Madison's Quest (26 page)

Shane shrugged. “Could also mean he was a Boy Scout leader.
Or involved in the organization.”

She put them on the table and turned her attention to the
stack of newspaper clippings and magazine articles.

The first one was an announcement, a small insertion in a
newspaper’s business section mentioning that Bio-dad, his name blacked-out, a recent
Stanford graduate, was joining a venture capital firm, its name also
blacked-out, started by his father. The letter
T
was underlined in the
final sentence.

Shane gave a long, tortured sigh.

Tyler laughed and said, “It’s not like this is going to require
the big head to do a lot of thinking.”

Madison snickered and placed the clipping to the far left of
the table.

Next came several articles about successful start-up
companies backed by the venture capital firm. Then a few more, of companies
that had ultimately gone public.

Each article had a single letter underlined:
h e r e i s
o
.

She placed them next to the first clipping, separating them
in batches to form the beginning of a sentence:
There is o
…

Another business section clipping announced that Bio-dad had
become a partner in the firm. The one that followed was an obituary, marking
the death of his father. The letters
n
and
e
were underlined.

There is one
…

Accolades for Bio-dad’s generosity dominated the next batch
of articles. He’d gifted millions, not just to big, national charities, but to
Bay Area music programs, including several meant for at-risk youths.

“He made something of himself and he gave back,” Madison
said, understanding why he’d set her on this quest to get to know him, but no
longer resenting it.

She was ready to meet him. She
wanted
to meet him.

Adding the articles to the others and separating them, the
message read:
There is one last destinati
…

Tyler tapped the very first clipping. “Like I said, this
one’s not going to require the big head to do much thinking.”

There is one last destination
.

The next two articles held to the theme of Bio-dad’s
generosity.

The final one, with nothing on it blacked-out, told her that
she’d been wrong in thinking she understood his motivation.

“He’s dead.”

The words felt strange on her lips.

Staring at the obituary, looking for her own features in
his, she felt numb. Angry. Disappointed.

“He’s dead,” she repeated, both Shane and Tyler crowding
close, their arms going around her as they read Walter Douglas Bramel’s
obituary.

A lot of it was a rehash of what they’d learned in the
articles and clippings. But cause of death…

A fast cancer. One diagnosed far too late to stop.

He was dead soon after he’d rented the postal box in The
Castro.

Madison didn’t know how to process it. But she was honest
enough to admit she wouldn’t have welcomed him into her life if he’d traveled
to Richmond while the man she called Dad was also battling cancer.

Had he wanted to? Not intruded for that very reason?

Her gaze returned to his picture. Ache spread through her
chest. Tears she wouldn’t have thought possible when she sat across the desk
from the lawyer in Richmond formed and slid downward.

She brushed them away. “Why do this? Why bring me out here?
Why the clues and this whole quest to get to know him, when he’s not
here
to get to know?”

Shane touched his mouth to her hair. “Clearing his
conscience? Maybe wanting to help the family that’d raised you, but at the same
time, get his money’s worth by forcing you to get to know him, to feel
something for him.”

Tyler covered her hand with his. “He never had other
children.”

Not that there was a mention of her in the obituary. The
last line said he was survived by his wife and his mother.

“There is one last destination,” she said, glancing at the
sentence they’d made out of the underlined letters.

She didn’t think it was meeting his wife. “Where does his
mother live?”

Shane used his phone to find the answer. “Presidio Heights.
The wife lives in Russian Hill.”

“Let’s go to Presidio Heights.”

Tyler’s hand tightened on hers. “Madison—”

“Maybe that’s also part of this, not just clearing his
conscience, but giving me a chance to have more family. Or if it’s not about
me, maybe it’s for his mother, to give her someone. Meeting this grandmother
isn’t going to be worse than meeting the one in the trailer park. Trust me. I
have no expectations.”

She took a deep breath, shoved the spread-out clippings and
magazine articles into a single pile. “No warning. I just show up. Get a read
and take it from there.”

“Okay,” Tyler said on a sigh.

Shane nodded, his expression tight. “Let’s go.”

She picked up the locket. It seemed too personal to leave
behind.

The house surprised Madison. Somehow she’d expected it to
appear austere and imposing on the outside. Instead its warm peach exterior,
its multitude of white-trimmed windows and elegant lines invited appreciation.

It rose three stories from a street-level garage and the
entryway. It was capped with an attic beneath a steeply pitched roof that
looked like a cluster of gray pyramids.

White fencing corralled a terraced sitting area above the
garage and entryway, extending into a backyard Madison imagined contained
colorful flowerbeds and sculptured art.

She pressed a button beneath an intercom speaker.

A moment later a woman’s voice asked them to identify
themselves.

They exchanged glances.

Tyler leaned close to the speaker, giving his name and identifying
them as private investigators with Crime Tells.

A hum signaled the door unlocking.

Madison opened it and the three of them stepped into an
entranceway done in the same warm peach as the exterior of the house.

A potted tree decorated the left corner. A black, gray and
white patterned mat was positioned in front of a wrought-iron staircase leading
to the terrace above.

They climbed, emerging on the terrace and crossing to the
wider staircase that led to the front door.

An older woman opened it. She gasped and staggered backward,
hands clutched above her heart.

Madison’s jolted in response. “Are you okay?”

The woman’s mouth moved without any words coming out. Her
eyes glistened. She inhaled sharply, said in a hoarse, choked, voice, “I didn’t
believe there was really a child. The drugs. All the lying. The willingness to
say anything, do anything to get the money so he could buy them.”

She took a deep, shaky breath. A second one.

“Forgive me. Forgive me. I’m Eloise. Your grandmother.”

She placed a tentative hand on Madison’s arm, a fleeting
touch as if to assure herself that she wasn’t imagining things.

Madison’s own heart felt lodged in her throat.

How can she know who I am?

Madison studied the face in front of her as thoroughly as
she was being studied. They shared the same eye shape, the same blue color. It
didn’t seem like nearly enough, not to gain the kind of reaction she’d gotten.

Her grandmother took a steadier breath. She straightened.
“Forgive me. Come in. Please come in.”

They introduced themselves as they entered the house.

The foyer was warm elegance. Wooden floors shone, their hue
matched in the staircase up to a second floor, and by the heavy wood paneling
that reached nearly to a ceiling with exposed beams.

A chandelier was suspended above a small glass table housing
a flowering plant and positioned in the center of a white rug.

The wooden flooring extended into a sitting room, with
another white rug and light shining in from floor-to-ceiling windows.

A white couch was garnished with white throw pillows.
Madison claimed the middle cushion, placing the pillows on her lap.

“Here, let me take those for you. Silly things, really,
aren’t they?”

Shane and Tyler dropped to the couch on either side of her.

Her grandmother reached, hand hesitating as if she wanted to
brush her fingertips against Madison’s cheek.

Madison relinquished the pillows.

Her grandmother placed them in a chair. She shook her head,
her smile bemused. “I can’t get over it. You could be my mother’s twin. Not now
of course, but when she was your age. I’ll get a picture of her, and there’s
someone you need to meet.”

She left the room, returning minutes later to sit in a
second white chair and offer Madison a photograph.

Madison took it and understood why her appearance had sent
her grandmother staggering backward.

“Her name is Kathleen Howell. Her maiden name was Gulliver.”

It was a portrait shot, her great-grandmother sitting on a
bench beneath a tree with white blossoms. She wore a light blue dress and a
small strand of pearls with matching earrings. Her blonde hair was back in an elegant
bun, her lips curved in a slight smile.

Shane whistled softly. “Madison looks exactly like her.”

“So she’s still alive?” Madison asked.

“Yes. She’s ninety-two. She had me late in life. I’d like
for her to live here, but she’s refused. In the first years of her marriage to
my father, his father lived with them. She’s determined not to do the same
thing to me.”

Madison didn’t know either woman, or what kind of
relationship they had, and yet this glimpse of them made her like them both.

“Does she live close by?” Madison asked.

“Yes. She’ll be thrilled to meet you. But I’ll need to
prepare her for it first. And now, I want to know everything, where you’ve
been.” Her smile dimmed. “I have to assume you didn’t meet your father. When he
came to me—”

She swallowed. Inhaled shakily. Swallowed. Eyes glistening
again.

“When he came to me, telling me he needed to get his affairs
in order, he said he was going to look for you. I’d forgotten his claim that
he’d gotten a girl pregnant.” She dabbed at her eyes. “We didn’t speak about it
again and so I assumed he’d been unsuccessful, or realized the child wasn’t his
or that there wasn’t one after all. His health deteriorated so quickly. Did his
lawyer find you?”

Her grandmother glanced at Shane, then Tyler, and gave a deprecating
laugh. “Foolish question. You said you were from Crime Tells. I recognize that
name. I’m so glad you were successful in finding Madison.”

Her attention returned to Madison. Her smile was a sunburst
that quickly dimmed. “I wish Walter had lived long enough to meet you, or at
least know you’d been found.”

“He did,” Madison said.

Her grandmother’s smile wobbled. “I don’t understand.”

“I think he’s probably always known where I was, or at least
how to find me.”

Her grandmother’s eyebrows drew together. “That doesn’t make
sense. If he knew, then why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he bring you
home?”

The smile faded completely then. The warmth disappeared from
her grandmother’s blue eyes.

“I see,” her grandmother said, spine straightening. In those
two words, her voice conveyed that she’d just labeled Madison a parasitic
opportunist who’d only chosen to come
now
because of the money.

Madison hated being thought of that way. Hated the loss of
the warmth. Hated that there was a measure of truth in it, at least at the
start.

“He didn’t contact me while he was alive. I believe he knew
my father was battling cancer. I had no clue your son even knew of my existence
until four days ago, when I got a letter from a lawyer. I thought I was born in
Newport News, Virginia. I grew up in Virginia. I’d been told his name wasn’t on
the birth certificate and that my birth-mother claimed not to know who my
father was.”

Her grandmother’s mouth and eyes didn’t soften. “You came
across country to show up at my door without warning. Why?”

If not for the initial greeting, Madison would have been
tempted to say
I don’t need this
, and leave. But in fairness…

Initially it was because of the money that she’d agreed to meet
Johansen. And it was because of the promise of more money that she’d agreed to
come to California.

“He wanted me to get to know him. I think he wanted me to
end up here, talking to you, though I didn’t even know his name until a little
while ago, when we found the last treasure cache and saw the clippings and then
the obituary.”

The frozen lines of her grandmother’s face were broken by
puzzlement. “Treasure cache?”

Was there any reason not to tell her? To hold back?

They’d reached the end of the hunt.

She glanced at Tyler. He shrugged.

She glanced at Shane. He covered her hand with his,
squeezed.
Your call
.

Madison started at the beginning, hesitated when she got to
the contents of the box in The Castro.

Her grandmother’s lips tightened at learning about the
forged birth certificate. The small shake of her head expressed her
disapproval. “If only I’d known, you could have grown up in this house.”

Madison’s heart lightened, then further lightened when her
grandmother’s expression didn’t harden with mention of the checks, though she
asked for the name of the San Francisco law firm they’d been written on.

“Do you have the locket with you?” her grandmother asked
after learning the contents of the final cache. “Or one of the pictures of your
mother?”

“Just the locket.”

She let her grandmother see it.

Her grandmother said, “Will you keep looking for her?”

Yes. No. Until she talked to her parents, she didn’t have an
answer other than, “I’d like to know what happened to her.”

A doorbell tone sounded throughout the house.