made it so
there was no way I could find him, even if I wanted to. He paid my mother off
when it seems pretty obvious she loved me. And in a way he’s paid me off too.”
Shane repeated the growly sound, only this time it was
deeper and longer.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It really is okay. He’s bought some
of my time. He’s made me curious about him, and I don’t hate him. Beyond that,
I don’t know what I’ll feel about him when I meet him, or if I’ll want to have
anything to do with him afterward. But I’d do it all over again, not just to
keep Mom and Dad from losing their house, but because it led to you and Tyler.”