Chapter 25 #17
“Look. It’s not like she’ll cost us anything. Maxie’s family will provide for the kid as long as we take care of her and as long as the book and ring stay with her.”
“I don’t know. We’re just scraping by with what I earn, and you…”
“I’m looking for work, babe. You know I am. But this money? It’s more than enough to take care of a baby. More than enough for us to take some of those trips we’d talked about.”
“Lugging a baby with us to the romantic hot spots in Europe?”
“We can leave the kid with Bonnie.”
“The religious nut next door?”
“If she thinks we’re fostering a kid out of the goodness of our hearts, she’ll help.”
A long pause. “How much money?”
Beth Fahey fought her way out of the dream, freed herself from the tangled sheets, and stumbled to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face.
What the hell? This wasn’t like the first two dreams she’d experienced after drinking the special tea.
This dream of accessed family memories was a series of scenes where she couldn’t see the faces of the people involved; could just hear the voices, like she was listening from the other side of a partially open door.
Unless her subconscious was just shaping a story to explain parents who were more absent than present, always going on trips and leaving the child with the next-door neighbor.
How often had she considered purchasing one of those home DNA kits to see if she could find out anything about the people she had believed to be her parents? How often, after she became a cop, had she chickened out of doing the test? How many times had she told herself that it didn’t matter?
And it didn’t matter. Not anymore. Not in that way. But there might be another reason for the fixation she’d had for the dark-eyed, black-haired boy who’d gone missing almost a year ago.
Had her own photo ever appeared on a missing person flyer?
Charles Forrester walked into the special team’s area of the precinct and headed for his office.
He came in early most days since Colin’s disappearance, wanting—needing—to check his e-mail and any physical post that had been brought up from the mailroom overnight.
Foolish to expect another letter so soon.
Even more foolish to think the timing of the suitcase sent and the package received in return was a consistent measure of delivery.
Outside Destiny Park, he wasn’t sure Wyrd had a consistent measure for anything.
He’d be glad when this school year was done.
He had vacation time coming, and he’d already talked to Aisha about getting away from Penwych and the river, going to some vacation spot where they would be unknown and could simply be again.
Catch their breath and their balance. Maybe they could invite Davie to go with them.
The…boy…also might benefit from being away from expectations.
Spotting Beth Fahey at her desk, Charles stopped to see what she was working on.
Missing persons?
“Detective?”
She almost jumped out of her chair, so focused on whatever was on her screen that she didn’t notice him. “Captain.”
“Did something come in last night?”
“No, sir. I’m just…” She trailed off, clearly reluctant to explain.
“A nationwide search from”—he leaned over her shoulder to read the dates—“almost twenty-five years ago? Who are you looking for?”
She turned her head and looked at him. “Me.”
Easing back, he sat on the edge of her desk. “You?”
“I had a strange dream last night. It was like listening to a drama on TV, with a mother dying soon after childbirth and the father and his wife taking the child but not really wanting the child. So they frequently leave her with a neighbor while they go on trips. Then one day they don’t come back, and the child ends up living with the neighbor, who everyone assumes is the child’s aunt. ”
“It sounds a lot like what you told me about your life. At least the part about being taken in by a neighbor. Are you still getting phone calls from that woman, asking for money?”
“Sometimes, but I don’t answer the phone when I see her number.”
“So you had a dream that provided a narrative for your earliest memories.”
Beth hesitated, then nodded. “There is no way I could know what was said or what happened before I was born, but when she was angry, Bonnie would say my foster parents abandoned me because they’d discovered I was ‘unnatural.’ It sounded like she believed the people I thought were my parents weren’t actually my biological parents. ”
“Any evidence to substantiate that possibility?”
“The name on my birth certificate matched the name of the man I believed was my father, but the mother’s name was listed as Maxine Greenwood. She must have been my biological mother but not my father’s wife. It’s just…Lately I’ve been feeling like I might be on the wrong side of the river.”
Charles sighed. “You’re a valuable—and valued—member of this team, Beth.
Your affinity with the Arcana has closed some of the distance between us.
Personally, I don’t think I would have found out as much about Colin’s situation if you weren’t here, despite my having what I like to think is a cordial relationship with Lucas Frost. Make no mistake: the Arcana can be as brutal as they can be kind, but either way, they usually don’t care what happens to us.
They may facilitate our choosing a particular path to our fate, but they aren’t concerned with the outcome. ”
“Our choice, our responsibility,” she said.
“Yes.” He hesitated. “I’ll talk to the men. I’m sure they don’t realize that their comments can be hurtful.”
“Maybe it’s hurtful because I think they might be right.”
He touched her shoulder. A light touch. A moment’s contact. “If you feel you can’t stay at the thirteenth, talk to me before you decide. Please?”
She nodded.
Hearing voices, Charles stepped away from Fahey’s desk. “Close those files now and focus on what we have to investigate today.”
Her computer screen was clear when Castelletti, Kuhn, Reynolds, and Monkton walked into the room.
Nodding to his men, Charles went into his office to check his e-mail. Nothing from Lucas Frost, which meant no news about Colin. He’d take that as a good sign.