The Abduction of Mary Rose (7 page)

"To be honest, I didn't give the matter much thought beyond finding her killers," she said. Now that she did she knew just the briefest hesitation, and felt cowardly for it. "She deserves some justice," she said with a sudden welling of anger. "It's right that I should be the one to try to get that justice for her."

Len Hayward shrugged an okay, then gestured to someone walking by the glass cubicle office.

The door opened and Naomi turned to see a bearded man in battered brown suede jacket in the doorway clutching a handful of papers, other hand on the doorknob. He gave Naomi a nod. "Yeah, Len."

The phone rang and Hayward picked up, cupped a hand over the receiver. "Eric here'll take down your story, Ms. Waters. Get a couple of good head shots, Eric. Should be a piece of cake." With that, he dismissed them both, growled into the phone, "Hayward, yeah." Then he bellowed at his caller, "What do you mean, you can't track him down. I need that Wallace story on my desk yesterday. Where the hell...?"

The berating of some unfortunate being continued as they left his office, cutting out as the door closed behind them. Naomi idly wondered who Wallace was. She hadn't been paying too much attention to the news lately.

"One of our town councilors is up for embezzlement," the reporter said, as if reading her thoughts. "A corrupt politician. Now there's something you don't hear about too often." He grinned to show he was joking as he ushered her past the row of desks to his own office at the back of the big room.

On the way there, they passed half a dozen people working quietly at computers, a couple on the phone. No clacking typewriters here, or hard-nose reporters with rolled-up sleeves, filling the air with blue cigarette smoke, wearing rumpled soft hats with press card tucked into their bands. Nothing to suggest deadlines, or big 'scoops', like in those old black and white movies her mom had had a penchant for, along with old radio shows, one of her favourite being the 1931 version of The Front Page starring Pat O'Brien. They had watched it shortly before she went into the hospital for the last time. She sighed without being aware of it, and Eric Grant glanced at her before opening the door to his office, which was considerably smaller than Mr. Hayward's, but neater.

"Please, have a seat." He set the sheaf of papers he'd been carrying on top of a grey metal filing cabinet in the corner, and shrugged out of his jacket, beneath which he wore a blue denim shirt. "Coffee?"

"No, thanks."

Closing the door, he went round behind his desk and drew the small tape recorder toward him and sat down. His finger hovered over the button. "I'm afraid my shorthand leaves a lot to be desired, mind."

"No. It's fine."

He pushed record. Recording was second nature to her, but this particular narration wasn't anything she was looking forward to. Only by mentally erecting a wall between the words and her emotions was she able to get through her story a second time, in the same way Frank had managed to relate the story to her.

A half hour later, her story told, all that she knew of it anyway, he clicked the recorder off and looked thoughtfully at her. "And you had no idea you were adopted before that?"

"None. Not until I read it in the obituary column. Although the woman at the funeral parlor I told you about prepared me to some degree, I suppose."

"Mrs. Devers."

"You have a good memory."

"I try. Comes in handy in my business. It's beyond tragic what happened to your birth mother. I don't remember reading about it. But then, I would have been four at the time. I'd like to make copies of these articles if it's okay. Quicker than digging them out of the morgue … sorry."

"No need to be."

He slipped the thin sheaf of paper from the envelope and smiled at her. He had a nice smile. Taking in the scruffy gingery-blond beard, and hair long enough to curl at his denim shirt collar, she'd almost expected he'd have blackened pirates' teeth. Or maybe a stray tooth or two like that guy in Deliverance.

"I covered a couple of nurses' union meetings when they were voting to strike and had the pleasure of meeting your mom. It was a few years ago, I was a rookie cub reporter back then, but I remember her. You were a lucky little girl to be adopted by such a special lady."

"Yes, I know that," she said coolly, her defenses rising at the comment, which sounded to her like a veiled criticism. But then he didn't know what it was like to wake up one morning and realize your whole life is a lie. God, did everyone in town know her mother?

She was overreacting. It was an innocent enough comment, and it was also true. She had been lucky. She just didn't feel very lucky at the moment.

He flashed her another smile and stood up. "It'll just take me a couple of minutes to copy these. She noticed then that his eyes were almost the same shade of blue as his denim shirt. He was good-looking in a rough-hewn sort of way, though definitely not her type. He reminded her of one of the Vikings she'd read about in school. All he needed to complete the picture was a horned helmet and a sword.

Eric Grant returned shortly and handed her back her copies of the articles. He seemed quieter, thoughtful. If he had any further comments he was keeping them to himself. At least he wasn't a total dork. In his favour, he'd tried to talk her out of including her phone number and email in the write-up, but she held her ground. What was the point of doing this at all if people couldn't contact her?

"They can contact you through the paper," he told her. But she knew that by the time she got back to whoever had written they could have changed their mind about talking to her.

With the interview over, Naomi thanked him and left his office. He offered to walk with her to her car, but she said no, that was fine. She'd taken up enough of his time.

With each step she took across the wood-grained laminated floor, she imagined eyes burning into the back of her neck her like thin, hot lasers
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those of receptionists, journalists, even customers she'd passed who were standing at the counter, already knowing her secret, which of course was impossible. She was being paranoid. If she felt like this now, what was she going to do when the article came out in the paper? Crawl under the bed?

Stepping into the bright afternoon sunlight, the world tilted and her head spun. She had to grab onto the wrought-iron handrail to keep from tumbling down the stone steps. When the dizziness passed, dread grew inside her at what she had just done. The railing was slippery under the dampness of her hand as she made her way down the stairs.

Had she made a mistake coming here? Acted too impulsively, putting herself out there for public fodder? Maybe Mr. Hayward was right and she hadn't thought it through well enough. Well, too late now for regrets. It was done. The die was cast.

Whatever she had set in motion, so be it.

Chapter Nine

Eric Grant had noticed her as she came through the door. Impossible not to. Even in casual pants and jacket, she was striking. Yet it was a quiet beauty she possessed. A certain exotic aura about her. Great cheekbones. She wore little makeup, (or was expert as making it look that way), and her thick sheen of dark hair was pushed back in a careless way that gave the impression her looks were not of major importance to her. But it was more the purpose in her step that had captured his attention. The erect shoulders, the stride. This was a woman on a mission.

Now Eric watched from the office window as she emerged from the building. He tensed seeing her grab the railing, hesitate on the steps. But then she seemed okay, as okay as she could be considering what she had to be going through. An attractive, self-contained woman who in that moment looked like a lost child separated from all that was familiar to her. As he watched her descend the steps, he could feel her uncertainty, her confusion. He wanted to rush out there and tell her to forget the story, he'd toss the tape in the trash, but somehow he knew she would resent it, that any such grandstanding on his part would only stiffen her resolve to have the story published.

He wondered if she was already having second thoughts about going public and half-expected he'd get a call asking him to pull the story, which he would do in a heartbeat, no matter what the boss said. But she didn't call. It couldn't have been easy coming forward like that. She didn't strike him as someone who sought the limelight.

"She's a grown gal," Len said when Eric shared his concerns. "It's her choice. And who knows? She might get lucky and nail a killer. That's the reason she's doing this." He grinned at Len. "You got a thing for the lady? Not that I blame you."

Eric just gave him a look and left the office, quietly closing the door behind him.

Chapter Ten

On Monday morning, Eric Grant set the story on his boss's desk. While Hayward read the article slated for the front page of the local section of the paper, Eric placed both palms on his desk, drawing Hayward's gaze away from the paper. He leveled his gaze at him.

"What?"

"I'm still not feeling good about this, Len."

Len Hayward frowned. "Why not? It's a damn good write-up. Great shot," he added, checking out the photo attached to the story. "It's not like we're paparazzi. She came to us. She asked us to write the story."

"I'm not sure she's in any condition to make that decision. A month from now, maybe. But aside from the fact that she's got to be traumatized, just losing her mom from cancer and learning what she did about her beginnings. I also think running this story could put her in physical danger. Her birth mother's attackers could be still out there."

"Did you share those concerns with her?"

"More or less. She's taken a bit of a defensive posture." He didn't mention that he'd already managed to tick her off with his dumb comment about how lucky she was that Lillian Waters had adopted her. Like she wouldn't know that, and what in hell did it have to do with the price of tea in China?

"We're not therapists here, Eric, me lad," Len said. "We're reporters. We're running a newspaper." He waved the story at him. "And this is news. Local news, but news. And human interest. AP will probably pick it up. People love human interest."

Chapter Eleven

Naomi waited on pins and needles for the story to come out in the paper, her heart in her mouth, torn between wanting it published and terrified it would be.

Which, on Tuesday, it was. She heard the small thump as the paper came through the letter slot and hit the floor.

Seeing her own face looking up at her from the hall floor made her feel ill. She picked up the paper, feeling naked and threatened, as if she'd been tied to a tree and smeared with honey. It didn't help that she'd done it to herself.

She was a private person, and here she was laying herself out there for all of River's End to feast upon. At the same time, she wanted people to know her story. There had to be someone still around who would remember what happened to a Native girl all those years ago.

And one or two of those people just might remember details long buried. She was counting on it. At the same time, she was praying this wasn't all for nothing.

She sat down on the living room sofa with the paper, acutely aware of her mother's eyes gazing down at her from the photo above the fireplace. She had an eerie feeling that if she looked up she would see disappointment on her mother's face, maybe even accusation. I'm the one who should be angry, she thought. And I am. I'm damned angry. But she didn't look up at the photo, or into her mother's eyes.

Instead, she read the article: