Authors: Mariah Stewart
“Apparently they did … big picnic three years ago, everyone invited. Has reunion every summer, kids and their parents, grows in number every year as more siblings are identified, blah blah blah.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” he muttered.
“It says here that last summer not all the invitees attended but there were still over sixty people.” She glanced up at him. “Can you imagine?”
“No. Get to the part where it tells you how you find someone.”
She read silently while he sipped his coffee. Every time he moved, his thigh rubbed against hers. She stole a glance at him but he didn't appear to have noticed. She tried to scoot over but there was nowhere to move her chair.
“You have to go to the message board and look for other kids who have the same donor number. In our case, we're looking for donor number …”
“Number 1735.”
“Right, 1735,” she repeated and pulled up the message board. “Let's see if anyone is talking about Donor 1735 and his offspring.”
She scanned the messages for several moments.
“Oh! Here we go.” She sat up a little straighter. “Look at this folder. Donor Sibs 1735.”
She clicked on the icon, Nick leaning over her shoulder.
“We can't read the posts.” She read the heading. “You have to send the group a message and ask to be approved as a member before they'll open the messages to you. But you can post a message.”
She slid the laptop from its position in front of her to the space in front of Nick.
“Go ahead. Send them a message,” she said. “Tell them who you are, that you're trying to find Belinda.”
She paused. “Deb said everyone called her Belle. Use that instead of Belinda.”
“Just, Hi, I'm Nick, I'm Belle's uncle. She's been missing for five months and I'm desperate to find her?”
“That's a good start.” She nodded, and he began to type. “You might say something like, she's my only relative and I'm trying to find her. That's important, I
think, because these kids come to sites like this because many of them feel they have no one except their mothers, so they should relate to your situation.”
“Good point.” He typed for a few minutes, then turned the laptop in her direction and asked, “How's that?”
Emme leaned in and read to herself.
“It's a good start. But I think you need to go further. Say you're trying to find her but you've run out of possibilities, that you've spoken with all her friends from school but no one's been able to help. Ask if she's been in contact with anyone on the list, if anyone knows where she is or has any ideas of someplace she might have gone. Had she mentioned taking a trip? Anything at all that might lead you in the right direction.”
“Hold up.” Nick frowned. “I can't type as fast as you talk.”
He continued to type. Finally he tilted the screen again so that she could read his message.
“That's excellent. Now just add your home number, your cell number, the number at the garage, your email address, and ask anyone who's heard from her since January to contact you ASAP. Oh, and ask for permission to join the list so you can access Belle's old posts. Maybe we'll pick up something from those.”
When he was finished, he hit
send
, then turned to look at Emme. “Now what?” he asked.
“Now we wait.”
He read the new post with great interest. He thought about shooting off a quick reply, but then thought
better of it. Why insert himself into this now? If this post really was from an uncle of Belle's, and he was really looking for her, he'd post again.
But what would the others do?
He paused, thinking it through. Always best to avoid that shoot-from-the-hip thing. Didn't he always get into trouble when he did that?
In the end, he decided that he was going to have to toss in his two cents. Someone was going to have to guide this crew, and it was going to have to be him.
It took him almost twenty minutes to come up with the right thing, but finally, he thought he'd nailed it.
Hey, everyone. You see the post from Belle's “uncle”? How do we know that this really is a relative of hers? I'm thinking maybe we should ignore him. Maybe he'll go away.
A few minutes later, the first reply arrived.
Who else would be asking? I don't see the harm in contacting him.
Annoyed, he wrote back.
I think we should respect Belle's privacy. If she's hiding from this guy, she has a reason.
The response was almost immediate.
What makes you think she's hiding from him?
His fingers struck the keys like hammers on an anvil.
Maybe this guy's a perv. Maybe she's run away because he abused her. Maybe she's staying with a friend. Whatever. The bottom line is, if she wanted him to know where she was, she'd tell him.
Ewwww. I'd understand her not getting in touch with him if that's true, but what about us? Why hasn't she contacted one of us? I haven't heard from her in a really long time. No calls, no emails, no texts.
Her choice. No one is obligated to stay here.
He reminded her in terms more civil than he wanted to. It was all he could do to keep his fingers from flooding the post with obscenities.
We come and go as we please. Apparently right now it pleases Belle not to post or call anyone. Her choice, right? Maybe she's really busy doing other things. When she wants to contact us, she will. So I say we need to respect that. And without her okay, I say we shouldn't let him join the list. How do we know who this guy really is? Anyone?
He sat back and waited for the replies. When everyone had checked in, and the consensus was to ignore the post, he smiled and turned off his computer.
He went to his desk and unlocked the bottom drawer with a key from the chain he kept in his pocket. He opened a large manila envelope and slid his hand inside gently, his fingers stroking the silk within. He closed his eyes and wound the soft loveliness around his fingers. Removing his hand from the
envelope, he raised it to his face. He breathed deeply, filling his nostrils with that singular scent of pine and lavender. He rubbed the silken strands across his cheek, his lips, and he remembered. He felt himself harden, and he moaned softly.
“Belle,” he whispered as he lowered the zipper of his jeans. “Oh, Belle…”
N
o one's responded.” Nick was on the phone to Emme by noon the next day. “No one's called any of my numbers, there's been no email.…”
“Be patient. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours since you posted.”
“Patience isn't my strong suit.”
“Clearly.”
“I want to post something again.”
“Go ahead.”
“I'll get back to you.” He hung up, and she shook her head.
“Impatient” might be an understatement.
Emme returned to her computer screen and continued her search. There was much more information on donor siblings than she'd realized. She was partway through a long magazine article on the subject when her phone rang again.
“Okay, this is what I said.” Nick began without bothering to identify himself. “Does anyone know what happened to Belle? Doesn't anyone care?”
“That's it? That's your post?”
“Yeah. Well, I put in my information again, phone, email—” He paused. “You think it's too curt?”
“No, I think it's probably just right. Just enough drama to catch the attention of a teenager.” She thought for a moment before adding, “Though I probably shouldn't assume everyone on that board is a teenager. We don't know how old these people are or how many of them there might be. I'm guessing at least as old as Belinda, since Dr. Drake did say this guy's goods were pretty popular, but there could be some much older. According to the information I've been reading, women have been using donated sperm to achieve conception for over a hundred years. Traditionally, the recipients were women married to infertile men, but more and more single women and lesbian couples are using sperm donors to conceive.”
“So Belinda's donor siblings could be anywhere from toddler to fifty- or sixty-year-olds?”
“Conceivably. No pun.”
“That could put a whole new spin on this,” he said. “Thinking of her getting involved with a bunch of kids her own age doesn't seem as odd as some of these people being middle-aged. Which to my suspicious mind seems a bit creepy somehow.”
“Kids can do creepy things, too, believe me.”
“I guess.” He was quiet for a moment. “What if I still don't hear from anyone? Where do we go from here?”
“I'm working on that.”
“What?”
“I'll get back to you.”
“Get back to me now. What are you working on?”
Persistent SOB
, she thought. Aloud, she said, “I
told you that Mallory Russo's boyfriend is a detective. We asked him to run a quick search of the phone numbers on Belinda's bill to see if any of the incoming calls are from landlines, and if so, to do a reverse search.”
“Enter the phone number in some sort of database to get the name and address?”
“Exactly. As soon as I hear from him, you'll hear from me.”
“How long do you think it will take?”
“Not long. He said he'll get to it as soon as he can. That's the best I can tell you.”
“But you'll get back to me…”
“The second I hear from him. Promise.”
She glanced at her watch. It was twelve thirty. She'd bet her first paycheck that Nick would call back by three and he'd more likely than not ask her to follow up with the detective, something she'd rather not do. Doing everything you needed to do on your own cases was hard enough for a cop without someone leaning on you for a favor.
Fortunately, it never came to that. Mallory buzzed her office phone just before two.
“Charlie just called. I sent you all the info in an email,” Mallory told her.
Emme swiveled back to her desk and opened her mail. Mallory's was the one on top.
“Got it,” Emme said. “Thanks. And thank Charlie for me. Please tell him I appreciate it.”
“Consider it done. I hope it helps.”
“Me, too. Right now, this is all we've got. Thanks, Mal.”
Emme read the email, then printed it out and read
it again. One name. One address. She reached for the phone and dialed Nick's number.
“This is good news, right?” he said by way of a greeting.
“How'd you know?”
“You wouldn't be calling just to tell me you still hadn't heard anything. What have you got?”
“Almost all of the numbers on Belinda's cell-phone bill were other cell numbers. Which makes sense, since that's how most kids communicate. Other than the calls to your house and your office, a couple of calls to a dentist's office, a drugstore, and a bookstore near the college, there was only one number attached to a landline.”
She heard him sigh through the phone and could almost hear his silent thought.
Get on with it
.
“The number we're interested in is listed as Nash Children.”
“Where?”
“Princeton, New Jersey.”
He fell silent again, planning, no doubt, what he'd say when he called. Time to nip that in the bud.
“I'll let you know what I find out after I get in touch with someone there,” she told him.
“Well, actually, I'm thinking I should be the one to call. You know, since I'm Belinda's uncle, and the posts on the message board were from me.”
“Now might be a good time to remind you that you contacted us and asked us to take on this case for you.” Before he could protest, she added, “And the fact that you posted the messages on that board is one of the prime reasons I'm going to be making the phone call. If this kid saw your post and chose not to
contact you, there has to be a reason why. I'm the investigator, Nick. Let me do my job.”
“You'll make the call and you'll let me know what you find out?”
“Of course. But I'm asking you not to make any attempts to contact these people on your own.”
After a moment's consideration, he replied, “All right.”
Surprised that Nick conceded with no further protest, Emme began to dial the Princeton number, then realized that whomever the Nash child was she was seeking, he or she would probably still be in school at this hour. She'd wait until four to call. She redialed Nick to let him know she'd wait.
“′Preciate it,” he told her. “I'd have been wondering.”
“Who are you kidding? You'd have been calling.”
“You catch on fast.”
At 4:10
P.M
., Emme dialed the number, which rang five times before voice mail activated. She hung up without leaving a message. When she tried again thirty minutes later, a young girl answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello, may I ask who's speaking, please?”
“This is Hayley. Who's this?”
“Hayley, my name is Emme Caldwell. I'm a private investigator. I work for the Mercy Street Foundation. I'm looking for Belinda—Belle Hudson—on behalf of her family.”
Silence. Then, “I don't know anyone with that name.”
“Of course you do, Hayley,” Emme's voice
dropped to a soothing tone. “She's one of your donor siblings.”
“How do you know that?”
“I'm a really good investigator.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you about Belle.”
“Why?”
“Because she's been missing for a long time, and she went missing on a day when her calendar indicated she'd had something planned with her donor siblings.”
Again, silence.
“Hayley, do you have ideas about what might have happened to Belle, where she might be?”
“I … I didn't know she was really missing. Everyone just thought she got involved at school or something and was just taking a break from the board.”
“Have others done that? Taken a break?”
“Sure. Sometimes things get pretty intense.”
“Why's that?”
“Oh, you know. Some people are more into the whole sibling thing than others.”
“Look, Hayley, I'd like to meet with you and talk about—”
“I don't think I—”
“Hayley, this is a very serious situation.” Emme's tone became more authoritative. “Belle could be in great danger.”
She didn't think adding “if she's still alive” would have been best under the circumstances.