“Because of me.”
“Because it is you and you’re important to me.”
Ric could envision Theo blushing as he replied, “I like that. Do you want to go for dinner when you’ve had enough of staring at the computer?”
“You bet, and this time I’m buying. Where do you want to go?”
“Do you like Italian, because there’s a place not too far from me that’s pretty good,” Theo replied.
“I sure do. Tell me where and when and I’ll be there.”
Theo did, they decided to meet as six, and then they hung up. Ric got dressed, threw together a fast breakfast, and headed to the agency.
* * * *
Lilliana’s brother smiled maliciously when he finally found out who was searching for his sister—or rather, the location of the person doing the searching. It had taken all his computer skills but in the end he’d been successful. At least he had to presume the ‘Lilliana’ the person was looking for was his sister from the fact they used her first and middle name as parameters.
He brought up the address, not in the least surprised to find out it belonged to a private investigation agency. Moore Investigations to be exact. An online, street view map showed him that they were located in an older house in the Capitol Hill area of Denver, Colorado. He would have liked it better if they were closer to him, so that he didn’t have to travel halfway across the country, but it was what it was and he’d deal.
Figuring out who their client is could be iffy, but worth a try. He was doomed to frustration. Tracking the search back to the agency had worked. Breaking into their computer to learn anything more, hadn’t. Talk about security on top of security. He supposed he could use one of his father’s experts to try, but this was personal, not business. The fewer people who knew that Lilliana’s son existed, the better.
He raked his fingers through his blond hair, brushing it to the side before linking his hands behind his neck, a gesture which indicated he was deep in thought. Do I sit back and see if the guy, or woman, does find her? That might be an exercise in futility if they realize I’m tracking what they’re doing—and they might. It was as much luck as skill that I was able to get a hit on one of their searches for her. They’d slam the virtual door so fast my head would spin, or set a trap to find me. Warn them off? Maybe. Go to Denver, stake out the agency, and hope her brat has enough of a family resemblance that I’d recognize him when he visited? That’s iffy and time consuming since he might not show again until they do locate her.
“Yeah, warning them off is the best bet,” he said as he wrote down the information he needed. “Going out there after I do? I suppose I should, my previous thoughts to the contrary. It might draw her bastard out if they let him know what’s going on. Then, I can deal with him and I’m home free.”
With that, he composed the message he’d send, and then made reservations for his flight, and a hotel room when he got there. Before he left, he had one more thing he needed to do. Something that would make all his planning extremely profitable, once he found Lily’s kid. “One way or another I will find you,” he said under his breath. “Then, I’ll be rich beyond my wildest dreams.”
* * * *
Ric began his search for Lilliana by creating a file that would list every woman he found with that name. He didn’t anticipate there would be many, as Lilliana was hardly a popular first name. He was surprised to discover it was also a surname, although a rare one.
He’d count himself very lucky if one or two Lillianas had the middle name of Nichole. For damned sure it would make my job easier. He did expect there would be some with ‘N’ as the middle initial. For the time being, he’d use a program that would automatically add every Lilliana it found, with their date of birth and most recent address, to the file.
From there, he would delete any of them who were too old, too young, or deceased. Then he’d go back and add all the pertinent information on the remaining ones—especially their addresses, if they were listed, for the time of Theo’s adoption and for the previous year if it was different.
“All this is presuming she didn’t change her name once the adoption was finalized,” he grumbled as he set to work. “If she did, finding her now could be virtually impossible.”
By mid-afternoon he had his list, and it was longer than he’d expected. There were no Lilliana Nicholes on it, but there were over fifteen Lillianas with N as a middle initial, and dozens more with no middle initial.
Copying the list to another file, he began correlating it in terms of addresses at the time of Theo’s birth—when he had that information, which he did for a little over half of them.
He was almost finished when his server let him know he, or rather the agency, had a new email. At first glance, he thought it was probably another spam as the subject line said ‘To whom it may concern’. He decided to open it anyway. If nothing else, I might get a laugh at what they’re trying to con me into.
He wasn’t laughing when he read the message. Instead, he was on the phone to Ethan seconds later. When his boss answered, Ric said, “I need you to see something.”
“I’ll be right down,” Ethan replied. He was, arriving in Ric’s office in less than two minutes. “Interesting, in a not so good way,” he said after reading the email.
It said, This is your first and last warning. Stop looking for Lilliana. If you don’t…Below it there was a gif of a cartoon bomb exploding, followed by one of a gun being fired.
“Making sure we get the message that whoever sent it is not a happy camper,” Ethan said dryly. “We need to trace it back to the source.”
“I’m already trying to,” Ric replied. “So far, it’s totally anonymous. Whoever sent it knew what they were doing. The IP addresses, and there’s three so far, are phonies, and supposedly outside of the States.”
“Whoever he is, he must have a program set up to keep an eye out for any searches relating to the Lilliana name.”
“Absolutely, and it picked up on me, or at least that the search came from the agency since the email was sent to our company email address, not to you or me personally.” Ric looked directly at Ethan. “I’m not stopping, in case you were going to tell me to.”
“Of course you aren’t. I don’t want you to. This—” Ethan tapped the screen, “—confirms that there’s more to why Theo’s adoption was hidden than just Lilliana’s not wanting him and her to be found.”
“I might not have been that off base when I joked about Theo being heir to a fortune,” Ric said.
“It’s definitely the most obvious reason why someone doesn’t want you to locate Lilliana. Now that they know you work for the agency, if not your name, they probably figured out that it was her son who hired us to find out who his birth mother was and then to try to find her, and her family. If Theo does stand to inherit money, and it might be a sizable amount considering the sender’s threat, it’s possible his life will be in danger.”
“His and Lilliana’s.”
“Yes. How far have you gotten in finding her?”
Ric showed him the list he’d come up with, and how he created it.
“Dig deeper,” Ethan said. “But from now on, do it anonymously. I’d rather not lose my best investigator.”
“Your only one,” Ric replied with a brief grin. “I’m not exactly happy with that idea, either.”
“Another thing. Keep Theo away from here. The person who sent the email undoubtedly knows our physical address, too, at this point. He might try staking us out, hoping Theo will show up.”
“He wouldn’t know who he was. Okay, I take that back. If Theo has any resemblance to Lilliana, or someone in her family, he would.”
“Exactly. If I were you, I’d stay away from Theo, or be damned careful if you don’t.” When Ric lifted an eyebrow in question, Ethan said, “I know you’re interested in him. If it’s gone any farther than that, if he reciprocates—well, as I said, be careful.”
“I am, he has, and I will be,” Ric replied succin
ctly.
Ethan chortled. “I knew it. It’s why I’m such a good investigator. I can read emotions and yours, my friend, are written all over your face when you talk about him.”
Ric resisted flipping him off as he sent the threatening email to a very secure cloud program, and to the equally secure file on his computer where he had stored everything relating to Lilliana and Theo. “All right, I’m half brain dead,” he said as he shut down the computer. “I’ll get back to this tomorrow.”
“No,” Ethan said firmly. “You’re taking the day off, the way you normally do. You need it.”
“Yes, sir,” Ric replied with a mocking salute.
“I mean it, Ric.”
“I know. I will.”
With that promise, Ric headed out, using the back door and checking everything around him as he walked through the back yard, past the garage where Ethan parked, and then took the long way around to where he’d left his car, checking as he did to be certain that no one was watching.
* * * *
Theo was looking forward to dinner with Ric. He’d even made it a point to get to the restaurant a little before six, and already had a table for two away from the other customers. Therefore, he was somewhat put off when Ric sat down opposite him with a brief “Hello,” and then flagged down the waitress to tell her he wanted a beer.
Theo ordered one, too, and when she left, he asked Ric, “What’s got your back up?”
Ric puffed out a breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so curt, but…” He reached across the table to take Theo’s hand. “I, well the agency, got an email right before I left this afternoon. It was a threat that if I didn’t stop searching for Lilliana there would be repercussions of the violent kind.”
“Shit. Are you serious?” Shock and fear colored his response.
“Very—and I suspect the person who sent it is, too.”
“But why?” Theo gripped Ric’s hand, frowning. “If you want to know the truth, I’m not certain I want to get in touch with her if you do find her. I’m not sure I want to know why she gave me up. Hell, she might not want anything to do with me, considering what was done to the adoption certificate to make it impossible for me to track her down.”
“At the moment, after getting that email, I’m not so sure she was worried you might try to find her when you grew up. I wonder if she could have been frightened that someone else, like a family member, would get their hands on the adoption certificate. If they did, they could have used it to find her—and you—making it imperative in her eyes that certain information was blacked out. For whatever reason, she might have felt that you were in danger.”
After thinking about it, Theo, said, “It does make sense. We’ve sort of tossed around the idea that I’m—” he chuckled, “—”the heir to a fortune and they, her family, would be happy if I was never found.”
“One possibility,” Ric replied seriously. “Another one is that your birth father was, okay, how to put this.”
Theo had no problem figuring out what Ric didn’t want to say. “Her father or a brother if she had any?”
“Yeah. If that was the case, you better believe they wouldn’t want you getting in contact with her. If she admitted it, that would give you a hell of a reason to blackmail them. A stretch, sure, but not out of the realm of possibility.”
“Or, she was raped and knew the rapist, and was afraid he’d find her and try again.”
“That, too. There’s a lot of reasons why she might have wanted the pertinent information obliterated. It had to be a closed adoption, and the person who facilitated it told your parents that, yeah, she was in hiding from her family, which is why some information needed to be blacked out.”
“Without knowing what was missing on it, Dad—because it must have been him—had someone create a false birth certificate since I would have needed one. I wonder who he knew that was good enough at forgery to create one that was able to pass even government scrutiny.”
“But not Foster’s,” Ric pointed out.
“Thank goodness for that.”
They stopped talking when the waitress returned with their drinks and menus. Theo knew what he wanted, and it only took a moment for Ric to decide on the lasagna, so their orders were quickly made.
“Are you going to stop looking for Lilliana?” Theo asked when the waitress was out of earshot.
“Nope,” Ric replied. “If anything, the threat made me even more determined to find her. I will be careful, and you have to be, too. They…he, since I’m sure it’s a man, would have to be very stupid not to have figured out you hired us to find her, even though he doesn’t know it’s you per se.” Theo felt a shiver of fear at the idea someone could find out it was him, which obviously didn’t escape Ric’s attention because he said, “If you’re worried he could break into our computers, it won’t happen unless the guy is a primo hacker, or knows one. That’s what it would take for them to get through the security Ethan and I have set up. I suspect whoever sent the email isn’t one or it would have come directly to me.”
“Okay. I guess I should have figured that. Can you, umm, track it back to the sender?”
“I tried, but, on that level at least, he knows what he’s doing.” Ric chuckled. “We’d need to hire a good hacker to follow the trail, and even then it might not lead to the person we want.” Ric smiled wryly. “Maybe you should have chosen one of the big agencies that have a lot more resources at their fingertips.”
“I disagree. If I had, we wouldn’t have met. Not an idea I like.”
“Neither do I,” Ric replied softly. “Although the circumstances could have been better.”
“For sure.” Theo had the strongest urge to lean across the table and kiss Ric. Before he could act on it, common sense and the waitress intervened. She set their meals down, asked if they needed anything else, and moved on to another customer when they said they didn’t.
“This is good,” Ric said after tasting his lasagna.
“All their food is,” Theo replied, “I make it a habit to eat here at least a couple of times a month.”
“When you’re not creating fabulous home-cooked meals?” Ric grinned.
“Yep. I’m a cordon bleu chef,” Theo replied seriously before laughing. “If you consider meatloaf and spaghetti fancy food.”
“I thought it was meatballs and spaghetti, not meatloaf and…” Ric winked.
“Smartass.”
Ric grinned. “I have my moments.”
They tacitly agreed not to talk about Lilliana and whoever didn’t want her found until they finished eating. Instead, they discussed what kind of entertainment they preferred, books they’d read—the usual things two people who were learning about each other on a personal level wanted to know.
At Theo’s prompting, Ric explained how he’d become a private investigator.
“Ethan and my father went to the same university and became friends despite the fact that Dad was working on his masters and Ethan was still an undergraduate. They stayed in touch after they graduated, and Ethan would come to dinner at least once a month, with his wife in tow after he got married. By the time I was old enough to understand what he did for a living, I began bugging him about how he did such-and-such. In the end, I went to college, got my degree in criminal justice, and he hired me. End of story.”
“And neither of you have regretted it,” Theo said.
“For sure I haven’t.”
“The way he talks about you, neither has he.”
Ric grinned. “Not that he’s said, anyway.”
They finished eating, declined dessert, and as promised, Ric paid the bill.
When they got to the door of the restaurant, ready to leave, Theo couldn’t help but notice Ric tense up as he scanned the street. So he wasn’t surprised when Ric asked, “Where did you park?”
“The next street over.”
“Okay. I’ll walk you to your car,” Ric replied, putting his arm around Theo’s shoulders. “Go with it,” he said softl
y. “He’s probably not out there, but just in case, if he gets the idea you’re my boyfriend, he won’t think you’re you.”
Theo had no problem with the ruse. Which maybe isn’t a ruse…now. He slipped his arm around Ric’s waist as they stepped onto the sidewalk and kept it there until they got to his car.
“I’m going to meet you at your place, once I know I’m not being followed,” Ric said. When Theo cocked his head in question, Ric told him, “I want to be sure you get there.”
“I’m not planning on heading to the nearest bar,” Theo replied dryly.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m probably jumping at shadows but better that than finding out he’s out there somewhere, watching me.”
“You could call, you know,” Theo said.
Ric smiled. “I could, but I’m big on more personal interaction when it comes to keeping you safe.”
“Right now, I’m not the one you should be worrying about. He’s targeted you, if you keep looking for Lilliana.”
“Yeah, well, better safe than sorry on both counts. All right, I will call instead of following you. I don’t want to lead him to you.”
Changing the subject, sort of, Theo said, “If we’re going to play this out, we should go all the way.” Then he kissed Ric.
“Well…damn…” Ric said after returning the kiss and pulling away. “Yeah, it’s definitely better if I call. If I come over, I might be tempted to stay.”
“You have a problem with that?” For sure I don’t, except we haven’t known each other that long.
“Yeah, I do. You’re a client. It would be unethical.”
“Then I’ll fire you, or whatever you call it.”
“Theo…” Ric put his hands on Theo’s shoulders with a shake of his head. “You could, but you won’t. You want to find out what’s going on as much as I do.”
“I know.” Theo sighed. “All right, we’ll put this—” he tapped Ric’s chest and then his own, “—on hold for now. But as soon as you’ve solved my problem, all bets are off.”
Ric smiled slowly. “I can deal with that. For now, though, go home. Oh, and instead of me calling you, you call me. It makes more sense that way.”
A Secret Uncovered Page 5