by Nora Roberts
Oh God, how she missed her mother.
Her hands were clutched in her lap, white knuckles pressed hard against her belly as if she were protecting the child who’d once lived in her womb.
Her face was a blank sheet, dull and colorless. It was as if she’d used up all her energy and strength to gather her family together. Now she was a sleepwalker, slipping between past and present.
Douglas sat on the edge of a Barcalounger that was older than he was. He watched his mother out of the corner of his eye. She was still as stone, and seemed as removed from him as the moon.
His stomach was as tight and tangled as his mother’s fingers.
The air smelled of the cherry tobacco from his grandfather’s after-dinner pipe. A warm scent that always lingered there. With it was the cold yellow odor of his mother’s stress.
It had a smell, a form, an essence that was strain and fear and guilt, and slapped him back into the terrible and helpless days of his childhood when that yellow smear on the air had permeated everything.
His grandfather gripped the remote with one hand and kept his other on Suzanne’s shoulder, as if to hold her in place.
“I didn’t want to miss the segment,” Roger said, then cleared his throat. “Asked Doug to run home here and set the VCR as soon as Lana told me about it. Didn’t watch it yet.”
He’d made tea. His wife had made tea, always, for sickness and upsets. The sight of the white pot with its little rosebuds comforted him, as the crocheted doilies did, and the sheer summer curtains. “Doug watched it.”
“Yes, I watched it. It’s cued up.”
“Well . . .”
“Play it, Daddy.” Suzanne’s voice hitched, and beneath her father’s hand, her body came to life again, and trembled. “Play it now.”
“Mom, you don’t want to get yourself all worked up about—”
“Play it.” She turned her head, stared at her son with eyes that were red-rimmed and a bit wild. “Just look.”
Roger started the tape. The hand on Suzanne’s shoulder began to knead.
“Fast-forward through—here.” Energy whipped back, had Suzanne snatching the remote, fumbling with the buttons. She slowed the tape to regular speed when Callie’s face came on-screen. “Look at her. God. Oh my God.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Roger murmured. Like a prayer.
“You see it.” Suzanne dug her fingers into his leg, but didn’t take her attention off the screen. Couldn’t. “You see it. It’s Jessica. It’s my Jessie.”
“Mom.” Douglas’s heart ached at the way she said it. My Jessie. “She’s got the coloring, but . . .Jesus, that lawyer, Grandpa. Lana. She looks as much like Jessie might as this woman does. Mom, you can’t know.”
“I can know,” she snapped out. “Look at her. Look!” She stabbed the remote, froze the screen as Callie smiled. “She has her father’s eyes. She has Jay’s eyes—the same color, the same shape. And my dimples. Three dimples, like me. Like Ma had. Daddy . . .”
“There’s a strong resemblance.” Roger felt weak when he said it, husked out. “The coloring, the shape of the face. Those features.” Something was rising up in his throat that felt like equal parts panic and hope. “The last artist projection—”
“I have it.” Suzanne leaped up, grabbed the folder she’d brought with her and took out a computer-generated image. “Jessica, at twenty-five.”
Now Douglas rose as well. “I thought you’d stopped having those done. I thought you’d stopped.”
“I never stopped.” Tears wanted to spill but she forced them back with the iron will that had gotten her through every day of the last twenty-nine years. “I stopped talking to you about it because it upset you. But I never stopped looking. I never stopped believing. Look at your sister.” She pushed the picture into his hands. “Look at her,” she demanded and whirled back to the television.
“Mom. For Christ’s sake.” He held the photo as the pain he’d shut down, through a will every bit as strong as his mother’s, bit back at him. It made him helpless. It made him sick.
“A resemblance,” he continued. “Brown eyes, blond hair.” Unlike his mother, he couldn’t live on hope. Hope destroyed him. “How many other girls, women, have you looked at and seen Jessica? I can’t stand watching you put yourself through this again. You don’t know anything about her. How old she is, where she comes from.”
“Then I’ll find out.” She took the photo back, put it into the folder with hands that were steady again. “If you can’t stand it, then stay out of it. Like your father.”
She knew it was cruel, to slash at one child in the desperate need for the other. She knew it was wrong to strike out at her son while clutching the ghost of her daughter to her breast. But he would either help, or step aside. There was no middle ground in Suzanne’s quest for Jessica.
“I’ll run a computer search.” Douglas’s voice was cold and quiet. “I’ll get you what information I can.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll use my laptop back at the store. It’s fast. I’ll send you what I find.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.” He could slap just as quick and hard as she. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. Nobody can. I’ll do better alone.”
He walked out without another word. Roger let out a long sigh. “Suzanne, his only concern is you.”
“No one has to be concerned for me. I can use support, but concern doesn’t help me. This is my daughter. I know it.”
“Maybe she is.” Roger rose, ran his hands up and down Suzanne’s arms. “And Doug is your son. Don’t push him, honey. Don’t lose one child trying to find another.”
“He doesn’t want to believe. And I have to.” She stared at Callie’s face on the TV screen. “I have to.”
So, she was the right age, Doug thought as he scanned the information from his search. The fact that her birthday was listed within a week of Jessica’s was hardly conclusive.
His mother would see it as proof, and ignore the other data.
He could read a lifestyle into the dry facts. Upper-middle-class suburban. Only child of Elliot and Vivian Dunbrook of Philadelphia. Mrs. Dunbrook, the former Vivian Humphries, had played second violin in the Boston Symphony Orchestra before her marriage. She, her husband and infant daughter had relocated to Philadelphia, where Elliot Dunbrook had taken a position as surgical resident.
It meant money, class, an appreciation for the arts and for science.
She’d grown up in privilege, had graduated first in her class at Carnegie Mellon, gone on to get her master’s and, just recently, her doctorate.
She’d pursued her career in archaeology while compiling her advanced degrees. She’d married at twenty-six, divorced not quite two years later. No children.
She was associated with Leonard G. Greenbaum and Associates, the Paleolithic Society, several universities’ archaeology departments.
She’d written a number of well-received papers. He printed out what he could access to wade through later. But from a glance he assessed her as dedicated, probably brilliant and focused.
It was difficult to see the baby who’d kicked her legs and pulled his hair as any of those things.
What he could see was a woman who’d been raised by well-to-do, respected parents. Hardly baby-napping material. But his mother wouldn’t see that, he knew. She would see the birthday and nothing else.
Just as she had countless times before.
Sometimes, when he let himself, he wondered what had fractured his family. Had it been that instant when Jessica disappeared? Or had it been his mother’s unrelenting, unwavering determination to find her again?
Or was it the moment when he himself had realized one simple fact: that by reaching for one child, his mother had lost another.
None of them, it seemed, had been able to live with that.
He would do what he could, as he had done countless times before. He attached the files, e-mailed them to his mother.
There was nothing like the beginning of a dig, that time when anything is possible and there is no limit to the potential of the discovery. Callie had a couple of fresh-faced undergraduates who might be more help than trouble. Right now they were free labor that came along with a small grant from the university. She’d take what she could get.
She would have Rose Jordan as geologist, a woman she both respected and liked. She had Leo’s lab, and the man himself as consultant. Once she had Nick Long pulled in as anthropologist, she’d be in fat city.
She worked with the students, digging shovel samples, and had already chosen the two-trunked oak at the north-west corner of the pond as her datum point.
With that as her fixed reference they’d begin measuring the vertical and horizontal location of everything on the site.
She’d completed the plan of the site’s surface the night before, and had begun to plot her one-meter-square divisions.
Today they’d start running the rope lines to mark the divisions.
Then the fun began.
A cold front had dumped the humidity and temperatures into the nearly tolerable range. It had also brought rain the night before that had turned the ground soggy and soft. Her boots were already mucked past the ankle, her hands were filthy and she smelled of sweat and the eucalyptus oil she’d used to discourage insects.
For Callie, it didn’t get much better.
She glanced over at the toot of a horn, and this time the interruption had her leaning on her shovel and grinning. She’d known Leo wouldn’t be able to stay away for long.
“Keep at it,” she told the students. “Dig slow, sieve thoroughly. Document everything.”
She walked over to meet Leo. “We’re finding flakes in every shovel sample,” she told him. “My theory is we’re in the knapping area there.” She gestured to where the two students continued to dig and sieve the soil. “Rosie will verify rhyolite flakes. They sat there, honing the rock into arrowheads, spear points, tools. Go a little deeper, we’ll find discarded samples.”
“She’ll be here this afternoon.”
“Cool.”
“How are the students doing?”
“Not bad. The girl, Sonya, she’s got potential. Bob, he’s able and willing. And earnest. Really, really earnest.” She shrugged. “We’ll wear some of that down in no time. I tell you what I figure. Every time I turn around, somebody’s bopping by here wanting a little tutorial. I’m going to put Bob on community relations.”
She glanced back. “He’s got this farm-fresh Howdy Doody face. They’ll love that. Let him give the visitors a nice little lecture on what we’re doing, what we’re looking for, how we do it. I can’t be stopping every ten minutes to play nice with the locals.”
“I’ll take that for you today.”
“That’s great. I’m going to run the lines. I’ve got the surface plan worked up, if you want to take a look. You can give me a hand with marking the plots in between your outdoor classroom obligations.”
She glanced at her ancient Timex, then tapped the list she’d already made and fixed to her clipboard. “Leo, I’m going to need containers. I don’t want to start pulling bones out of the ground and have them go to dust on me once they’re out of the bog. I need equipment. I need nitrogen gas, dry ice. I need more tools. More sieves, more trowels, more dustpans, buckets. I need more hands.”
“You’ll have them,” he promised. “The great state of Maryland has given you your first grant on the Antietam Creek Project.”
“Yeah?” She grabbed his shoulders as the delight burst through her. “Yeah? Leo, you’re my one true love.” She kissed him noisily on the mouth.
“Speaking of that.” He patted her dirty hands, stepped back. She was too pleased to notice he was putting safe distance between them.
“We’re going to have to discuss another key member of the team. While we do, I want you to remember we’re all professionals, and what we’re doing here could have enormous impact. Before we’re done, this project could involve scientists from all over the world. It’s not about individuals, but about discovery.”
“I don’t know where you’re going, Leo, but I don’t like how you’re getting there.”
“Callie . . .” He cleared his throat. “The anthropological significance of this find is every bit as monumental as the archaeological. Therefore, you and the head anthro will need to work together as coheads of the project.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake, Leo, what am I, a diva?” She pulled the water bottle out of the slot on her belt, drank deep. “I don’t have a problem sharing authority with Nick. I asked for him because I know we work well together.”
“Yes, well . . .” Leo trailed off at the sound of an approaching engine. And worked up a pained smile as he spotted the new arrivals. “You can’t always get what you want.”
Shock came first, racing with recognition as she spotted the brawny four-wheeler in demon black, then the ancient pickup truck in a hideous medley of faded red, rusty blue and primer gray pulling a dirty, white travel trailer covered with scratches and dings.
Painted across the side of the trailer was a snarling Doberman and the name DIGGER.
Emotions, too many, too mixed, too huge, slammed through her. They choked her throat, twisted her belly, stabbed her heart.
“Callie . . . before you say anything—”
“You’re not going to do this.” She had to swallow.
“It’s done.”
“Aw, Leo, no. Goddamnit, I asked for Nick.”
“He’s not available. He’s in South America. The project needs the best, Callie. Graystone’s the best.” Leo nearly stumbled back when she spun toward him. “You know it. Personal business aside, Callie, you know he’s the best. Digger, too. Adding his name to yours greased the grant. I expect you to behave professionally.”
She showed Leo her teeth. “You can’t always get what you want,” she tossed back.
She watched him jump out of the four-wheeler. Jacob Graystone, all six feet one and a quarter inches of him. He wore his old brown hat, its brim and crown creased and battered from years of hard wear. His hair, a straight-arrow fall of black, spilled out beneath it. A plain white T-shirt was tucked into the waistband of faded Levi’s. And the body beneath them was prime.
Long bones, long muscles, all covered in bronzed skin that was a result of working outdoors and the quarter of his heritage that was Apache.
He turned, and though he wore dark glasses, she knew his eyes were a color caught, rather beautifully, between gray and green.
He flashed a smile—arrogant, smug, sarcastic. All of which, she thought, fit him to the ground. He had a face too handsome for his own good, or so she’d always thought. Those long bones again, sharp enough to cut diamonds, the straight nose, the firm jaw with the hint of a scar slashed diagonally across it.
Her pulse began to throb and her temples to pound. Casually, she ran a hand down the chain around her neck, assured herself it was tucked under her shirt.
“This blows, Leo.”
“I know it’s not an ideal situation for you, but—”
“How long have you known he was coming?” Callie demanded.
This time, it was Leo who swallowed. “A couple of days. I wanted to tell you face-to-face. I didn’t think he’d be here until tomorrow. We need him, Callie. The project needs him.”
“Fuck it, Leo.” She squared her shoulders as a boxer might before the main event. “Just fuck it.”
He even walked smugly, she thought now, in that damn cowboy swagger. It had always irritated the hell out of her.
His companion stepped out of the truck. Stanley Digger Forbes. A hundred and twenty-five pounds of ugly.
Callie resisted the urge to curl her lip and snarl. Instead, she put her hands on her hips and waited for the men to reach her.
“Graystone.” She inclined her head.
&n
bsp; “Dunbrook.” His eyebrows lifted between the tops of his sunglasses and the brim of his hat. His voice was a drawl, a warm and lazy slide of words that brought images of deserts and prairies. “It’s Dr. Dunbrook now, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Congratulations.”
Deliberately she looked away from him. One look at Digger made her lips curve. He was grinning like a hyena, his smashed walnut face livened by a pair of spooky black eyes and the glint of his gold eyetooth.
He wore a gold hoop in his left ear, and a dirty blond rat’s tail hung beneath the bright red bandanna tied around his head.
“Hey, Dig, welcome aboard.”
“Callie, looking good. Got prettier.”
“Thanks. You didn’t.”
He gave her his familiar hooting laugh. “That girl with the legs?” He jerked his chin toward the students. “She legal?”
Despite his looks, Digger was renowned for being able to score dig groupies as triumphantly as a batter connecting with a high fastball.
“No hitting on the undergrads, Digger.”
He merely sauntered off toward the shovels.
“Okay, let’s run through the basics,” Callie began.
“No catching up?” Jake interrupted. “No small talk? No ‘what the hell you been up to since we parted ways, Jake?’ ”
“I don’t care what you’ve been up to. Leo thinks we need you for the project.” And she would devise several satisfactory ways to kill Leo later. “I disagree. But you’re here, and there’s no point wasting time debating that or bullshitting about old times.”
“Digger’s right. You’re looking good.”
“If it has breasts, it looks good to Digger.”
“Can’t argue.” But she was looking good. Just the sight of her blew through him like a storm. He could smell the eucalyptus on her. He couldn’t smell the damn stuff without having her face swim into his mind.
She wore the same clunky watch, pretty silver earrings. Her open collar exposed the line of her throat where the skin was damp with sweat.