Chapter Eight #2
Stretching out, he planted his feet on the coffee table. The red sofa looked trendy, but it wasn’t all that comfortable.
“What is it you’re hoping to find?” he asked.
“I told you,” she muttered, her head bent. “Answers.”
“What would be the best-case scenario?”
Her head came up at that. “I don’t think there is one,” she admitted. “Either they’re bad people or they gave up their kids.”
“There are always extenuating circumstances,” he said softly. “Maybe they thought they were giving you a chance at a better life.”
Her teeth caught at her lower lip. “Or maybe they’re dead. Maxie’s adoptive parents died in a car accident when she was seven.”
Aw, hell. Draping his arm along the back of the couch, Billy massaged the tight muscles in Roxie’s neck. She didn’t like that idea at all, he could tell. She might say all she wanted was answers, but he knew better. She wanted to look her parents in the eye.
He had.
She toyed with the wireless mouse. “Maxie has a drawing our mother did. I don’t have anything like that.”
His heart squeezed just a little. “You have a memory of your mother. You told me about it.”
“But it’s vague and fuzzy. Impressions more than anything.”
“Maxie and Lexie must have forgotten her, though.”
She went still. “How do you know that?”
It was an obvious deduction. They’d both moved on to new lives with new families. At that young of an age, how could they have remembered where they’d started?
“That’s what you have,” he whispered. She’d had two years with her mother, and nobody had really stepped in to replace her. The memory had taken. He knew how that worked. He’d been separated from his mom when he’d been nine. He had more memories than Roxie did.
He frowned. Not all of them were bad.
“What are you going to do if you get your answers?” he asked. Knowing her, she hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she needed to. He didn’t want her to go into this unprepared. Unarmed. They weren’t just pecking around on websites. There was a goal here. “What if your parents are alive?”
Her eyes turned stormy. “Do you keep in touch with your mom? Are you all buddy-buddy?”
“No,” he confessed. He shifted on the cushions, feeling unfamiliar guilt. He’d gotten his mother into a facility, but then he’d pretty much walked away.
Like she had when he was a kid.
A muscle in his jaw worked. Roxie was the only person who’d asked him how things had gone with his mother. Everyone at the shop had automatically assumed the reunion had gone down like a fairy tale. It hadn’t.
But thinking back, he remembered the joy in his mom’s eyes when he’d told her his name. It had gotten through the haze of drugs that had clouded her mind.
He cleared his throat. “Are you going to rip into them? Is that what you need? To vent your anger?”
“It’s not anger,” she said under her breath.
Not all of it, anyway.
She hooked her hair behind her ear, her hand shaking almost imperceptibly.
Whatever the results, she didn’t want to let them close. That much Billy knew. If she showed her anger, they’d know how much they’d hurt her.
That had been his crucial error.
Once Roxie was hurt, she barricaded herself against the person who’d caused the pain.
He’d seen her do it time and again. There was the foster mother who’d told her to stop whining because she’d had a nightmare.
A clergyman who’d visited the group home had told her she needed to pray for forgiveness.
Then there was the teacher who’d done nothing to stop the bullying when other kids had found out that Roxie didn’t have parents—and then had sent her to the principal for fighting when she’d kicked their butts.
Life had been tough on her. She never forgot, and she never forgave. Her parents, the system… him.
“Lexie and Maxie want to meet them, if they can,” she said. “I just want to know why.”
She wanted a hell of a lot more than that.
He just didn’t think she knew it yet.
“Okay,” he said, putting his coffee cup on a coaster. “Let’s see what we can do.”
They worked for over an hour, testing Roxie’s ability to focus.
The deeper they dug; the more confused Billy got.
They didn’t have much to go on. She had the records she’d been given when she left the foster care system.
They contained school and medical reports, but not much from her youngest years.
More helpful were Maxie’s adoption papers and the letter she’d found from her grandmother, but they didn’t give away any information on birth parents.
Even the info they had was questionable. Roxie’s surname had been Jones before they’d gotten married, but they had no way of knowing if that had been her true last name or something somebody had slapped on some paperwork. With as common a name as it was, it wasn’t all that helpful.
Billy even took over the keyboard for a while. The search he’d conducted had been difficult, but nothing like this. They were coming up with jack squat.
There were no birth announcements or news articles that they could find. Identical triplets were rare. There should have been something. Businesses generally like to donate products to generate good will. Charities like to help out. Volunteers want to babysit.
But there was no mention of people flocking to help a family of three identical little girls.
They widened their search outside of Cobalt City, even though Lexie and Maxie had both been adopted there. Every time Billy thought about that story, his teeth gritted a little tighter.
“Okay, let’s call it a day,” he finally declared. “We’ve redone your profile and put out some more generic feelers. The best thing to do now is to wait to see who responds.”
Roxie couldn’t sit still any longer. It wasn’t just the computer work that was bothering her. This search was more important to her than she wanted to admit and getting nowhere was frustrating her.
He stood up and felt his back pop. He squeezed his bare toes into the carpet and finally felt the need to put on some socks. Clouds had moved in, covering the sun outside. While cozy, the living room wasn’t as warm as her bed. He glanced at the clock.
“I need to get going. Charlie and I are going fishing.”
A pout crossed Roxie’s face before she could hide it, and Billy bit the side of his cheek. They hadn’t meant to leave her out. “Did you want to come?”
“Fishing? Really?” She pushed her hair over her shoulder. “I have some things I need to get done.”
Billy’s brow furrowed. He didn’t like that tone—flat and distant. They’d been working together well, but he was suddenly at arm’s length again?
To hell with that. Now that he’d made up his mind that this would be their last hurrah, he didn’t want to sleep in the abandoned apartment downstairs.
He’d been alone too much of his life.
“See you tonight?” he pressed.
“Okay.”
Her attention was on the computer when he caught her by the back of the neck. He gave her a hot, solid kiss and kept at it until she relaxed back against the sofa cushions. “Bye.”
“Bye,” she whispered, her voice husky.
That was more like it. Gathering up his things, he headed for the door.
He meant to head out straight to his truck. He really did.
When he made it down one flight of stairs, though, he found himself turning towards that abandoned second floor apartment. He stared at the door for a long moment, lost in thought. Finally, he let himself in.
He took his cell phone out of his back pocket and opened the address book. It wasn’t a number he knew by heart. Every other time he’d called, it had been for updates or billing questions. This time when a pleasant voice came on the line, he sat down on a chair.
“Can I talk with Marley Cannon, please?” He fiddled with the zipper on the duffel bag on the table in front of him. “This is her son, Billy.”
* * * * *
The digital age was for the birds. Roxie tucked the laptop into its place on a shelf and walked away.
She’d been too angry and stubborn to try to find answers about her childhood before.
Now that she and her sisters had joined forces, though, she wanted details ASAP. So far, the Internet had been a bust.
And boring.
She’d rather be flipping through microfiche or combing through documents down at the city courthouse like they did in the old movies. At least then she’d feel like she was making progress. All this pointing and clicking was giving her a headache.
The Internet provided too much anonymity, anyway. She wanted to look into people’s eyes as she asked them questions. She wanted to read their twitches and tells. That’s how Billy had eventually tracked down his mother.
Look how well that had turned out.
She let out a huff and combed her fingers through her hair. He’d left and the bar didn’t open for hours and hours. What was she supposed to do until then?
She let out a groan. Um, probably clean up the mess from yesterday?
Slipping her phone out of her pocket, she hit speed dial for the number that had become her most dialed in recent months.
“Replay,” came a pleasant, professional voice.
Roxie smiled. That voice had sounded different yesterday when it had been screaming “Run!” at her. “Have you had lunch?” she asked.
It was late notice, but she thought she’d give it a shot.
“I could eat,” Lexie said, her smile showing through her voice.
The knot in Roxie’s stomach eased a bit. Lexie didn’t sound upset with her.
“Want to come over here?” her sister asked. “There’s a new place in the Boutique Village I’ve been wanting to try.”
“Sounds good.” The Boutique Village was in East Cobalt. It was a little coven of artists and tradesmen trying to make their way. It wasn’t as snobby as some of the higher end places on that side of the river, and Roxie felt comfortable there. “I’ll meet you.”
The coffee shop was comfortable and quaint. It was busy, but not so much that they felt rushed. Best of all, the food was to die for.
“So, have you talked with Landers yet?” Roxie broached.
Lexie frowned. “Landers?”