THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.” RED HAD RISEN AND begun pacing the small area between my office and Erik’s desk while I related the conversation to him. “Why would she leave like that, without telling her husband?”
“I don’t know.” It seemed to be my stock answer for every one of the questions Red had been firing at me. “And neither does he.”
“Maybe they had some kind of row, and he doesn’t want to admit it.”
“Then why call me at all?”
“Good point. If he thought she’d just come back after she cooled off, he wouldn’t want the embarrassment of involving a virtual stranger.”
“Especially me. I don’t think I’m exactly at the top of the good doctor’s hit parade. And you had to hear his voice. He’s seriously worried.”
Somehow Tracy Dumars’s face had planted itself in my mind and refused to be dislodged. She, too, had left home without her husband’s knowledge, and Billy had been frantic to get her back. That ended in the worst possible outcome. I shook my head. This wasn’t the same, I told myself. Not even close.
“What does he want you to do?” Red’s question banished my useless memories.
“I have no idea. He said he’ll call me tonight. Until then, I guess we just wait. Maybe Joline will have come back by then, and the whole thing will be moot.”
I finished straightening up my desk, my eyes straying to the telephone as I returned all Joline Eastman’s family letters to the big envelope in which I kept them.
Red watched for a few moments before he spoke. “So what do you want me to do? I’m feeling kind of useless just sitting here watching you work.”
I pulled a scratch pad toward me, wrote, then tore off the top sheet. “This is Erik’s cell number. Call him and see what he’s up to. Tell him about Joline’s disappearance and that I said to get back here as soon as he can.”
I thought he might balk at playing secretary, but he turned immediately for the phone on the reception desk. I re-filed the Mitchell papers and leaned back in my chair. I tuned out Red’s voice and juggled scenarios in which it made sense for Joline to abandon her dying daughter. It would have to be something so overwhelmingly important that she’d willingly leave Kimmie’s bedside, yet something so personal—and awful—she didn’t feel she could share it with her husband.
A lover? A threat? Blackmail? Money? Nothing I could envision would explain her actions, and yet Joline Eastman, as her husband had pointed out, wasn’t a flighty woman. She loved her daughter more than her own life. I would have bet everything I had on that. Nonetheless, she was gone.
I sat up straighter. At least according to her husband. We had nothing but his word for any of it. What if Red was right? What if they’d had some sort of confrontation after he’d left my house? What if it had turned violent? Was Jerrold Eastman devious enough to embroil me in some phantom search for a wife he already knew was dead?
“Erik wants to talk to you.”
Red’s words from the doorway of my office made me jump a couple of inches out of the chair. I reached for the phone. “What’s up? Where are you?”
“I’m almost to Savannah. Just heading across the bridge.”
“Well, it’s kind of complicated, and maybe you’d be better off—”
I sighed and looked at Red. “Is it illegal?”
“Well, technically, maybe. But it’s not going to come back on us, at least not if I can work a couple of angles.”
“Does this involve hacking into some database?”
Red’s chin snapped up, and I was surprised to see him grinning.
“Yes, but like I said, it won’t come back to bite us. I’m heading for a cyber café in Savannah.”
It took me just a moment to figure it out. I had obviously been hanging out with my partner way too long.
“So whatever site it is you’re hacking into can’t trace the intrusion back to you or your computer.”
“Dead on.”
“Just a sec. Red’s here, and I’m going to put you on speaker.”
“You think that’s a good idea? I mean—”
“He’s retired. Hold on.”
I fiddled with the buttons. “Sit down,” I said, and Red slid into the client chair. “Go ahead, Erik.”
His voice with its soft North Carolina accent filled the office. “Okay, I got to thinking about Kimmie Eastman’s birth certificate. It was easy enough to access, but there’s no father listed. Just Joline Mitchell as the mother.”
“I know. We checked that right up front.”
“But she goes by Eastman, and I was wondering if the doc had formally adopted her. If so—”
“There’d be a record,” I interrupted. “But we’re pretty sure we already know who the natural father was. And he’s dead.”
He held his silence for a moment. “We’re assuming that. It makes sense, given the information we have, but we don’t know it for a fact.”
“True. But adoption records are usually sealed tight, aren’t they?”
“Right. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be accessed. Assuming they’ve been digitized. I did some checking, and the child’s father has to sign off on the adoption if he can be located, just to make sure he can’t come back later on and claim his parental rights.”
I thought about it for a moment. “But this isn’t like Joline was giving her up to some other couple. Are you sure it would be the same if she’s just changing her last name? And besides, if Kimmie is the result of a rape, the father would be admitting to a major felony.”
“You’re right, but it won’t hurt to get into the records and find out. Maybe we’re way off base with this Deshawn Mitchell thing. The trouble is, like you said, the files are supposed to be sealed, so I thought it would be better to keep our name out of it. Just in case.”
I glanced at Red, whose smile had disappeared during the twoway conversation. “Something you want to say?” I asked him.
“No. Just that it makes me uncomfortable to be party to something illegal. Takes a little getting used to.”
I grinned at him. “If you intend to hang out with Erik for any length of time, you’d better be prepared to skate really close to the line once in a while. Erik,” I said, directing my voice toward the phone, “how long do you think this will take?”
“Not long once I get to the café. I’ll pay cash for the computer time.”
“Okay, fine, but we’ve got another issue to deal with here.” I gave him the sketchy details of Joline Eastman’s disappearance and about her husband’s insistence that we find her.
“She left Kimmie in the hospital?” Again, Erik had zeroed in on the crux of the whole matter.
“I know it’s strange. That’s what has the doctor so concerned. So get back here as quickly as you can, okay?”
“Sure. I’m pulling into the parking lot now. I should be back on the road in half an hour.”
“That’s all?”
“Hey, what can I say? I’m good.”
“We may be out on the trail by the time you get back. I’ll let you know where to find us.”
“I’ll keep in touch,” he said and hung up.
Red was shaking his head when I looked up. “Does he do that on any regular basis?”
“Yeah, actually, he does. Sometimes there are more important things at stake than privacy and cyber laws.”
I could tell he wasn’t convinced, but he let it go. “Where are we off to?”
I reached behind me and lifted my jacket from the back of the chair. “The hospital. I think it’s time we met Kimmie Eastman.”
The room seemed to be filled with balloons and flowers, and brightly colored cards were scattered everywhere. A huge poster with GET WELL, KIMMIE! in bright red letters had been taped to the wall across from the single bed. It looked as if every kid at Hilton Head High School had signed it.
The girl was asleep, although the TV blared with some of the god-awful screeching that passed for music these days. I smiled, remembering that the Judge had expressed just such opinions about Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin back in the day. I located the remote on the bedside table and hit the Mute button. Behind me, Red hovered in the doorway.
A padded straight chair sat to one side, and I pulled it around to face the once pretty teenager surrounded by a frightening array of machinery. Her hair had just begun to grow back in, probably after extensive chemo, and lay in short black curls against her head. In repose, she seemed much younger, that vitality and purpose in the picture missing from her sunken face. She looked sick and vulnerable, and I had to choke back the tears that sprang immediately to my eyes.
I glanced back at Red as I took the chair, and he motioned toward the elevator. “I’ll wait downstairs,” he whispered, and I nodded.
I settled in to wait, not willing to wake the child who no doubt needed to conserve her energy for her battle with the hideous disease that had invaded her young body. I checked my watch. I’d give it half an hour. I let my eyes roam over the stuffed animals that sat perched on the windowsill along with the flowers and cards. This was obviously a well-liked girl. Sometimes life was so damned unfair, I thought. It must seem to Joline as if her daughter had been cursed. After all she’d been through, holding on to her child in spite of everything, how could Joline just take off and abandon her? What terrible thing could have—?
“Who are you?”
The voice was surprisingly strong, and the deep brown eyes with a hint of green at their edges fixed me with a challenging look.
I smiled. “My name is Bay Tanner. I’m a friend of your mother’s.”
Her gaze slipped past and around me, toward the door. “Is Mom here?”
“No, I’m sorry, she’s not. I just dropped in to say hello and see how you were doing.”
The girl hitched herself up a little higher in the bed. “I don’t think I know you, do I?”
“No. Your mother and I just met a few days ago. I’m helping her with a . . . a problem.”
“Are you the private detective she hired?”
The question shocked me. I’d been prepared to spin the girl a story, certain her mother wouldn’t have burdened her with the search for a bone marrow donor. Apparently I had underestimated both of these women.
“Yes, I am. She’s talked to you about it?”
It wasn’t quite defiance, that look she fixed on me, but it was close. “Why wouldn’t she? It’s my life we’re talking about here.”
It took me only a moment to rethink my strategy. “Of course it is. Your mother hired my firm to locate her sisters. Your aunts, Contessa and Maeline.”
“To see if they’d be compatible donors.”
“Right.”
“Did you find them?” Kimmie spoke matter-of-factly, as if we weren’t discussing her possibly imminent death.
“Not yet, but we have some leads. Good ones,” I added, feeling as if I should reassure this poised young woman even if she didn’t appear to need it.
“Good. It’s kind of creepy thinking that you’ve got relatives you’ve never met.” Her voice faltered for the first time. “I mean, even if they’re not going to work as donors, I’d like to know them anyway.”
Truthfully, I said, “I know exactly what you mean.” I paused, wondering if she knew the real story of her conception or if she thought Jerrold Eastman was her biological father. How far had Joline been prepared to go with her policy of leveling with her sick child? As I watched, a spasm shook the girl. “Are you okay? Shall I call someone?”
Kimmie shook her head. “No. It comes and goes. I’m just like tired all the time now. All I do is sleep. And watch TV.” She glanced at the muted screen across from the bed, and her full smile lit the room. “You don’t like MTV?”
I couldn’t help but grin back. “I don’t suppose they ever play the Rolling Stones?”
“Gross!” she answered. “They’re like a hundred years old.” Then she seemed to realize that might have sounded disrespectful and added, “My dad likes them.”
“We old fogeys stick together,” I said, and she laughed, a delightful ripple that lit her eyes.
A moment later, she sobered. “Is my mom coming soon? I have to go down for some more tests, and she always . . . she comes with me.” The sigh held way too much pain for someone so young. “It’s easier if I have someone to talk to.”
Where the hell was she? How could she desert this poor little girl?
“I don’t know,” I said, and the truth of it stabbed at my heart. “I haven’t talked to her today. But I’ll come with you, if you like. I know it’s not the same as having your mom, but . . .” I clamped my teeth down on my lower lip and ordered myself to keep it together.
“That’s nice of you,” Kimmie said. “But maybe she’ll be here. It’s not for another couple of hours.”
I stood. “Do you have a phone you’re allowed to use?”
“Sure. I’ve got my cell. Mom lets my friends call after school, but I’m not supposed to talk too long.”
I pulled a business card from my bag. “Here’s all my numbers. If your mom gets held up or something, give me a call. I’d be glad to keep you company.”
Her smile nearly broke my heart. “Cool! Maybe you can tell me about why you like that old dude, you know, with the Rolling Stones?”
“I’m sure Mick Jagger would love to know someone your age thinks of him as ‘that old dude.’ ”
She giggled. “Sorry.”
“You’ll call me then, if your mom gets held up?”
“Sure,” she mumbled, “thanks.”
Her eyes fluttered closed. I turned and tiptoed from the room, glancing back once before I stepped into the empty corridor. The girl’s thin chest rose and fell evenly.
“Damn you, Joline,” I whispered to myself.