Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)(6)

“You can do this,” she says, correctly reading one of the reasons for my reluctance. “It’s easy.”

Cora’s faith in my Internet searching skills is out of proportion with the couple hours I spent today learning how to do it. And as much as I don’t want to pry into Vera’s background, I also don’t want anyone else to do it.

“Okay.” All my reasoning doesn’t make me feel less shitty about what I’m going to do.

“We could use some help around the office. I was thinking of asking Mr. Nash about hiring you on…if you’re interested.”

“So I can terrorize Savannah permanently instead of temporarily?”

“You don’t terrorize her.”

I lift my eyebrows in response.

“She might be a bit nervous around you,” she concedes. “She’ll get over it.”

“In the meantime, I’ll have to learn to ignore her flinches and suppressed screams?”

“I’ll get Leo to talk to her.”

“Thanks for the job offer, but no, thanks.”

“I could really use the help.”

What she doesn’t say is that I need a job so I can move out of her small garage apartment and get a place of my own. She’d never kick me out, but with Leo coming for a visit, her six-hundred-square-foot studio is about to get very, very crowded. Since no one else has been interested in hiring me, this potential office job could be the start of an employment record I can build on. I need a job and money. What I don’t need is a reminder of my past every time Savannah squeaks like a mouse caught in a trap.

“This isn’t some bullshit charity offer, is it?”

“No. Mr. Nash isn’t in the office as much as he used to be. He’s trying out semi-retirement so we’re a man short. I really do need the help. What do you say?” She’s not lying. I’d know it if she was.

“You really think I’ll be any good at this investigation stuff?”

“Yeah, I do. You caught on pretty quickly, and the rest isn’t hard. Basically, all it takes is tenacity, and I know you have that in spades. Start here. See where it goes. If you don’t like the work, you can always quit. I won’t hold it against you, and neither would Mr. Nash.” She puts her hand on mine to stop my drumming fingers. “You have to start somewhere, Beau. It might as well be here.” Her voice is quiet yet pleading.

I know my inability to figure my shit out worries her and I can’t keep disappointing her. She’d tell me I’m not, but I know I am. I’m disappointing myself. She’s right. I have to start somewhere. I have to find something that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning. Maybe this is it. At the very least, maybe this job will help me figure out where to go next.

“Let me talk to Savannah before you go to Mr. Nash,” I tell her.

“Okay.” She does a little bounce in her chair, her lips curling inward like she’s trying to suppress a grin.

I wish she wasn’t so excited. If I can’t get Savannah to stop looking at me like I’ll jump her, this whole conversation is a waste and so is Cora’s enthusiasm.

“Hey, Bluebird.” Leo leans in the doorway of the conference room.

Cora leaps out of her seat and runs at Leo. He meets her halfway, catching her in a spinning hug. The months she and Leo have been together are the happiest I’ve ever seen my sister. I scoop up Vera’s papers and photos, go around the table, and slip past them and out the door. Leo kissing Cora is not something I want to stick around to watch.

Savannah’s on the phone, so I head to Cora’s office and begin my search. My mind’s back on Vera. I feel like I owe her an apology for what I’m about to do. Or at the very least a heads-up. I start with the genealogy site Cora showed me earlier and plug in Trudy Saint Claire, Vera’s mother’s name. There are birth and death birth certificates for her. I dig some more and come up with two children—a son and a daughter. The daughter is Marie Anne Saint Claire. There is no third child. No other daughter.

The question becomes: Who is Vera Swain, if she’s not Marie’s sister?

I clear the search and type in Vera’s name and birth date from the form Cora had her fill out. While the site does its thing I open another window and pull up the address she gave. It’s to one of those P.O. box places. I do a reverse lookup with the phone number she listed. It comes up with no information. I go back to the genealogy site and click on Vera’s birth record. The birth date matches. Her parents are listed as Karen and Michael Swain. She was born in—ironically—Agenda, Wisconsin. I click on the other document and holy shit. Vera Swain died when she was three years old.

If the real Vera is dead, who was the woman who came in to the office and kicked my world on its ass?





Chapter 4


Vera


I don’t have much of value. I’ve left so many things behind that objects no longer have any meaning for me. I could walk out of this pay-by-the-week motel with nothing but the clothes on my back and I’d find a way to survive. It’s a skill that served me well as I got tossed from group home to foster home and back again, and then when I was finally spit out into the world with literally nothing. I left everything when I escaped…including my name. You don’t know what your limits are until they’re pushed past breaking. My boundaries have been stitched and restitched back together too many times. I no longer have a sense of what it’s like to be able to set my own parameters.