Birthright by Nora Roberts

  “Scared?”

  “Hell, no, I’m not scared. It’s just—”

  “Seven o’clock. My treat.”

  He jiggled the car keys still in his pocket and frowned after her. “You always this pushy?”

  “Yes,” she called back. “Yes, I am.”

  Moments after Lana got back to her office, Callie walked into it. Ignoring the assistant at the desk in the outer office, Callie looked straight through the connecting doorway to Lana’s.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure. Lisa? Put off making that call for me until I’m done with Dr. Dunbrook. Come on in, Callie. Have a seat. Want something cold?”

  “No. No, thanks.” She shut the door at her back.

  The office was small, and pretty, tidy, female as a parlor.

  The window behind the fancy little desk looked over a park. Which told Callie however low the real estate market in a town this size, Lana Campbell had enough money for a prime spot, and the good taste to use it stylishly.

  It didn’t tell her Lana was a good lawyer.

  “Where’d you study?” Callie demanded.

  Lana took a seat, leaned back. “Undergraduate work at Michigan State. I transferred to University of Maryland after I met my husband. He was a Marylander. I got my law degree there, as he did.”

  “Why did you move here?”

  “Is this a personal or professional inquiry?”

  “It’s professional.”

  “All right. I worked for a firm in Baltimore. I had a child. I lost my husband. After I could think straight again, I decided to relocate in an area where I could practice with less pressure and raise my son in the way his father and I had planned. I wanted him to have a house and a yard, and a mother who wasn’t obliged to be at the office ten hours a day and work another two when she got home. All right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Callie walked to the window. “If I hire you, whatever we discuss is confidential.”

  “Of course.” Just standing there, Lana thought, the woman put off waves of energy. She wondered if it was exhausting to run on that vibrating loop.

  Lana opened a drawer, took out a fresh legal pad. “Whether or not you hire me, whatever you tell me here will be confidential. So why don’t you tell me so we can decide?”

  “I’m looking for a lawyer.”

  “Looks like you’ve found one.”

  “No, another lawyer. Marcus Carlyle. He practiced in Boston between 1968 and 1979.” That much she’d been able to find out by cell phone on the drive back down.

  “And after ’seventy-nine?”

  “He closed his practice. That’s all I know. I also know that at least part of his practice included arranging private adoptions.”

  She took a folder out of her bag, leafed through and set her adoption papers on Lana’s desk. “I want you to check on this, too.”

  Lana noted the names, looked up. “I see. Are you trying to find your birth parents?”

  “No.”

  “Callie, if you want me to help you, you have to trust me. I can initiate a search for Carlyle. I can, with your written permission, attempt to cut through some of the privacy blocks on adoptions in the seventies and get you some answers on your birth family. I can do both of those things without any more information than what you’ve given me. But I can do them quicker, and better, if you give me more.”

  “I’m not prepared to give you more. Yet. I’d like you to find out what you can about Carlyle. To locate him if possible. And to find out what you can about the process that led to this adoption. I’ve got some digging to do myself in a couple of other areas. When we have answers, we’ll see if I need to take this any further. Do you want a retainer?”

  “Yes, I do. We’ll start with five hundred.”

  With the idea of picking up a few supplies at the hardware store, Jake cruised into Woodsboro. He’d been tempted a number of times that day to try Callie on her cell phone.

  But since he knew any conversation would probably end in an argument, he saved himself the headache.

  If she wasn’t back in the field the next morning, they’d go a round. Getting her mad was a surefire way to unearth whatever was wrong with her.

  When he spotted her Rover parked in front of the local library, he swung to the curb himself. He parked on top of her bumper—just in case she decided to run out on him—then got out and sauntered across the sidewalk and up the concrete steps to the old stone building.

  There was an elderly woman at the check-in counter. He was very good with elderly women and, pouring on the charm, leaned on her counter.

  “Afternoon, ma’am. I don’t mean to bother you, but I saw my associate’s car out front. I’m Jacob Graystone, with the Antietam Creek Project.”

  “You’re one of the scientists. I promised my grandson I’d bring him out to see what y’all are doing soon as I can. We’re sure excited about it.”

  “So are we. How old’s your grandson?”

  “He’s ten.”

  “You make sure to come and see me when you visit the site. I’ll show you both around.”

  “That’s mighty nice of you.”

  “We want to educate as well as document. Can you tell me if Dr. Dunbrook came in? Callie Dunbrook. A very attractive blonde, about this high.”

  He held up a hand at his shoulder as the woman nodded. “We don’t get many faces in here I don’t know right off. Sure, she’s in the resource room, just in the back there.”

  “Thanks.” He gave her a wink and headed off.

  As far as he could see, the library was empty but for the old woman, himself and Callie, whom he saw running a microfiche at a table.

  She had her legs crossed on the chair, which told him she’d been at it at least twenty minutes. She always ended up sitting like that when she worked at a desk longer than twenty minutes.

  He walked up behind her, read over her shoulder.

  The fingers of her left hand were tapping lightly on the table, another sign she’d been at it awhile.

  “Why are you looking through thirty-year-old local papers?”

  She nearly jumped out of the chair and sprang up high and hard enough to rap her head against his chin.

  “Goddamnit,” they said in unison.

  “What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me that way?” she demanded.

  “What the hell are you doing not coming to the site?” Even as he countered, he grabbed her hand before she could switch off the machine.

  “What’s your interest in a kidnapping in 1974?”

  “Back off, Graystone.”

  “Cullen.” He simply kept her hand firm in his, continued to read. “Jay and Suzanne Cullen. Suzanne Cullen—something familiar about that name. ‘Three-month-old Jessica Lynn Cullen was taken from her stroller at the Hagerstown Mall yesterday,’ ” he read. “Christ, people suck, don’t they? They ever find her?”

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Too bad, because you know I’m not going to let up until you tell me why this business has you so upset. You’re on the verge of tears here, Callie, and you don’t cry easy.”

  “I’m just tired.” She rubbed at her eyes like a child. “I’m just so fucking tired.”

  “Okay.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, kneaded at the tension. He wouldn’t have to make her angry, he realized. Good thing, as he didn’t have the heart for it.

  If she was fighting tears, she was as open as she’d ever be. And still, he didn’t have the heart to exploit the weakness.

  “I’ll take you back to the motel. You can get some sack time.”

  “I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to go there yet. God. God. I need a drink.”

  “Fine. We’ll dump your car back at the motel, then we’ll go find a drink.”

  “Why do you want to be nice to me, Graystone? We don’t even like each other.”

  “One question at a time, babe. Come on. We’ll go find us a bar.”

  Six
>
  The Blue Mountain Hideaway was a spruced-up roadhouse tucked back from the road several miles outside of the town proper. It served what the laminated single-sheet menu called EATS along with DRINKS.

  There were three booths ranged down one wall like soldiers, and a half dozen tables with folding chairs were grouped in the center of the room as if someone had shoved them there, then forgotten about it.

  The bar was black with age, and the floor a beige linoleum speckled with gray. The lone waitress was young and bird-thin. Travis Tritt was singing on the juke.

  Some men Callie took to be locals sat at the bar having an after-work brew. From the work boots, gimme caps and sweaty T-shirts, she pegged them as laborers. Maybe part of Dolan’s construction crew.

  Their heads swiveled around when Callie and Jake walked in, and she noted they weren’t particularly subtle in sizing up the female.

  She slid into a booth and immediately wondered why she’d come. She’d be better off flat out on the motel room bed, shooting for oblivion.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here.” She looked at Jake, really looked. But she couldn’t read him. That had been one of the problems, she thought. She’d never been quite sure what he was thinking. “What the hell is this?”

  “Food and drink.” He pushed the menu across the table. “And right up your alley.”

  She glanced down. If it wasn’t fried, it wasn’t EATS, she decided. “Just a beer.”

  “Never known you to turn down food, especially when it’s covered with grease.” He laid a finger on the menu, inched it back as the waitress came over. “A couple of burgers, well, with fries, and two of whatever you’ve got on draft.”

  Callie started to protest, then just shrugged and went back to brooding.

  And that worried him. If she wasn’t up to flaying his ass for making a decision—any decision—for her, she was in bad shape.

  She didn’t just look tired, he’d seen her look tired before. She looked worn. He wanted to take her hand, close it in his and tell her that whatever was wrong, they’d find a way to fix it.

  And that was a surefire way to get his hand chopped off at the wrist.

  Instead he leaned toward her. “This place remind you of anything?”

  She stirred herself enough to glance around. Travis Tritt had moved on to Faith Hill. The guys at the bar were sucking down beers and shooting over belligerent stares. The air smelled like the bottom of a deep-fat fryer when the oil hadn’t been changed in recent memory.

  “No.”

  “Come on. That dive in Spain, when we were working the El Aculadero dig.”

  “What, are you stupid? This place is nothing like that. That had some weird-ass music going, and there were black flies all over the damn place. The waiter was a three-hundred-pound guy with hair down to his butt and no front teeth.”

  “Yeah, but we had a beer there. Just like this.”

  She shot him a dry look. “Where didn’t we have a beer?”

  “We had wine in Veneto, which is entirely different.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “What, do you remember all the alcoholic beverages we’ve managed to consume?”

  “You’d be surprised at what I remember.” The laugh had loosened the knot in his stomach. “I remember you toss off all the covers at night and insist on sleeping in the middle of the bed. And how a foot rub makes you purr like a kitten.”

  She said nothing as their beers were served. Nothing until she’d taken the first cold gulp. “And I remember you puking up your guts after some bad clams in Mozambique.”

  “You always were a romantic fool, Cal.”

  “Yeah.” She lifted her glass, drank again. “Ain’t it the truth.” He was trying to cheer her up. She couldn’t figure why he’d bother. “How come you’re not bitching at me for being away from the field today?”

  “I was going to get to it. I just wanted a beer first.” He grinned at her. “Want me to start bitching now, or wait until we eat?”

  “I had something I had to do. It couldn’t wait. And since you’re not my boss, you’ve got no authority to bitch and moan if I have to take a day off. I’m just as committed to this project as you. More, because I was here first.”

  He eased back as the waitress brought out their burgers. “Wow. I guess that told me.”

  “Oh, stuff it, Graystone. I don’t have to—” She broke off as the men who’d been at the bar swaggered up to the table.

  “You two with those assholes digging around by Simon’s Hole?”

  Jake squeezed bright yellow mustard on his burger. “That’s right. In fact, we’re the head assholes. What can we do for you?”

  “You can get the hell out, quit fucking around with a bunch of old bones and shit and keeping decent men from making a living.”

  Callie took the mustard from Jake, sizing up the men as she dumped it on her burger. The one doing the talking was fat, but it was hard fat. He’d be solid as a tank. The other had that alcohol-induced mean in his eyes.

  “Excuse me?” She set down the mustard, opened the ketchup. “I’m going to have to ask you to watch your language. My associate here is very sensitive.”

  “Well, fuck him.”

  “I have, actually, and it’s not bad. But regardless. So,” she continued in a conversational tone, “you guys work for Dolan?”

  “That’s right. And we don’t need a buncha flatlanders coming in and telling us what to do.”

  “There we disagree.” Jake dumped salt on his fries, passed the shaker to Callie.

  The pleasant tone, the casual moves gave the impression of a man not in the least interested in a fight, or prepared for one.

  Those who believed that impression, Callie knew, did so at their peril.

  Jake dashed some pepper on the burger, dropped the top of the bun in place. “Since it’s unlikely either of you know dick about archaeological investigation or anthropological study, or any of the associated fields such as dendrochronology or stratigraphy, we’re here to take care of that for you. And happy to do it. Want another beer?” he asked Callie.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “You think throwing around twenty-dollar words is gonna keep us from kicking you out of town, you better think again. Asshole.”

  Jake merely sighed, but Callie recognized the ice-cold gleam in his eye.

  The guys still had a chance, Callie calculated, as long as Jake wanted to eat in peace more than he wanted the entertainment of a bar fight.

  “I guess you figure since we’re academic assholes, twenty-dollar words is all we’ve got to throw around.” He shrugged, picked up a fry. “The fact is, my associate here has a black belt in karate and is mean as a snake. I should know. She’s my wife.”

  “Ex-wife,” Callie corrected. “But he’s right. I’m mean as a snake.”

  “Which one do you want?” Jake asked her.

  “I want the big one.” She looked up at the men with a cheerful, wide grin.

  “Okay, but I want you to hold back,” Jake warned her. “Last time—that big Mexican? He was in a coma for five days. We don’t