by Jory Strong
She dried off and got dressed. They were waiting for her in the kitchen, only this morning the thought of making breakfast, sitting at the table together as if this was her everyday life, made her throat burn.
“Why don’t we grab something to eat on the way to Stanford?”
Their expressions shuttered.
“Sure,” Tyler said. “My car’s still parked at Shane’s.”
They passed the Jeep with its blown-out windows.
“Want to bet on how long it’s going to take until someone starts a betting pool on what happened last night?” Shane asked, but the usual zest was missing.
She couldn’t stand knowing that her avoidance when it came to talking about their relationship was hurting them. She caught their hands, entwined her fingers with theirs, squeezed, silently asking them to give her time.
Her eyes teared when they returned the squeeze. Shane lightened the mood by swinging their two arms and then Tyler did the same, as if they were kids and life was a playground.
They reached Shane’s house.
Tyler looked toward what must be Braden’s.
“You check on your girls and Braden’s going to get a read on the situation,” Shane said.
“Think I’ll hold off on that.”
She claimed the backseat. Shane rode shotgun.
They grabbed breakfast burritos then cruised the Stanford campus.
It was Shane who spotted the Spyder.
When they reached it, Madison pulled the key from her pocket.
It slid into the lock on the driver’s side and turned easily.
She opened the door and unlocked the passenger side.
Tyler went around while Shane leaned against the car.
She searched her side. Tyler searched the other.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Same here. Pop the trunk.”
She did and the two of them joined Shane at the back of the car.
A thick manila envelope lay on carpeting.
Madison lifted it out of the trunk, opened the envelope and glanced inside. “Newspaper clippings and pages ripped from magazines.”
“So who is he?” Shane asked.
She pulled the stack of papers upward without removing them from the envelope. “His name has been blacked out.”
Shane’s shoulders sagged. “Fuck. So it’s another clue?”
“Looks like.” And remembering the bet they’d made after leaving the hotel, she said, “I’ll start mulling over my various fantasies.”
Shane grinned and straightened. “There is that.”
“Back to my place?” Tyler asked.
Shane shut the trunk. “Works for me.”
She pushed the clippings into the envelope. They bunched and didn’t go all the way in. She left them that way until they were at Tyler’s.
Pulling them all the way out, she saw the cause of the jam and tilted the envelope, catching the Boy Scout badges and the heart-shaped locket.
Des was written on the back.
“Bio-mom’s,” Shane said at the same time Madison thought, my mother’s.
Thinking of Desiree like that felt…okay. It didn’t burden her with guilt or divide her loyalties.
Madison opened it. On the left half was her mother’s picture. On the right, one of her at two, along with a strand of hair.
“She must have given it to him when she surrendered me,” Madison said, wondering if his hanging on to it meant he’d always intended to one day meet her, or if he’d kept it like a talisman, as a reminder not to screw up again.
The locket joined the pictures, the birth certificate, the drum sticks, the clues and school keycard, on the table.
She looked at the two badges still in her hand. One had a tent. The other had two bullets and what might be a pouch for gun powder.
“Camping and shooting,” she said. “Something he was proud of? Or something that represents a good memory, to offset his being a junkie?”
Shane shrugged. “Could also mean he was a Boy Scout leader. Or involved in the organization.”
She put them on the table and turned her attention to the stack of newspaper clippings and magazine articles.
The first one was an announcement, a small insertion in a newspaper’s business section mentioning that Bio-dad, his name blacked-out, a recent Stanford graduate, was joining a venture capital firm, its name also blacked-out, started by his father. The letter T was underlined in the final sentence.
Shane gave a long, tortured sigh.
Tyler laughed and said, “It’s not like this is going to require the big head to do a lot of thinking.”
Madison snickered and placed the clipping to the far left of the table.
Next came several articles about successful start-up companies backed by the venture capital firm. Then a few more, of companies that had ultimately gone public.
Each article had a single letter underlined: h e r e i s o.
She placed them next to the first clipping, separating them in batches to form the beginning of a sentence: There is o…
Another business section clipping announced that Bio-dad had become a partner in the firm. The one that followed was an obituary, marking the death of his father. The letters n and e were underlined.
There is one…
Accolades for Bio-dad’s generosity dominated the next batch of articles. He’d gifted millions, not just to big, national charities, but to Bay Area music programs, including several meant for at-risk youths.
“He made something of himself and he gave back,” Madison said, understanding why he’d set her on this quest to get to know him, but no longer resenting it.
She was ready to meet him. She wanted to meet him.
Adding the articles to the others and separating them, the message read: There is one last destinati…
Tyler tapped the very first clipping. “Like I said, this one’s not going to require the big head to do much thinking.”
There is one last destination.
The next two articles held to the theme of Bio-dad’s generosity.
The final one, with nothing on it blacked-out, told her that she’d been wrong in thinking she understood his motivation.
“He’s dead.”
The words felt strange on her lips.
Staring at the obituary, looking for her own features in his, she felt numb. Angry. Disappointed.
“He’s dead,” she repeated, both Shane and Tyler crowding close, their arms going around her as they read Walter Douglas Bramel’s obituary.
A lot of it was a rehash of what they’d learned in the articles and clippings. But cause of death…
A fast cancer. One diagnosed far too late to stop.
He was dead soon after he’d rented the postal box in The Castro.
Madison didn’t know how to process it. But she was honest enough to admit she wouldn’t have welcomed him into her life if he’d traveled to Richmond while the man she called Dad was also battling cancer.
Had he wanted to? Not intruded for that very reason?
Her gaze returned to his picture. Ache spread through her chest. Tears she wouldn’t have thought possible when she sat across the desk from the lawyer in Richmond formed and slid downward.
She brushed them away. “Why do this? Why bring me out here? Why the clues and this whole quest to get to know him, when he’s not here to get to know?”
Shane touched his mouth to her hair. “Clearing his conscience? Maybe wanting to help the family that’d raised you, but at the same time, get his money’s worth by forcing you to get to know him, to feel something for him.”
Tyler covered her hand with his. “He never had other children.”
Not that there was a mention of her in the obituary. The last line said he was survived by his wife and his mother.
“There is one last destination,” she said, glancing at the sentence they’d made out of the underlined letters.
She didn’t think it was meeting his wife. “Where does
his mother live?”
Shane used his phone to find the answer. “Presidio Heights. The wife lives in Russian Hill.”
“Let’s go to Presidio Heights.”
Tyler’s hand tightened on hers. “Madison—”
“Maybe that’s also part of this, not just clearing his conscience, but giving me a chance to have more family. Or if it’s not about me, maybe it’s for his mother, to give her someone. Meeting this grandmother isn’t going to be worse than meeting the one in the trailer park. Trust me. I have no expectations.”
She took a deep breath, shoved the spread-out clippings and magazine articles into a single pile. “No warning. I just show up. Get a read and take it from there.”
“Okay,” Tyler said on a sigh.
Shane nodded, his expression tight. “Let’s go.”
She picked up the locket. It seemed too personal to leave behind.
Chapter Twelve
The house surprised Madison. Somehow she’d expected it to appear austere and imposing on the outside. Instead its warm peach exterior, its multitude of white-trimmed windows and elegant lines invited appreciation.
It rose three stories from a street-level garage and the entryway. It was capped with an attic beneath a steeply pitched roof that looked like a cluster of gray pyramids.
White fencing corralled a terraced sitting area above the garage and entryway, extending into a backyard Madison imagined contained colorful flowerbeds and sculptured art.
She pressed a button beneath an intercom speaker.
A moment later a woman’s voice asked them to identify themselves.
They exchanged glances.
Tyler leaned close to the speaker, giving his name and identifying them as private investigators with Crime Tells.
A hum signaled the door unlocking.
Madison opened it and the three of them stepped into an entranceway done in the same warm peach as the exterior of the house.
A potted tree decorated the left corner. A black, gray and white patterned mat was positioned in front of a wrought-iron staircase leading to the terrace above.
They climbed, emerging on the terrace and crossing to the wider staircase that led to the front door.
An older woman opened it. She gasped and staggered backward, hands clutched above her heart.
Madison’s jolted in response. “Are you okay?”
The woman’s mouth moved without any words coming out. Her eyes glistened. She inhaled sharply, said in a hoarse, choked, voice, “I didn’t believe there was really a child. The drugs. All the lying. The willingness to say anything, do anything to get the money so he could buy them.”
She took a deep, shaky breath. A second one.
“Forgive me. Forgive me. I’m Eloise. Your grandmother.”
She placed a tentative hand on Madison’s arm, a fleeting touch as if to assure herself that she wasn’t imagining things.
Madison’s own heart felt lodged in her throat.
How can she know who I am?
Madison studied the face in front of her as thoroughly as she was being studied. They shared the same eye shape, the same blue color. It didn’t seem like nearly enough, not to gain the kind of reaction she’d gotten.
Her grandmother took a steadier breath. She straightened. “Forgive me. Come in. Please come in.”
They introduced themselves as they entered the house.
The foyer was warm elegance. Wooden floors shone, their hue matched in the staircase up to a second floor, and by the heavy wood paneling that reached nearly to a ceiling with exposed beams.
A chandelier was suspended above a small glass table housing a flowering plant and positioned in the center of a white rug.
The wooden flooring extended into a sitting room, with another white rug and light shining in from floor-to-ceiling windows.
A white couch was garnished with white throw pillows. Madison claimed the middle cushion, placing the pillows on her lap.
“Here, let me take those for you. Silly things, really, aren’t they?”
Shane and Tyler dropped to the couch on either side of her.
Her grandmother reached, hand hesitating as if she wanted to brush her fingertips against Madison’s cheek.
Madison relinquished the pillows.
Her grandmother placed them in a chair. She shook her head, her smile bemused. “I can’t get over it. You could be my mother’s twin. Not now of course, but when she was your age. I’ll get a picture of her, and there’s someone you need to meet.”
She left the room, returning minutes later to sit in a second white chair and offer Madison a photograph.
Madison took it and understood why her appearance had sent her grandmother staggering backward.
“Her name is Kathleen Howell. Her maiden name was Gulliver.”
It was a portrait shot, her great-grandmother sitting on a bench beneath a tree with white blossoms. She wore a light blue dress and a small strand of pearls with matching earrings. Her blonde hair was back in an elegant bun, her lips curved in a slight smile.
Shane whistled softly. “Madison looks exactly like her.”
“So she’s still alive?” Madison asked.
“Yes. She’s ninety-two. She had me late in life. I’d like for her to live here, but she’s refused. In the first years of her marriage to my father, his father lived with them. She’s determined not to do the same thing to me.”
Madison didn’t know either woman, or what kind of relationship they had, and yet this glimpse of them made her like them both.
“Does she live close by?” Madison asked.
“Yes. She’ll be thrilled to meet you. But I’ll need to prepare her for it first. And now, I want to know everything, where you’ve been.” Her smile dimmed. “I have to assume you didn’t meet your father. When he came to me—”
She swallowed. Inhaled shakily. Swallowed. Eyes glistening again.
“When he came to me, telling me he needed to get his affairs in order, he said he was going to look for you. I’d forgotten his claim that he’d gotten a girl pregnant.” She dabbed at her eyes. “We didn’t speak about it again and so I assumed he’d been unsuccessful, or realized the child wasn’t his or that there wasn’t one after all. His health deteriorated so quickly. Did his lawyer find you?”
Her grandmother glanced at Shane, then Tyler, and gave a deprecating laugh. “Foolish question. You said you were from Crime Tells. I recognize that name. I’m so glad you were successful in finding Madison.”
Her attention returned to Madison. Her smile was a sunburst that quickly dimmed. “I wish Walter had lived long enough to meet you, or at least know you’d been found.”
“He did,” Madison said.
Her grandmother’s smile wobbled. “I don’t understand.”
“I think he’s probably always known where I was, or at least how to find me.”
Her grandmother’s eyebrows drew together. “That doesn’t make sense. If he knew, then why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he bring you home?”
The smile faded completely then. The warmth disappeared from her grandmother’s blue eyes.
“I see,” her grandmother said, spine straightening. In those two words, her voice conveyed that she’d just labeled Madison a parasitic opportunist who’d only chosen to come now because of the money.
Madison hated being thought of that way. Hated the loss of the warmth. Hated that there was a measure of truth in it, at least at the start.
“He didn’t contact me while he was alive. I believe he knew my father was battling cancer. I had no clue your son even knew of my existence until four days ago, when I got a letter from a lawyer. I thought I was born in Newport News, Virginia. I grew up in Virginia. I’d been told his name wasn’t on the birth certificate and that my birth-mother claimed not to know who my father was.”
Her grandmother’s mouth and eyes didn’t soften. “You came across country to show up at my door without warning. Why?”
If not for th
e initial greeting, Madison would have been tempted to say I don’t need this, and leave. But in fairness…
Initially it was because of the money that she’d agreed to meet Johansen. And it was because of the promise of more money that she’d agreed to come to California.
“He wanted me to get to know him. I think he wanted me to end up here, talking to you, though I didn’t even know his name until a little while ago, when we found the last treasure cache and saw the clippings and then the obituary.”
The frozen lines of her grandmother’s face were broken by puzzlement. “Treasure cache?”
Was there any reason not to tell her? To hold back?
They’d reached the end of the hunt.
She glanced at Tyler. He shrugged.
She glanced at Shane. He covered her hand with his, squeezed. Your call.
Madison started at the beginning, hesitated when she got to the contents of the box in The Castro.
Her grandmother’s lips tightened at learning about the forged birth certificate. The small shake of her head expressed her disapproval. “If only I’d known, you could have grown up in this house.”
Madison’s heart lightened, then further lightened when her grandmother’s expression didn’t harden with mention of the checks, though she asked for the name of the San Francisco law firm they’d been written on.
“Do you have the locket with you?” her grandmother asked after learning the contents of the final cache. “Or one of the pictures of your mother?”
“Just the locket.”
She let her grandmother see it.
Her grandmother said, “Will you keep looking for her?”
Yes. No. Until she talked to her parents, she didn’t have an answer other than, “I’d like to know what happened to her.”
A doorbell tone sounded throughout the house.
Her grandmother stood. “Excuse me for a moment.”
She returned with an attractive auburn-haired woman whose cold, assessing eyes raked Madison.
“This is Geneva, Walter’s wife,” her grandmother said, completing the introductions as Geneva sat, then quickly relaying the details of how the three of them had come to be there.