8. Chapter 8
Chapter 8
The blinking cursor in the search bar mocked him. It didn’t help that Ben sat in a library surrounded by teens and preteens typing away on the computers lined up along the wall.
He leaned forward and typed Tessa Stuart, Nashville into the search and clicked enter. He was expecting to have to dig through quite a bit to find something about her, but her picture popped up immediately.
Holy crap. She had a Wikipedia page. He blew out a breath and opened it and began reading. It was no surprise that she was a model. Or, from what he read, had been a model. He opened another search bar and searched on her name and model pictures and gaped. She was knock-you-on-your-ass gorgeous. There was a spark that jumped from the pictures that invited you in.
Those eyes. They were his kryptonite.
He went back to the Wikipedia page and kept reading. She had retired —seriously? —at twenty-five from modeling and went on to get her business degree. According to the article, she now worked in the fashion industry for Katrina somebody or other who was based in Nashville. Why did famous people only use first names? He already knew Tessa was smart, but this solidified it.
He wasn’t sure what he thought he would find, but this certainly wasn’t it. It wasn’t fair that she wouldn’t be able to find anything about him. But he did warn her. Hell, he would like to search on this damn computer and find something about himself as well. If it were only that easy for him. And then he could stop withholding the truth—ah, who was he kidding— lying to Tessa.
“How do you find out about someone if you don’t know their name?” he mumbled.
“Do you have a picture of them?” a voice asked.
He turned to the kid sitting next to him. Ben wasn’t too good at guessing ages, but the boy was maybe twelve if that. “Excuse me?”
The boy kept typing on the keyboard as he spoke to Ben. “Do you have a picture?” He stopped typing and turned, giving Ben a once-over. “Wait. You’re not creeping on someone, are you?”
“No! I’m not creeping on anyone. Are you telling me that I can search for someone using their picture?”
“Yeah.” He looked at Ben like he had two heads. “It’s called reverse imaging.”
Ben blinked at him. Had he fallen into another dimension? He had no idea what this kid was talking about. “How do I do it?”
“Instead of searching on a name or phrase, you search on a picture.”
Ben’s stomach churned. “So I can take a picture of myself, for example, and see if it matches any pictures on the Internet?”
The kid tilted his chair so that the front two legs were off the ground. “Yep. Take a picture with your phone and then load it into the search.” He dropped the chair down. “You have a smartphone with data, right? This won’t work on a flip phone.”
Ben narrowed his eyes at the brat. “Yes, I have a smartphone.”
The kid looked at Ben’s computer. Tessa’s pictures were still on the screen. “You better not be a creeper.”
“I’m not. She’s a friend of mine.” Kind of a friend, but he wasn’t going to get into specifics.
The kid chuckled before closing the site he’d been on and standing. “Sure you are.” He nodded to the screen. “You might want to clear your search history when you get done.”
And with that, the little smart-ass strolled off into the stacks. But Ben didn’t have time to think about the kid anymore because his stomach was doing somersaults. What if his picture was on the Internet and he could find out who he was? That was not something he wanted to do on the library computer. Hell, what if he came up online as some sort of criminal?
Even though Larry had said not to use too much data on the phone, it was worth using it in this situation.
He closed out the screen, but before he walked away, he thought he should follow the kid’s advice and then realized he didn’t know how to clear the search. The kid was nowhere to be seen. Not that Ben wanted to ask him anyway, so he searched on “how to clear your search history,” which seemed a bit ironic, but he had to learn somehow.
He followed the instructions—which were actually pretty easy—and then headed out of the library and got into Wanda. He took his picture with the phone and then blew out a shaky breath before pulling up the Internet and using it to search images.
He sat staring at the phone waiting for something, anything to show up. He had to relax his fingers since he was gripping the phone way too hard.
After a minute, the search came back with a blank screen and the words no image found. Well hell, he wasn’t sure if that meant he didn’t spend time on social media in his previous life or not? Probably not since he wasn’t computer savvy now. Disappointment weighed down his chest. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Finding Mia White seemed to be his best bet for now. Which meant spending time with Tessa. If she still wanted to spend time with him.
When she had asked him earlier that day about his social media, he hoped his explanation made sense. He’d almost blurted out his excuse for why he didn’t have a PI license, but he thought it would be fishy if he did that without her asking. Now it was a bit of a waiting game to see if she would broach the subject with him. And it was a waiting game to see if Alisha Brown or Tessa’s friend could remember more about Mia’s foster mother, Evelyn.
Fingers crossed something led them in the right direction.
He started the truck and drove out of the parking lot and down the street in the direction of his motel room. Not that he wanted to close himself up there already. He was surprised at how much he missed being outside and spending time in nature like he had at Walter’s cabin. Living off the land meant a lot of time working outside. Now that he was spending time in the city, he realized it wasn’t for him. Nature called to him.
Had he been like that in his past life? Or had his time with Walter changed him? Hopefully he would find out soon. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to continue the charade with Tessa. The more time he spent with her, the more he realized how much he liked her. And it wasn’t just the fact that she was gorgeous. It was her intelligence and humor that made her interesting. Okay, and those eyes. They damn well called to him.
A siren’s song.
But he’d lost his past. He couldn’t afford to be swept under until he found himself again.