Childfinders, Inc.: An Uncommon Hero

“Gina’s my sister. Was my sister,” she corrected herself. The pain was obvious. “She’s been gone for ten months. Wait.” Agitated, blinking back tears that were threatening to overwhelm her, Carla dug into the purse she kept under her desk. “Here, here’s her picture.” She shoved her wallet at him and showed him a photograph of herself and her sister standing in front of an old house. A beat later he realized that it was the Victorian-looking house he’d gone to yesterday. “That’s Gina.” She indicated the slender young woman on the right.

“Who took this picture?”

“Gloria. We went to visit her aunt on her seventieth birthday.”

The resemblance between the woman in the photograph and the one he’d met yesterday was unmistakable. They could have been the same person. Folding the wallet closed, he handed it back to Carla.

“Ms. Wassel,” he began as gently as he could, “I have to ask—”

Carla cut him off. She couldn’t bear to hear the words. “I was driving the car when the camper side-swiped us. Gina was killed instantly.” Her breathing was ragged as she spoke. “It was Gloria who helped me through that, who let me sleep on her sofa and kept me sane.” Without looking, she dropped the wallet back into her purse. “If she hadn’t been around, I probably would have killed myself.” Her eyes held his for a moment. “If Gloria’s in some sort of danger, you’ve got to find her.”

Ben had a feeling he already had.

There were huge, gaping holes in the puzzle he found himself working. “You have access to all sorts of information here, don’t you?”

Carla’s expression told him she wasn’t sure where he was going with this, or what she should answer. “Depending on your level of clearance, yes.”

“Such as social security numbers.”

She laughed nervously, still uncertain. “Well, of course. We’re a social security office.”

“Does that mean social security numbers that are no longer in use?” This would have been the perfect place for Gloria to forge a new identity.

“Yes.” The single word emerged slowly.

He had a feeling he was on the right track. “Ms. Wassel, I know this might sound rather strange to you, but would you be able to give me your sister’s social security number?”

“Yes, but I already told you, Gina’s dead.” Carla began to access a program for him, then stopped and looked at him. “You think Gloria’s using Gina’s social security number.”

“Yes.”

It didn’t make any sense. “But why?”

To hide from Stephen McNair until he agreed to her terms. But he couldn’t tell the woman that. She wouldn’t give him the social security number he needed, and right now, he didn’t know if Savannah had access to inactive files.

“I won’t be able to answer any questions until I have all the facts,” he told her.

Confusion furrowed her brow as she looked at the keys, undecided. “If Gloria’s in some sort of trouble, maybe I shouldn’t be helping you.”

His voice was quiet and authoritative. “If Gloria’s in some sort of trouble, I might be the only one who can help her.”

Carla sat looking at him for a long moment, then began typing.

The electronic doors opened and closed.

The chill that ran up her back was immediate, drenching her with an icy wave. Though she was in one of the aisles, her eyes darted toward the front.

How long before that reaction would leave her? Before she could hear the doors opening and not be compelled to look, holding her breath and praying. It wasn’t natural to feel this way, as if she were doomed to cross and recross a tightrope stretched over a bottomless pit with slippery shoes.

He wouldn’t track her here, she insisted silently. He didn’t know enough about her to know about this place. And even if he did and was still looking for her, she wasn’t really here. Not the way he knew her.

She was safe.

The breath she’d been holding escaped as recognition came. Gina’s mouth curved. The man who had gotten between her and that pushy jerk the day before yesterday had returned.

What was he was doing back? When she’d left, he’d asked her to point Jon out, or rather, the store manager. That meant Jon and the stranger didn’t know each other, so it wasn’t personal. Jon hadn’t mentioned anything to her, but then, he’d been in a real rush to leave after taking that call from his brother.

He told her he had to take some time off and left her in charge, just like that.

Funny how you could work with someone for so long and not know anything about him. She’d spent all four college years working in the store, and in all that time, Jon had never mentioned even having a family. He’d been closemouthed as far as things like that went.

Pot calling the kettle black. She certainly wasn’t in a position to throw rocks right now, she mused. Jon didn’t know all that much about her, either. Nor had he asked anything, not even when she’d suddenly appeared out of the blue three weeks ago, asking for her old job back. All he’d said was sure, then added an addendum: If she needed him, he was around. To prove it, he’d gotten her in contact with a friend of his who was trying to sublet his condo. She had a job and a home within one day, thanks to Jon. He was one in a million.

He hadn’t even made any comment about her changed appearance when she came in the first day. Just asked her what name she wanted to go under. Nothing more.

Gina suspected that World War Three could probably break out right in front of the bookstore and as long as it didn’t intrude within the doors, Jon would remain oblivious to it.

Lucky for her.

Pushing the book she was holding back into its space, she walked up to the man who had just entered and smiled at him. “I see you’re back. Come to see if I needed rescuing again?”

He’d taken measure of her as he’d walked in and still wondered if there was some sort of mistake. But it was too much of a coincidence for him to shrug off. What he needed was to find a way to find out her social security number. That might be more difficult than he’d anticipated if the store manager had agreed to pay her off the books.

“Oh, you strike me as someone who can take care of herself. If I hadn’t intervened yesterday, you probably would have decked him.”

He had a dimple, she realized. And a sense of humor. She found that an extremely sexy trait. “My boxing gloves are in the shop,” she said wryly. “Jon’s not here if you came to see him.”

“Jon?”

“The store manager.” Obviously the name meant nothing to him. “I’m sorry, I’m just taking a stab at why you’re here.”

He wondered what she would say if he answered her truthfully. If he told her that he was looking for Gloria Prescott and the little boy she’d abducted. Probably nothing. At close quarters, the woman looked cool enough to be able to pull it off. If she was Gloria.

“To do some research, actually.”

Savannah had managed to access Gloria Prescott’s transcript at the University of San Francisco for him. He’d discovered that while her degree was in the field of studio arts, specifically sculpting, she’d minored in American history. He’d guessed that the preponderance of courses on Native Americans meant her interest lay there. The drive up from Bedford had given him ample time to come up with a scenario.

He looked around. “Do you have a Native American section? I’m working on a project and I’m kind of stuck. I need all the input I can get.”

Ben saw interest enter her eyes. “Native American? What kind of a project is it?”

He pretended to hesitate. “You’d probably laugh.”

That made her smile. “No, I wouldn’t, try me.”

He’d chosen his story carefully. “It’s a screenplay—you probably hear that all the time. Everybody and his brother is writing one, or knows someone who’s writing one.”

Her smile was nothing short of encouraging. If this was Gloria, he could easily see why McNair had lost his head. Whether she was blonde or brunette, there was something about the woman’s smile that got to a man, made him want to puff up his chest and do something extraordinary to make her take notice.