An Act of Persuasion(87)

“Are you lying?”

“Yes. You know that’s what I say to all my clients when I’ve got zilch. I’ve been tied up with the Anderson case. Because it was a high-profile cold case, the sheriff of Montgomery County was anxious to have my input. I feel like I had to put my energies there first.”

“No, of course. You did great work on that case. Based on what you found the coroner confirmed it wasn’t a suicide as previously thought. Sally Anderson was murdered and now she has a chance for justice.”

“If the sheriff or I can find her killer. The trail is like an iceberg at this point.”

“You’ll do it.”

“Such confidence. But I guess that’s what I do...bring justice to the masses.”

He was laughing at himself in a self-deprecating way, but Anna didn’t discount the importance of Mark’s successes. “You know you might consider telling Sophie about some of the work you’ve done and, more importantly, some of the cases you’ve solved.”

“You think she would listen?”

“I think if I was a girl who didn’t know her father—oh, wait, I am that girl—and I learned he was one of the good guys, then, yeah, that might make a difference.”

“Is that why you are anxious to find them? Because you’re hoping they might be good guys in the end?”

No, Anna couldn’t expect that. She knew her father had left before her mother abandoned her so that automatically ruled him out of the good-guy category. Then knowing what her mother was and what her mother did, Anna didn’t think there could be a happy ending in any of this. She simply had this need to know what happened. Maybe so she could have certainty that it couldn’t happen again. Not to her child anyway.

“Not anxious...only curious I guess. I went so long without thinking about them at all. Now that I’ve made the decision to do this I can’t seem to stop thinking about them. Or maybe it’s the baby thing.”

“I promise I’ll let you know when I have something. So, I take it that means Ben hasn’t found anything, either? That’s surprising considering I’ve given him a massive head start.”

A fact not entirely lost on Anna. “Nope. He says everything has led to dead ends but...”

“What?”

She hesitated in answering. Really, all she had was a gut feeling, and lately her gut was so messed up between Ben and the baby she didn’t know if she was coming or going. The other night she’d spent two hours folding and refolding Onesies in different drawers to see which one of them she liked better for the purpose of storing Onesies. It was a little insane.

At one point she’d thought she was losing her mind until Ben came in and showed her the chapter on nesting and explained what she felt was a biological imperative and that her behavior was perfectly natural.

Right. So now biology was running her brain. No doubt she was completely wrong about her suspicions.

“I don’t know.” She struggled to verbalize what she actually thought. “It’s like he’s holding back something. I know he was an operative and that should have made him skilled at being sneaky—”

“Ben wasn’t trained in sneaky. Not his particular specialty.”

“It’s just that any time I bring up the subject he gives a terse reply and changes the topic. Maybe sneaky is the wrong word but evasive fits.”

“Well, I can assure you, I am excellent at my job and I haven’t turned up anything yet. The names are a dead end. The play on combination of names is a dead end. I’ll head out to the hospital where you were born and see what I can find there and let you know how that turns out.”

“I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. So should we get back to work?”

Their lunch hour had become more of a lunch afternoon. She probably should accomplish something for him, given that he was tracking down her parents for free.

“There are some payables I can process.”

“That’s sounds so assistant of you. I love it!”

“But—”

“What?”

Anna’s stomach grumbled. “I think I would rather get some dessert first. Ice cream breaks?”

Mark’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious. This kid is going to weigh fifty pounds on the way out.”

“It’s just that I—”

“Need it. Yes. Ice cream. Go. Then come back and get those payable things...done, filed, whatever.”