Pushing Up Bluebonnets

by Leann Sweeney

  Her thick dark lashes rested against the purple cres cents under her eyes. She had a battered forehead, a split lip and stitches above the largest lump on her forehead. Any skin not bruised was as pale as the sheets.

  ''Heck fire,'' I whispered. I blinked several times, wondering how anyone would recognize this young woman, even someone who knew her. Seemed a miracle to me that she wasn't already pushing up bluebonnets.

  I'd stopped a few feet into the room, but Boyd urged me toward the bed with a gentle hand on my back. ''Get closer. Try to picture her without all the damage.''

  ''Kinda hard, Cooper, but I'll give it a try.''

  When I came up beside her, I tilted my head, hoping to get a feel for a profile, maybe. That helped a little. Then I squinted, mentally thinning her face. That seemed to work, too. I could envision the person who might lie beneath the injuries. A sweet face, late teens, early twenties maybe.

  ''Sorry. I don't think I know her,'' I finally said.

  ''You're not sure, though?'' Boyd said.

  ''Like you said, her face is pretty messed up. Maybe I could come back in a few days? Have another look?''

  This wasn't what Boyd wanted to hear. ''See, I don't know if I can come back. There's only four officers in Pineview.''

  ''I can come by myself.'' I smiled and tried to sound encouraging. ''I sincerely want to help. If I could have that copy of my card, I'll enhance it on my PC. I get plenty of letters and maybe I could match the handwriting.''

  He pulled the paper from his pocket and handed it to me. ''Anything's worth a try, I guess.'' But glum was the only word to describe Cooper Boyd.

  ''Can I buy you lunch? The cafeteria in the basement here isn't half bad.''

  ''I don't think—''

  ''Come on.'' I tugged his arm, anxious to escape the sleeping Jane Doe. I felt helpless seeing her so still, so banged up and with no family to hold her hand. I understood why Boyd was bummed out. ''You need a decent meal before you head back to Pineview.''

  We took the elevator down, both of us silent. I was thinking how I'd hate to be comatose with no one there to cheer me on, sing to me or talk to me and make me want to fight for my life. Maybe that's what Cooper Boyd was thinking, too.

  Once in the cafeteria I chose the comfort of macaroni and cheese—with a salad to cancel out the fat and carbs.

  Boyd had a sandwich piled high with turkey and lettuce on whole-grain bread with no mayo. I should introduce him to Kate. Maybe they could share a soy smoothie or a black-bean burger. I glanced at Boyd's ring finger, making sure I hadn't seen a wedding band. Yup. My brain had registered correctly. Not that Kate needed to date another older man. She'd been there, done that, and it had been a disaster. And besides, she'd apparently given up dating altogether thanks to him. Every woman I know has had some jerk mess with her head, but this particular male mistake had taken a big toll.

  ''You prefer small-town police work over the FBI?'' I asked. I needed to slow down on the mac and cheese. I was upset after what I'd seen upstairs and emotional eating always seems to add twice as many inches to my thighs. Which means twice as long a workout to remove those inches.

  ''They're very different. The FBI was my dream job and I learned a lot. But that's over now.''

  There was a story here, one he wasn't about to share with a stranger. This was a scarred man and I sure did wonder why.

  2

  A half hour later, I returned to my home in the West University area, anxious to scan the poor copy of my card so I could enhance and enlarge the writing, but unfortunately my aunt Caroline's Cadillac pulled into my driveway right behind me. Great. What did she want?

  But she got right to the point. ''We need to talk about your sister, Abigail,'' she said as she got out of her car. Then she marched past me and opened the back gate. ''You need to keep this gate locked. I hope you haven't left the house unlocked, too.''

  I silently counted to ten and smiled. ''Nice you could drop by.''

  I unlocked the back door, which prompted, ''At least you have some sense'' from my aunt. We walked through the mudroom and into the kitchen.

  ''Where have you been, by the way?'' She dropped her latest Prada handbag on the oak kitchen table. ''I drove by at least five times.''

  ''Out on business, if that's okay with you.'' It wasn't really business. I had no client, but she didn't need to know that.

  ''Oh. You mean snooping around and getting yourself in trouble again. I wondered if you'd perhaps met Katherine for lunch.''

  ''Sorry, no. And 'snooping around,' as you call it, happens to be my job. Can I get you something to drink?'' I was getting better at letting her remarks pass without too much sarcasm. Besides, I was wondering if she was sick. I'd noticed that sweat had beaded along her snowy hairline, which was puzzling. She'd been in her very airconditioned luxury car, after all.

  Aunt Caroline sat in one of the kitchen chairs. ''Water, please. Lime if you have it.''

  ''I do. It's Corona season and Jeff likes lime in his beer.''

  As I cut up a lime, Aunt Caroline said, ''He's still hanging around, is he? How's he coping with the sister— the one who's, well, you know.''

  ''The one who has Down syndrome? Doris is a delight. Matter of fact, she and Jeff are coming for dinner tonight.'' I plopped lime wedges into two glasses of ice water and brought them to the table.

  ''You're cooking? My word, the earth has tilted a bit more on its axis.'' She gulped greedily at the water.

  I lifted my chin. ''Yes, I am cooking. I do know how.'' Actually we were ordering pizza and watching one of Doris's favorite DVDs, Finding Nemo. Movies and pizza had become our Friday night ritual. Jeff didn't make it half the time because of his job, but Doris's caretaker, Loreen, would sometimes join us.

  ''You should know how to cook,'' Aunt Caroline said. ''Chef Ramone cost us a pretty penny for those lessons. But as I recall, he said you'd rather play with the food than learn the basics of preparation.''

  ''I was twelve, Aunt Caroline. I still played with my G.I. Joes, too. I wasn't the only one in the family who enjoyed boy toys.''

  Damn. Sarcastic relapse. I hate when that happens.

  Aunt Caroline's face became infused with color. She'd given up face-lifts for injections from her dermatologist— all kinds of procedures to smooth the wrinkles she'd earned after seventy-plus years on earth. But they only made her look like a doll with a plastic face and I was surprised there was actually a blood supply to the surface.

  ''How rude, Abigail,'' she said. ''You know my dalliances ended a long time ago.''

  ''Try about two years ago. Anyway, you came to talk about Kate?''

  ''Yes. I went over to her house last night and found her in her pajamas. She'd been reading a book. It was only eight o'clock and she looked exhausted and, well, depressed. I am very concerned about her. A thirty-oneyear-old woman should not be holed up like a nun.''

  I had to agree with my aunt. I was worried, too. But the last thing Kate needed was Aunt Caroline sticking her nose in this. ''Give her time to heal,'' I said.

  ''She's had enough time. It's been ten months since that horrible man fooled her into believing he cared for her. She's refused every date I've tried to set up for her—close to forty of them. Now it's your turn. Do you know anyone suitable? He has to have money, of course. We don't want someone taking advantage of her. You two are blessed with wealth, but it does make you vulnerable to predators, so—''

  ''I am not setting her up with anyone. She'll move forward when she's ready.'' I so wanted to believe that, but I honestly wasn't sure. My sister had changed—her smile now not as spontaneous, her dark eyes lacking the spark I'd once thought would always be there.

  ''But don't you see, Abigail? Katherine needs—''

  ''Aunt Caroline,'' I interrupted. I had to get her off this subject. ''Remember when you helped me organize files a while back?''

  Her eyes brightened. ''Do you need help again? Silly question. Of course you do. Your organizational skills are . . . well, an
yway. I'd be glad to assist.''

  ''It's not filing, actually.'' Finding out who was lying in that hospital bed was more important than allowing Aunt Caroline to meddle in Kate's business through me.

  ''I'm very good with any office task.'' She stood and rubbed her hands together. ''Let's get started.''

  I took a deep breath and removed the folded paper from my pants pocket. ''Hope you're wearing those bifocal contact lenses. You'll need good eyes for this job.''

  I explained about the unidentified woman and how I hoped I could match the handwriting on the card to some letter I might have received from a prospective client.

  ''Since you didn't recognize her when you saw her,'' Aunt Caroline said, ''this could be a waste of time.''

  ''You don't have to help if—''

  ''Are you being facetious? I can't think of a better way to waste time than solving a mystery like this. Wait until I tell the girls at the club.''

  I had to smile. The ''girls'' ranged in age from seventy to ninety. ''Let's get started, then.''

  I hadn't spent more than two hours alone with my aunt in years—mostly because being with her is like wearing shoes that hurt—but we had a focus other than my life or Kate's, so I hoped I could tolerate her.

  I'd printed a thousand business cards when I started up my agency, and gave the first hundred to Angel Molina, my mentor, who had a PI business of his own. He sent me my first few cases and still called me when he had a potential client for me. I'd handed out dozens of cards when I was meeting clients or investigating someone's past. And I'd also sent them attached to every letter I answered along with my tip sheets. Only about two hundred cards remained. That meant I could have as many as six hundred letters in the file boxes in my office.

  Matching a snippet of handwriting on a business card to the writing in one of those letters seemed about as likely to happen as a pig laying eggs, especially since half were probably printed on a computer and bore only signatures. But I'd promised Cooper Boyd I'd do what I could to help identify his mystery woman.

  I went to my office and scanned and enhanced the xeroxed card, and printed out one copy for Aunt Caroline and one for me. Then I took two file boxes with my saved correspondence into the kitchen.

  ''Get comfortable. This will take some time,'' I said.

  But she'd already brought in a throw cushion from the living room and tucked it between her back and the chair.

  She maintained slow-paced but intense interest in those letters and I asked her to speed up more than once. This wasn't story time at the library, though some of those letters did read like Shakespearean tragedies. Adoption is usually a wonderful thing and some of my cases have produced reunions that turned out to be dreams come true. But not everyone gets what they expect when they search for secrets in their past.

  In the three hours that followed, Aunt Caroline and

  I compared that small sample of handwriting over and over. I kept glancing her way wondering if this task was making her fatigued. Her doctored skin held up, but her shoulders slumped and she had to use lens solution several times. Plus she drank enough water to float the battleship Texas and that meant a hundred trips to the bathroom.

  ''This seems like an exercise in futility,'' I finally said. I was getting even more worried about her. We were almost done and Jeff and I could finish this tonight after Doris went to bed. Yes, there was a much-anticipated sleepover planned. Besides, I didn't want Aunt Caroline asking me when I would need to start ''cooking'' for the expected company.

  ''We're not quitting now, Abigail. It's only four o'clock. We can get the rest done in the next hour.''

  ''But—''

  ''I have twelve letters in my 'maybe pile.' How many in yours?'' she said.

  ''Only six.''

  ''Let's plow through the rest and then revisit those remaining letters,'' she said.

  There was no arguing with Aunt Caroline—not ever. But even I was getting tired. ''How about chocolate to get us through this, then?''

  She tilted her head and squirted more lens solution in her eyes. ''Chocolate sounds wonderful.''

  Two Ghirardelli dark bars later, Aunt Caroline and I were revived. She was downright giddy with energy.

  We started in again and I could understand why fingerprint experts used to be able to spot a matching print just by looking at it. It's because they'd compared that print over and over with hundreds of samples.

  The same thing happened to me when I picked up my second letter after our chocolate fix. I let out a ''Yes, ma'am,'' and stood up with my arms raised, like a football fan whose team had scored the winning touchdown as the clock ran down.

  ''You found it?'' Aunt Caroline said. ''Let me see.''

  She started to grab for the letter, but I stepped away from her outstretched hand. ''There could be fingerprints on this. Chief Boyd might be able to match them to the mystery woman.'' I walked to the kitchen drawer where I keep the Ziploc bags. Using my thumb and index finger, I carefully put the letter in a bag and walked back to the table.

  ''I'll read it to you,'' I said.

  But this time, she was able to snatch the bagged letter before I could blink. She should consider pickpocket school, I decided.

  She read:

  Dear Ms. Rose,

  I learned about you from a Houston TV morning show. I am adopted and would like to find my birth family. If you could help me, I would very much appreciate it. Please let me know what you charge and use the enclosed stamped envelope for your answer.

  Yours truly, JoLynn Richter

  ''May I please have that back? I need to call Chief Boyd.''

  But Aunt Caroline was squinting, her gaze traveling between the letter and the copy of my business card. Then she leaned back. ''I think this is the same handwriting.''

  I wanted to say, ''Um, yeah, 'cause it's as plain as the hand on the end of your arm,'' but I did appreciate her help and instead said, ''Glad you agree. Now, I've got to phone Chief Boyd and then start dinner. Can I get you anything before you go?''

  Aunt Caroline started to rise and I could tell she was a little hurt that I seemed to be kicking her out—which I sort of was.

  But when her eyes rolled back and she crumbled to the floor, I quickly realized her expression had nothing to do with hurt feelings.

  3

  Terrified, I hurried over and knelt beside my aunt, fearing she'd had a heart attack. That's how my daddy— her brother—had died. Just keeled over and never took another breath. But when my shaking hand felt for a pulse, I discovered her heart was pumping hard and steady.

  Resting a hand on her cheek, I said her name, then got close to her face to make sure she was breathing. She smelled like she'd been chewing Juicy Fruit gum all day and that's when I knew what was wrong. I do occasionally read my Prevention magazines—Kate had given me a subscription as a Christmas gift.

  I leaned back on my heels and whispered, ''You're a diabetic, Aunt Caroline.''

  She was starting to come around and I wasn't about to let her run this rodeo. I pulled my cell from my pocket and called 911 before she fully opened her eyes. By the time the paramedics took her away, she was still almost as quiet as a sparrow in a hawk's nest, not hollering for them to leave her alone like I would have expected. She didn't even seem to know where she was. That meant she was definitely sick and I was definitely feeling guilty about that giant chocolate bar she'd eaten right before she passed out.

  I'd given this information to the paramedics, mentioned the fatigue and the hundred drinks of water and told them I'd be at Methodist Hospital as soon as I made some phone calls. No ''cooking'' tonight. Heck, now I even felt guilty about lying to Aunt Caroline about that.

  I called Kate first—she's a psychologist and was still

  at her office in the Medical Center. I told her what happened. She was upset, wondering immediately why she hadn't picked up on the symptoms. She had a client who was diabetic, after all. I decided we both needed to shelve the guilt trip and said I'd meet her at M
ethodist Hospital. Jeff was next on my call list, but he wasn't available, as usual, so I left a message. I was about to call Loreen, Doris's caretaker, when someone knocked on the door. I checked the security monitor and saw Loreen and Doris standing on the stoop holding hands.

  I opened the door and they stepped in out of the heat. After Doris gave me a big hug, she hurried off to find Diva. Meanwhile, I told Loreen what had happened.

  I said, ''I have to go to the hospital, but if you could please stay here with Doris, order pizza and—''

  ''I'm so sorry, Abby, but I can't. You know that guy I was telling you about? The one I met at the post office?''