Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series)

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Georgia realized she’d screwed up. “You know what? That doesn’t matter. I’d love to have dinner.”

  “Oh.” His tone grew decidedly more cheerful. “Great.”

  They met at Hole in the Wall, a tiny Italian place in Northbrook where the menu was posted on a large chalkboard. Despite its being a weeknight, there wasn’t an empty table, and waitresses carrying garlic-scented pastas wound carefully around customers’ elbows, knees, and winter coats draped over the backs of chairs.

  “It smells heavenly,” Georgia said as they waited for a table. “How did you know about this place?”

  “State secret.” He smiled and drew his fingers across his lips to indicate they were sealed.

  Georgia smiled back. “Oh. Of course. Ellie.”

  He was wearing a green sweater, collared shirt, and jeans that emphasized his best physical asset. When he smiled, the crow’s-feet in the corners of his eyes crinkled nicely. He caught her checking him out and his smile broadened, deepening the crow’s-feet. She looked down, suddenly self-conscious.

  “You look great too, Georgia.”

  Her lips parted. How did he—? Of course. He was a cop. A trained observer. She felt herself color. She was also in jeans but wore a black sweater with a bright-blue scarf. Her blond hair was down, and she had even put on makeup.

  The maître d’ led them to a table against the wall.

  “I forgot,” she said as they sat down.

  “What?”

  “That you’re a cop.”

  He laughed. “Don’t hold it against me.” It was a cheerful laugh. Genuine. She couldn’t help smiling.

  “You think it will last? Ellie and Luke?”

  He inclined his head, as if he thought it was an odd thing for her to ask. “Actually, I do. They fit well together. You know what I mean?”

  I’m glad someone does, she thought.

  The conversation through hors d’oeuvres and wine was light. Georgia peppered him with questions about being a cop in Lake Geneva, how he and Luke became friends, his family. But when their entrées came—pasta for him, veal for her—he held up a warning finger.

  “Tread carefully, Georgia. I know your MO.”

  She jerked her head up. “What do you mean?”

  “You keep asking me questions so you won’t have to reveal anything about yourself.” But his expression was warm and welcoming, and for the second time in less than an hour, she felt her cheeks burn. “I’m not falling for it,” he went on. “Your turn.”

  “There’s not much to tell.” She shrugged. “And this veal is wonderful.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” He extended his fork toward her plate. She cut a piece of veal, which he speared and put in his mouth. “You’re right.” He nodded and looped a forkful of pasta from his plate and offered it to her.

  She took it, chewed, and smiled. “Wonderful.”

  “But you’re not off the hook.”

  She lowered her fork to her plate. “I’m from a lace-curtain Irish family on the West side. My mother left when I was about ten. I lived with my father. He was a cop. Then I became one. That’s about it.”

  He let a moment go by. When she didn’t add anything, he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman with less to say.”

  She swallowed. When would she figure out the rules?

  Her self-criticism was cut short when he reached across the table where her hand lay and covered it with his own. “It’s okay.” He smiled. “I’ve got time.”

  Now her face was on fire.

  A moment later she slowly pulled her hand from his. “So tell me about the body of the pregnant woman.”

  He leaned back and laced his hands together. “She was a runaway.”

  “How did you trace her?”

  “Dental records.”

  “She was American?”

  Jimmy nodded. “Kansas City.”

  She tensed. “Was—was she in the trade?”

  “It would seem so. There were tracks on her arms. Faded, but you could see them.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Jennifer Madden.”

  Georgia relaxed. “How old?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Georgia remembered the billboards on the Ike. “Why didn’t she get an abortion? Why go through with the pregnancy?”

  He looked like he was considering her questions. “It was getting close. The autopsy said she was about six months at the time of death.” He hesitated. “I’m just speculating here, but it’s possible she didn’t have the money, or didn’t know where to go. Or maybe she wanted to have the baby.”

  “Maybe,” Georgia said. She wasn’t convinced.

  “You seem surprised she was American,” he said.

  She blinked. She’d forgotten about his cop’s observational skills. Again. “Um, well. I…I guess I expected something else.”

  “You mean girls brought in from other countries?”

  She nodded.

  “No one has a monopoly on sex trafficking these days.” He finished his pasta. “So. You want to tell me why you drove all the way out to Harvard on a cold Saturday morning to eyeball a pregnant corpse?”

  The waitress took their plates. Jimmy ordered coffee. Georgia studied him. It would feel good to talk it through. But not with a cop. She knew what he’d say. Still, if there was a chance he could shed some light on the situation and her sister, it might be worth it. So she told him about the note, the Russian guy who’d been killed in the drive-by, the DNA results, Benny’s, Bruce Kreisman, the warehouse. Jimmy listened without interrupting. She told him about the home pregnancy kit she’d found. “I know it’s a long shot, but I keep thinking maybe it was hers. Savannah’s.”

  Jimmy was quiet. Then, “And maybe it wasn’t.”

  “You think I’m trying to connect dots that aren’t there.”

  “I don’t know you that well.” He picked up his coffee. “But it does sound like you’ve spent a lot of time and energy on something that—well, you hope will be real.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “Your half sister. Who you’ve never met. And didn’t even know about ten days ago.”

  Georgia bristled. “Are you saying it’s not my sister? What about the DNA?”

  “What about it?”

  “There’s a better than ninety-five percent chance we’re related.”

  He tipped his head to the side. “By the way, what was the sample they used to extract DNA from your—sister?”

  “A drop of blood on a sandwich wrapper.”

  “A sandwich wrapper?”

  “Yeah.” Georgia mirrored his head movement. Why?”

  “Did you ever wonder how that blood got there? It’s not every day that you find blood on a sandwich wrapper.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, Jimmy. Maybe she bit her tongue. Cut her finger slicing the sandwich. Pricked her finger on a fucking needle.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m not getting at anything, Georgia. Except to suggest that you step back for a day or two and slow down. Look at it rationally. Is this something you really should pursue on your own? Why don’t you hand it over to the police? You used to be a cop. You know they’ll do the job.”

  “Yeah, but they’re not going to be looking out for my sister.”

  “I get that. But when sex trafficking is involved…and the Russian mob…” His voice softened. “You may not like what you find.”

  Chapter 35

  They shared a dessert and dawdled over coffee, both of them seemingly reluctant to see the evening end. Eventually, though, they left the warmth of the restaurant and stepped outside into a night so bitter that Georgia’s nose and throat felt peppery when she breathed. Jimmy walked her to her car.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “This was really nice.”

  Jimmy leaned over, cupped her cheeks in his hands, and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Yes. It was.”
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  She opened the door and slid into her car. He held up his hand and waited until she’d reversed out of the parking lot and turned onto Skokie Highway. As she cruised south on Frontage Road, she smiled. Jimmy got her. She was pretty sure she got him, too. It was the first time in—well—a long time. She blasted the heat, turned on the oldies radio station, and started singing along with the Four Tops. She hadn’t done that in a long time.

  It wasn’t until she was on the Edens heading south that she noticed the headlights in her rearview were a little too close. How long had they been there? She snapped off the radio and accelerated. The vehicle behind her did too. She slowed down and shifted lanes. So did the headlights. She was being tailed.

  It was a clear night, a half-moon bathing everything in silver. Back in the middle lane she peered into the rearview again, trying to make out the vehicle, but the headlights were blinding. They rode high, though, so she suspected it was an SUV or van. The fatal drive-by in Evanston a few weeks earlier had involved an SUV. She pulled out her cell and her baby Glock and laid them both on the passenger seat.

  It wasn’t until they were south of Willow that the tail made his move. The car sped up and pulled into the left lane as if to pass her. It was an SUV. But she knew the trick. The driver was trying to come abreast of her. She pulled into the far right lane, narrowly avoiding a collision with a truck, whose driver blasted his horn. She let the truck pass and settled in close behind, hoping it would move into the middle lane and block her from the SUV. Unfortunately the truck flashed its turn signal and exited on Dempster. Georgia followed suit, still hoping to use it for cover. The SUV careened up the exit behind them. But the truck suddenly slowed and pulled into a gas station just beyond the cloverleaf. Georgia didn’t have enough time to turn and follow the truck. She was in the open. Despite the cold night, droplets of sweat trickled down the back of her neck.

  She flew east on Dempster. Although it was heavily traveled, there were only two lanes in each direction. There wasn’t much traffic, and no snow, so Georgia tried to serpentine between the lanes, but the SUV mirrored her. Her only advantage was that the road was well lit, and in the glow of the streetlights she thought she could see two figures inside.

  She had to lose them.

  She was planning her next move when the SUV suddenly appeared on the shoulder to her right. She stiffened. The rear window rolled down, and the barrel of a long gun emerged. She floored her Toyota, unable to tell whether it was a shotgun or assault rifle. But Toyotas weren’t great on acceleration, and a second later she saw the flash of a muzzle and heard a cannon-like blast. Her car veered wildly and fishtailed into the oncoming lane, which, thankfully, was free of traffic. At the same time she realized she hadn’t been hit. But her tire was. The SUV peeled off at the next corner and headed south. She wrestled the Toyota to the shoulder and plowed into a snowbank.

  Chapter 36

  Georgia thought about calling the cops, then reconsidered. There was nothing they could do now except file a report, and she didn’t want to spend hours repeating the same thing to a beat cop or surly detective who’d been rousted out of bed. Instead she called AAA and waited for them in a twenty-four-hour coffee shop—she was too flustered, and it was too damn cold to change the tire herself—when her cell chirped. It was probably the mechanic who’d been tapped for the job. They were always late. Without checking the incoming number, she picked up.

  “Davis.”

  “Saclarides.”

  She was momentarily distracted. “Oh, hi.”

  “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say what a good time I had tonight.”

  She wanted to smile, but it didn’t come. “Me too.” Her voice broke.

  “Hey,” Jimmy said. “Is everything okay? You sound…strange.”

  She blew out a breath. “Someone just shot out my rear tire.”

  “What?”

  “It sounded like a shotgun.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On Dempster. East of Lincoln. The car’s on the shoulder. I’m in a coffee shop.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  *

  An hour later, she was on her way home, Jimmy following in his Accord. He’d insisted on changing the tire himself. She canceled AAA and when she got home, she started a pot of coffee. She joined Jimmy in the living room.

  “Thanks again for changing the tire.”

  He waved it off. “You didn’t call the cops.” It was a statement.

  She explained why.

  He shrugged. “Does that mean you have his plate and you’re going rogue?”

  She shook her head. “No plate. No ID. All I know is that it was a dark-colored SUV.” She stopped.

  He looked over. “What?”

  “I told you about the drive-by in Evanston, right? The Russian or Eastern European guy who got popped?”

  He nodded.

  “The shooter was in a dark SUV.”

  The coffeepot dinged. Jimmy rose and headed toward the kitchen.

  “I’ll get it,” she said.

  “Sit. Just tell me where the cups are. And sugar.”

  She did.

  He returned a minute later with two steaming mugs. “Someone who takes potshots at your tires is not good. You need to report this.”

  “Yeah, but here’s the thing. They were directly across from me in the next lane. They had a clear shot at my head, but they shot out the tire instead. Why?”

  “You tell me.”

  She shrugged. “No clue.”

  “Georgia, for a smart PI, you’re not acting like one.”

  “You think it has to do with Savannah?”

  “Do things like this happen to you on a regular basis?”

  “The drive-by in Evanston happened before I heard about Savannah. And there’s no reason to think the two events are connected. For all I know, this was just some asshole with a gun on a power trip.”

  Jimmy shot her a look. “Tell me something. If this happened to one of your clients, what would you tell them?”

  “That someone was trying to warn them. Or send them a message. That next time they might not be so lucky. That they needed to protect—”

  “Hell, Georgia,” Jimmy cut in. “This was no warning. You don’t shoot out a tire in the middle of the night with snow on the ground and not expect the driver to lose control and get hurt. Or worse. Maybe you should stop what you’re doing. Reassess. Go to Plan B.”

  “I can’t. I have a sister I didn’t know I had. She’s in Chicago and she needs me. I have to find her.”

  “Not if you’re going to have your head blown off in the process.”

  She wanted to tell him the rest, to pour it all out. That she was alone in this world. And that the mere suggestion she had a sibling had triggered a flicker of hope that maybe she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. That maybe there was someone she could call family. That the chance to end the curse of being nobody’s child was so seductive that she couldn’t abandon it. But she kept her mouth shut.

  Jimmy leaned toward her, elbows on his knees. “Plus, there’s the fact that I’ve just started to know you, and I want to know you better. A lot better.”

  A tiny smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For caring.” She put her coffee cup down, reached out, and stroked his cheek.

  He went very still, as if anything he did or said would break the spell.

  She dropped her hand. “You know something?” she said softly. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

  He broke into a smile. “Neither do I.”

  Chapter 37

  Savannah—Nine Months Earlier

  Savannah thought she was entering the Emerald City. The lights weren’t entirely green, but there were plenty of them, and despite the dark—it had to be after midnight—the city sparkled. Cars glided down streets, bright headlights chased the night away, and a steady hum seemed to pulse through the air. A hazy memory of her childh
ood kicked in, and she recalled her mother calling Chicago the promised land. Vanna smiled to herself. She’d made the right decision.

  The bus entered a tunnel, then lurched to a stop. The sleeping woman beside her, who smelled so vile Vanna had to breathe through her mouth, snorted and blinked awake. Vanna hoped the woman’s body odor wasn’t contagious. As people shuffled off the bus, most of them still sleepy and slow, she grabbed her backpack and climbed down.

  Her fellow passengers scattered, some heading through an arch with a sign that led to public transportation. Others, greeted by friends or family, proceeded out to the street. Vanna hadn’t considered what she would do when she arrived; she never thought she’d actually make it to Chicago. But here she was.

  She followed some of the passengers out to the street. Huge skyscrapers were illuminated, their lit windows sparkling like stars. A hazy glow suffused the sky, lightening it from black to grayish orange. The Loop, she recalled. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been in big cities before. They’d lived in Tucson, Houston, and Albuquerque, but there was something different about Chicago. She could feel it.

  It was late March, and flowers were blooming in Colorado. Here, though, the frigid air had a bite; she was glad she’d “borrowed” her mother’s jacket. She hurried back inside.

  The interior of the terminal was as big as a train station, with arcades and shops, now closed, leading off a main hall. The walls were white and spruced up with gaily colored murals; this was not the tiled wall, concrete floor, and shabby ticket booth of the bus depots she knew. The place was well lit, and if you didn’t know what time it was, you couldn’t tell it was the middle of the night. Still, the fluorescent lights gave everyone a slightly green cast. Emerald City—a place where magic dust was dispensed by fairies who never slept. She giggled.

  “What’s so funny, sweetheart?” a male voice said behind her.

  The giggle died in her throat. Startled, she spun around. A man was checking her out. He had thick dark hair and dark eyes. He wasn’t bad looking and was probably somewhere between thirty and forty. But he was nicely dressed in a white shirt, brown leather jacket, and khakis. Her gaze went to his shoes. Her mother always said to check a stranger’s shoes. If they were in good shape, the person cared about their appearance. His were shiny black loafers that looked almost new. A good sign.