Full Contact by Tara Taylor Quinn Read Free Book Online

he could find his father in a matter of hours if he’d really wanted to do so.
    Apparently not.
    This morning, when he’d attempted to access his mother’s marriage license, he’d been told there wasn’t one. The records clerk who had been helping him suggested that his parents might have been married in another state.
    Just damned fine.
    Like the majority of U.S. states, Arizona was a closed record state, which meant that without the man’s name on his birth certificate, Jay had no legal way of accessing his father’s records—other than those that were public such as birth date, marriage or death. He couldn’t find any public records for the man in Arizona.
    For all he knew, Jay Billingsley, Sr. could have been born in another state, as well.
    Maybe he’d died at some point, too.
    Jay had other avenues to check. He hadn’t developed the reputation he had for ferreting out the most hard to find facts in order to solve cold cases without learning a few hundred tricks.
    But he hadn’t expected to need them this time. He’dfigured he’d make a few simple inquiries, do a stake-out—similar to the one he’d done that morning—then, depending on what he found, plan his next move.
    Typing usernames and passwords on various internet public document reporting agencies Jay searched U.S. marriage, birth and death records.
    Surprised as hell, Jay came up with another dead end. Jay Billingsley, Sr. had obviously lied to Tammy about his real name. That could explain why the man had taken off without a backward glance.
    Had he been in trouble?
    A member of the underworld?
    Living a double life with a wife and family elsewhere?
    Or simply a scumbag con man?
    Trying a different tactic, Jay gathered the articles he’d located this morning. He opened a can of soda and sat back to spend the time before preparing his poolside dinner of grilled shrimp with news stories from the Tucson Citizen and the Arizona Daily Star dating back thirty-two years ago.
    Maybe a birth announcement would shed some light on the latest irritation in his life. Or maybe a piece of school sports trivia would. He already had the few brief pieces that had been printed about his mother’s death before the records had been sealed from the press.
    There was no mention of his father having been on the scene at any time. During his years-long investigation to find his mother’s killer, he’d looked for any mention of his father. The only family listed had been his mother’s sister—the aunt who had raised Jay. The same woman who had told him that his fatherhad abandoned Jay and his mother before she’d been murdered.
    It was conceivable the man might not even know about the heinous crime that had robbed Jay of any semblance of a normal life.
    He’d known about Jay, though. That much was quite clear. Billingsley, Sr. had put it in writing, giving sole custody of his son to Tammy Walton Billingsley. Jay’s aunt had kept the letter in a lockbox. Jay had it now.
    But just because his father wasn’t mentioned at the time of his mother’s death, didn’t mean that the man hadn’t made the news in some other fashion. Jay had done the obvious—searched for any mention of Jay Billingsley—so now he was going to do the more tedious part of an investigator’s job. Read through layers and layers of unrelated detail attempting to find that one piece of information that would click with something he already knew but didn’t yet know was pertinent.
    The man had lived in Tucson. That much was certain. His aunt had also mentioned—let slip was more like it—that his father had had some later ties to Shelter Valley.
    The sooner Jay found his father, the sooner he could contact Cole’s mother and determine exactly how the next phase of his own life would unfold. It wouldn’t be a white picket fence in a small town—or anywhere. He knew that