Secrets Rising by Sally Berneathy Read Free Book Online Page A

to learn, and before this hunt for her mother was over, he suspected she'd learn a lot more than she expected or wanted to learn.
    "You knew that going in." His words came out more harshly than he'd intended.
    "Yes." She straightened abruptly, swinging her feet to the floor, lifting her chin defiantly even as her lower lip quivered ever so slightly. "Yes," she said. "I knew that, but it's still unpleasant to have it confirmed. When you're following somebody's husband or tracking down somebody's parents, doesn't it ever occur to you that what you find might change your client's entire life? Maybe for good, maybe for bad, but it's likely to have a strong effect, one way or the other."
    "That's exactly why ninety percent of my business is done for corporate clients. Tracking down a missing heir, finding out who's dipping into the company till, those are the kinds of jobs where no innocent person gets hurt." Jake felt a little uncomfortable, aware he was taking out his irritation with himself on Rebecca, fighting that same need he'd felt the first time he saw her in his office...to go to her, wrap her in his arms, pull her against him, stroke her hair and reassure her that everything was going to be all right.
    But that would be the cruel in the long run...for both of them.
    He'd had his doubts about this case from the beginning, and that phone call confirmed that she was not going to have a happy reunion with her long-lost mother. She might as well be prepared.
    As though suddenly deciding to fight, Rebecca stood, her bare feet wide apart, her entire stance a defiant gesture. His shirt was long. On a smaller woman, it would have been like a robe, loose and concealing. But on Rebecca it was suggestive, reaching only halfway down her thighs, the slits on each side rising up far enough to expose an edge of gauzy white gown and a lot of smooth, ivory thigh. "I'm going with you tomorrow to talk to Mrs. Jordan," she announced.
    He rose from the bed and towered over her, aware of the intimidation advantage his height gave him. "The hell you say."
    Surprisingly, Rebecca, who had seemed so defenseless a few minutes ago, refused to be intimidated. After recovering from her initial fright, she seemed galvanized by the mysterious phone call. "The hell I say. This is what I came for, to act instead of waiting and wondering, to retake control of my life."
    While he had to give her credit for guts, he wasn't sure she was ready to hear what Mrs. Jordan might say. That phone call pretty much guaranteed a bad outcome to this whole thing. "Look, that call you got suggests we may be onto something. So why don't you go to the library and check newspapers for the months just before and just after you were born while I talk to Mrs. Jordan?"
    "Why should I check the newspapers? You think my mother might have taken out an ad announcing she had a child to give away?"
    Jake ignored her sarcasm. "This is a small town. There could be a mention of some teenage girl who left to spend several months with her aunt somewhere up north. Some kids could have run away to get married, then their parents had it annulled. There are a lot of possibilities for stories that might give us a clue."
    "You want me to read through every newspaper for five or six months?"
    Jake nodded. "That's what detective work is about, whether it's with the police force or private investigation. You search through a million grains of sand until you find the one that means something or maybe it only leads you to another one that means something. It's boring and tedious. On the positive side, the newspaper here won't be like the Dallas Morning News. Especially that long ago, it'll be a small paper, probably come out once or twice a week, and all you have to look for is the local news."
    She shook her head stubbornly. "I wouldn't know what to look for, and you know I wouldn't. You're just trying to send me off while you question Mrs. Jordan."
    He plowed his fingers through his hair. "Didn't we