Within Striking Distance

by Ingrid Weaver

  He recrossed his arms over his chest. “I assure you, Becky, I don’t regard you as my sister. And, yes, I’ve made considerable progress.”

  “You have? What did you find?”

  “At this stage, it’s more a matter of what I’m not finding.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There still is nothing to rule you out as Gina.”

  She frowned. “Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Rule me out?”

  “It’s how I’ve been investigating all the claimants. It’s the quickest way to the truth.”

  “I would have thought a DNA test would be the quickest way.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not like TV shows, Becky. Thanks to what law enforcement people call the CSI Effect, everyone expects science to solve cases rather than old-fashioned detective work, so there are serious backlogs at most analytical laboratories. In real life, unless it’s a medical emergency or there’s some other way to jump the queue, it can take several weeks to get the results of a DNA test.”

  “My friend, Nicole Foster, is a doctor. I’m sure she’d help.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. But besides the wait time, I’d need to get a sample to compare your DNA to, and I don’t want to alert the Grossos until I’m more certain.”

  “How will that happen? I mean, what else do you need to find out about me?”

  He considered her question for a while. “Right now, one major issue left to resolve is the exact timing of your adoption. How close was it to Gina’s disappearance?”

  “I don’t know how we can learn that without any records. My dad isn’t likely to cooperate.”

  “I agree with you about your father. I don’t believe it would serve any purpose to approach him again at this stage. But I need to find out when you first appeared. It was definitely during the summer of ’78. The Grosso twins were born in mid-June.”

  “My parents always celebrated my birthday on July 7th. That hasn’t seemed to bother you.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I’m aware that’s the date on your driver’s licence, but that doesn’t mean it was actually your date of birth. It could have been the date of your adoption, or just a date picked out of the air considering the lack of official information. If you are Gina, then your adoptive parents would have wanted to give you a false birthday to throw people off the track.”

  Becky felt her pulse skip. If you are Gina. This was the first time Jake had used that phrase. It made the possibility more real, somehow.

  “But there’s a problem,” he continued. “If your parents showed up with a baby shortly after Gina disappeared, why hadn’t anyone suspected them at the time? The police and the media had publicized the kidnapping. So had the Grosso family. NASCAR had been a small world back then. Someone should have noticed and made the connection.”

  “Not if my parents didn’t show me around.”

  “Possibly. They could have held off until the heat died down. There was a plane crash shortly after the kidnapping that diverted the media attention…” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”

  “What?”

  “I heard that your father showed baby pictures of you around the garage.”

  “That figures. My mother took millions of photographs when I was a kid. Every birthday and holiday, she’d be running around with the camera and snapping pictures until I saw spots from the flash. But how could that help?”

  “For starters, we could get an idea of how old you were when they adopted you. If we’re lucky, there’ll be some background clue that would narrow down the dates.” He pushed away from his desk and grasped her shoulders. “Please, tell me you still have them.”

  For a second, she couldn’t tell him anything. The sensation of his hands on her shoulders was overpowering everything else. His face was so close, she could feel his breath on her chin and could see the blue of his eyes was shot through with tiny flecks of green. Jake really had the most beautiful eyes.

  She inhaled unsteadily. It didn’t help calm her pulse. Instead, she drew in the clove-and-spices scent of his aftershave and the earthy aroma of warm, male skin. Her gaze dropped to his throat. The top button of his shirt was open. It gaped as he leaned forward, giving her a tantalizing glimpse of his chest. A nice, broad chest, with a sprinkling of dark hair in the center…

  “Becky?”

  She yanked her attention back to his face. “I only have a few of the albums my mother put together,” she said. “My father took most of them with him when he moved to Australia, including all the ones with my baby pictures. But there had to have been more since my mom took so many. I grabbed a few cartons of stuff from the attic when he sold the house. I haven’t gone through all of them yet. The extra photographs could be in there.”

  “Are they at your apartment?”

  “Sort of. My landlady lets me store my extra boxes in the loft above her garage.”

  “How soon does your flight leave?”

  “Not until tomorrow evening.”

  “Great.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Do you have plans for the morning?”

  “Just some packing.”

  His thumbs moved on her shoulders. It was too light to be a caress. At least, it was light enough so neither of them needed to acknowledge it. “Won’t you be spending time with your boyfriend?”

  “No. I’m not dating anyone. Why?”

  “I’d like to take a look through those photos if you have them, and I’m an early riser. Just wanted to make sure I won’t be interrupting anything.”

  “You won’t. How early?”

  “How’s nine?”

  “That’s fine. I’m usually up at dawn.”

  He smiled. “I’ll bring breakfast.”

  Becky could only nod. He wasn’t giving her one of his lopsided half smiles. This was a full one, stretching across both sides of his mouth, deepening his dimple, lifting his cheeks and lightening his eyes.

  Fortunately, he let go of her shoulders and straightened up before she could do anything stupid. Like lean closer. Or lift her hands to stroke the ropy muscles that flexed in his forearms. Or touch her lips to that intriguing dimple beside his mouth…

  Yes, it was a good thing that one of them was keeping their priorities straight.

  THE CLEANING CREW had taken their sweet time, and now Ralph Bocci needed a smoke. Bad. He hadn’t figured on waiting this long for them to clear out—pushing a broom along the hall and emptying a few garbage cans couldn’t be that complicated. They must have been getting paid by the hour, he decided, unwrapping another piece of gum and stuffing it into his mouth. He crumpled the wrapper and was about to toss it on the floor when he thought better and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans instead. As soon as he heard the cleaners leave, he squeezed himself out from beneath the staircase and headed for the second floor.

  The dentist’s office was tempting—there would be drugs in there that Ralph would be able to sell—but he bypassed it and went right to work on McMasters’s door. He hadn’t thought it would be any trouble when he’d cased it this afternoon, but it took him longer than it should have to pick the lock. The easiest way to get inside would be to break the window in the door, but Mrs. Brown didn’t want the guy to know he’d had a visitor. She was adamant about that detail. No traces.

  Ralph chomped hard on his gum to stifle the curse that came to his lips whenever he thought about her. He hated that woman. He should have known better than to have trusted her when she’d offered him a second chance instead of calling the cops. Why should the company brass care what happened to a guy who was caught trying to leave the plant’s main parking lot with a car trunk full of cylinder heads? It was obvious now. It was because she’d known about his record when he’d been hired, and now one call from her to his parole officer would put him right back in prison.

  Lucky for him, she didn’t want him in prison. She wanted him to do her dirty work.

  Yeah, real lucky.

  Ralph slipped into the office and went straigh
t for the window to close the blinds. He turned on the desk lamp and saw that McMasters had tidied up before he’d left. There was nothing left out except the computer, but that was beyond Ralph’s skills. If Mrs. Brown wanted to know what was on it, she’d have to find some tech geek to blackmail. He moved to the filing cabinet next. The lock on it was almost as good as the one on the door. He was nearly out of patience when he felt the distinct snick of the lining-up cylinders travel through the lock pick to his fingertips.

  Good. It looked like McMasters was old-school. The guy kept notes on paper. Five minutes later, Ralph pulled out the phone he’d been given and pressed the number that had been programmed. A woman answered on the first ring. “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Brown?”

  “Of course. Don’t waste time, Mr. Bocci. Tell me what you found.”

  Ralph ground his back teeth to hold in another curse, then spread out the file labeled “Becky Peters.” By the time he finished reading it to his boss, his mouth was as dry as ash, in spite of the spearmint-flavored gum that was stuck between his molars. He’d heard about the Gina Grosso case on the news a few months ago. Kidnapping was big stuff, even if it was three decades old. Especially when the parents were loaded like the Grossos. He needed that smoke.

  “Very good. I take it you remembered to wear gloves.”

  “Sure,” he lied, rubbing his sleeve across the front of the filing cabinet.

  “Make certain you leave everything exactly the way you found it and relock the door.”

  He hated the way she talked. She sounded as if she thought he was an idiot. Too bad she wasn’t like her old man. When Gerald Shillington had run the plant, he’d been decent to his employees. He’d treated them fairly. He hadn’t made them want to steal from him to make ends meet. “Yes, ma’am. Is that all?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Bocci.” Cynthia Shillington Brown’s laugh was as irritating as her voice. “We’re just getting started.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JAKE KNEW he was early, so he parked his car at the curb and took stock of the neighborhood. It was a quiet one, with trees arching over the street and old houses set far back from the sidewalks. Most of the homes had been either restored or well-kept enough not to need restoration. The one where Becky lived was no exception. The two-story Victorian gleamed with a fresh coat of white paint. From what he’d learned when he’d done his initial background check on Becky, the house was owned by a well-off widow who inherited a dry-cleaning chain. She had divided the second floor into two apartments, yet there didn’t appear to be an outside staircase. The tenants shared the front entrance with their landlady.

  Jake suspected the widow rented the apartments for the company as much as for the income. He liked to think of Becky making her home here. It suited her better than an apartment like his in a high-rise. Living in a family-oriented neighborhood would appeal to her need for roots.

  A toddler on a tricycle squealed as he pedaled past on the sidewalk on the other side of the street, followed closely by a yellow Lab that was bigger than the child. A young, heavily pregnant woman hurried after the pair, yelling at the dog and waving a child-size hat at the kid.

  Well, early or not, it sounded as if the neighborhood was wide awake. Jake grabbed the paper bag from the passenger seat, got out of the car and headed up the front walk of Becky’s house. He was about to climb the steps to the veranda when the inside front door swung open and a tiny, white-haired woman peered at him through the screen door. “Hello.”

  This must be Becky’s landlady, Jake thought, remembering his notes. Lena Krazowski. “Good morning. I’m looking for Miss Peters.”

  “You must be her friend. She said you were coming. You’re early.”

  Jake was subjected to the same head-to-toe scrutiny that he’d received from Shirley Dalton the previous weekend. “That’s right,” he said. “Looks like it’s going to be a nice day.”

  “It’s going to get hot. Rebecca’s in the garage,” she said, pointing to the right side of the house.

  “Thanks.” He pivoted to change direction.

  “Mind the delphiniums.”

  He assumed she meant the flowers that were clustered along the walk. “Will do,” he said, giving the bed a wide berth. He followed the driveway to the back of the house, where he found Becky’s red compact car and an older-model sedan parked in front of a double garage. Sunshine slanted through the open door, revealing walls hung with an orderly array of gardening tools. An open loft began near the front of the garage and stretched all the way to the back wall. From where he stood he couldn’t see anything over the edge except an old brass-bound trunk and several wooden crates. A steep staircase, similar to the kind that folded down to give access to attics, hung from a gap in the center of the loft. He moved toward it. “Becky?”

  “I’m up here, Jake.” She appeared at the top of the staircase. “You’re early.”

  “So I’ve heard.” She’d obviously been up there a while. Dust smeared her T-shirt and blue jeans. Her hair was covered with a bright pink kerchief, though a few strands had pulled loose at her temples to dangle in front of her ears. Yet even dusty and disheveled, she managed to look beautiful.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Breakfast,” he said, holding it up. “I told you I’d bring it.”

  She shoved a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and glanced behind her. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d find the right box before you got here but they’re not labeled.”

  “Is there space for me up there?”

  “Plenty, but it gets hot once the sun gets over the trees.”

  “With any luck we’ll be done by then.” He laid his cane on the floor and assessed the staircase. It was steeper than it had appeared at first, more a ladder with wide rungs than a staircase. The wood was old and dried out. It seemed solid enough, but there were some nasty-looking splinters he’d need to avoid. He held the bag between his teeth and grasped the boards at the sides of the risers. Thanks to his workouts at the gym, he could lift a lot more than his body weight. Using mainly his arms, he hauled himself up a few steps until he could grip the edge of the loft and swing himself over it. He got to his feet with the help of a nearby crate, then offered the bag to Becky.

  She was staring at him, her cheeks flushed. He couldn’t tell whether it was because of heat—the air in the loft was noticeably warmer than down below—or because she was uncomfortable from having witnessed his awkward ascent. He seldom considered himself disabled, but he knew only too well how it could be an issue with some people. He hoped Becky wasn’t one of them.

  Her eyes lingered on his shoulders. It didn’t look like revulsion in her eyes. For a moment she seemed to sway toward him, and for an even crazier moment, Jake thought she was about to touch him.

  As it turned out, she was only reaching for the bag. “Thanks,” she said.

  “I hope you like doughnuts.”

  She opened the bag and looked inside. “This is your idea of breakfast?”

  “Hey, I got the kind with fruit. That’s nutritious.”

  “Fruit?”

  “I’m pretty sure the gooey red stuff on the inside of the powdered ones has raspberries in it.”

  “Um, thanks, Jake. That’s very thoughtful.”

  “Anything for another morning person. We’re a dying breed.”

  She wiped the dust from her hands on her jeans, then reached into the bag and drew out one of the covered cups. “I don’t suppose either of these is decaf?”

  “Sorry. Both are eye-wobbler specials.”

  “I thought you were a morning person.”

  “That coffee is why I am.”

  She pried the top off the cup and passed it to him, then set the bag on top of a nearby trunk. “I appreciate the trouble you went to, but I’m not that hungry.”

  “There’s a fruit plate under the box of doughnuts if you’d prefer that.”

  “I should have known you were teasing me,” she muttered. She grabbed the bag once more, this
time taking everything out until she got to the cellophane-wrapped plastic plate. She smiled with pleasure, pulled up a corner of the wrap and popped a strawberry into her mouth. “Thanks, Jake.”

  “You’re welcome. I don’t recognize half of what’s on there but Lurleen assured me it’s edible.”

  “Who’s Lurleen? Your girlfriend?”

  “No, she works at my favorite diner. It’s been getting infiltrated by the rabbit food crowd lately so they’ve had to put some of that fruit and nut stuff on the menu.”

  She licked a drop of juice from the corner of her mouth. “How tragic.”

  “Downright insidious.” He blew on the coffee she’d handed to him and took a fast swallow. It burned his tongue. Which was good, because it helped him to stop thinking about how delicious the strawberry juice had looked on her tongue.

  She’d said he’d been teasing, but it had been more. He’d been flirting. Geez, what was wrong with him?

  Jake forced himself to look around the loft. The space was larger than he’d expected, and mercifully high enough in the center for him to stand upright. Two more dusty trunks were ranged in the angle beneath the eaves on one side. On the other, sheets of plastic draped what appeared to be several old bicycles and two large-wheeled baby carriages. More plastic sheets covered a group of wicker lawn furniture near the back wall.

  His gaze settled on a stack of cardboard boxes on the other side of the packing crate. A few appeared to have been dragged off the top of the pile. He nodded toward them. “Are those yours?”

  “Yes.” Becky stuffed a large piece of pineapple into her mouth, wiped her fingers on her jeans again and went to kneel beside one of the boxes. “I thought I’d try this one next,” she said, ripping the packing tape off the top. “It felt the right weight to have photos.”