Within Striking Distance (6 page)

Because you’re an interesting man with a darn sexy walk and I want to know more about you.

Becky moved to one of the armchairs and put her purse on the seat.
Sexy
walk? Well, yes, in spite of the limp, it was sexy. Or maybe it was sexy because of the limp. In order to
work his cane, he flexed his shoulders and tightened his arm muscles with each stride. For him, walking involved his whole body, and he obviously had excellent control. It must have taken a lot of strength to overcome whatever handicap had caused that hitch in his step. Determination, too. That was more attractive to Becky than perfection. “I’ve never known a private investigator before,” she said. “And look at it this way. If you tell me something about yourself, you can steer the conversation back to me and get more information. You remember. That’s what you did when we had lunch.”

He blinked, then burst into laughter.

Becky smiled, enjoying the sound. Not many men were confident enough to laugh at themselves, but she should have known that Jake would be. It was a quality that was as attractive as the unique way he moved.

“And here I thought I was being clever,” he said.

“You didn’t need to be clever. I want your investigation to succeed as much as you do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He walked past her to his desk, turned and leaned back against the front edge. “Okay, speaking hypothetically so I don’t break any client confidentiality, if the guy who ran my favorite pizza place was being sued by a customer who slipped on tomato sauce and claimed a bad back, I might stake out the man’s house. Then if I got pictures of the customer carrying a ladder and climbing onto his garage roof to reshingle it, the lawsuit would go away.”

“Your friend must have been grateful.”

“Still speaking hypothetically, he might have promised me free pizza for a year.”

“That’s great.”

“Uh-huh. Pizza’s one of the major food groups. Right up there with hamburgers and fries.”

She smiled. “How did you get started in the P.I. business?”

“A buddy of mine ran an investigative service and offered me a job when I got out of the military. He retired a few years ago and I took over the business.”

“You were in the military? What branch?”

“Army, Special Forces.”

Becky could easily picture Jake as a soldier, especially as one of the elite fighters of the Special Forces. He would have looked incredible in a uniform. Now that she thought about it, he still had a certain military pride to his bearing. With his height and impressive physique, he would have been outstanding in combat. Her gaze slid to his leg and her smile faded. “Is that where…” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“No, you’re right. That was where I trashed my leg. Operation Desert Storm, to be exact. You would have been in grammar school then.” He propped his cane against the desk beside his hip and crossed his arms. “Now it’s your turn. Why did you want to see me? Did you think of something else about your adoption?”

She didn’t want to change the subject, but she could see by the look on his face he was finished talking about himself. She didn’t push. Even though he’d spoken casually about his injury, it was likely a sensitive topic. “No, I didn’t remember anything else. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be out of town next week.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have a catalogue shoot in Rome.”

“Georgia?”

“No, Rome, Italy.”

“Wow. That’s impressive.”

“It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. I do a lot of catalogue work in Europe. They’re always looking for new faces.” She dug through the purse that she’d left on the chair. “Here’s my agent’s number,” she said, drawing out a busi
ness card. “On the back I’ve written the number of the foreign agency that booked the shoot. One of them will know the address of the models’ apartment.”

“Models’ apartment?”

“It’s usually a condo that’s owned by the agency. They rent it to models coming in from out of town. It’s a convenient arrangement all around.”

He stretched forward and took the card. His fingers brushed hers.

And just like that, her excuse for coming to the office fell apart. It had seemed reasonable when she’d been on her way here, even though she could easily have given him this information over the phone.

Fine, maybe she’d simply wanted to see him. Feel the little tingles when he touched her. Watch the dimple in his cheek deepen with his smile. Hear the calm strength in his voice…

“Thanks.”

She pulled back her hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, impatient with herself. Finding her birth family was her priority. Simply because she was developing a crush on the detective who might accomplish that didn’t mean she’d forgotten. “It’s in case you need to get in touch with me.”

“Right. That’s good thinking.”

“Do you think you might?”

“What?”

“Need to get in touch with me.”

Jake slipped the card into his shirt pocket. “Is this your way of asking if I’ve made progress?”

“Only if you’re not going to start into another lecture about not getting my hopes up.”

He gestured toward the armchairs, inviting her to sit. “I’m only concerned about you, Becky,” he said.

She left her bag on the chair seat and perched on the arm
so her gaze was more or less level with Jake’s. “Yes, and I understand you’ve got a protective nature. You look out for your clients the same way you used to look out for your little brothers. But as much as I used to long for siblings, I don’t really need you to be my big brother, Jake.”

He recrossed his arms over his chest. “I assure you, Becky, I don’t regard you as my sister. And, yes, I’ve made considerable progress.”

“You have? What did you find?”

“At this stage, it’s more a matter of what I’m not finding.”

“What do you mean?”

“There still is nothing to rule you out as Gina.”

She frowned. “Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Rule me out?”

“It’s how I’ve been investigating all the claimants. It’s the quickest way to the truth.”

“I would have thought a DNA test would be the quickest way.”

He shook his head. “It’s not like TV shows, Becky. Thanks to what law enforcement people call the
CSI
Effect, everyone expects science to solve cases rather than old-fashioned detective work, so there are serious backlogs at most analytical laboratories. In real life, unless it’s a medical emergency or there’s some other way to jump the queue, it can take several weeks to get the results of a DNA test.”

“My friend, Nicole Foster, is a doctor. I’m sure she’d help.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. But besides the wait time, I’d need to get a sample to compare your DNA to, and I don’t want to alert the Grossos until I’m more certain.”

“How will that happen? I mean, what else do you need to find out about me?”

He considered her question for a while. “Right now, one major issue left to resolve is the exact timing of your adoption. How close was it to Gina’s disappearance?”

“I don’t know how we can learn that without any records. My dad isn’t likely to cooperate.”

“I agree with you about your father. I don’t believe it would serve any purpose to approach him again at this stage. But I need to find out when you first appeared. It was definitely during the summer of ’78. The Grosso twins were born in mid-June.”

“My parents always celebrated my birthday on July 7th. That hasn’t seemed to bother you.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m aware that’s the date on your driver’s licence, but that doesn’t mean it was actually your date of birth. It could have been the date of your adoption, or just a date picked out of the air considering the lack of official information. If you are Gina, then your adoptive parents would have wanted to give you a false birthday to throw people off the track.”

Becky felt her pulse skip.
If you are Gina.
This was the first time Jake had used that phrase. It made the possibility more real, somehow.

“But there’s a problem,” he continued. “If your parents showed up with a baby shortly after Gina disappeared, why hadn’t anyone suspected them at the time? The police and the media had publicized the kidnapping. So had the Grosso family. NASCAR had been a small world back then. Someone should have noticed and made the connection.”

“Not if my parents didn’t show me around.”

“Possibly. They could have held off until the heat died down. There was a plane crash shortly after the kidnapping that diverted the media attention…” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”

“What?”

“I heard that your father showed baby pictures of you around the garage.”

“That figures. My mother took millions of photographs
when I was a kid. Every birthday and holiday, she’d be running around with the camera and snapping pictures until I saw spots from the flash. But how could that help?”

“For starters, we could get an idea of how old you were when they adopted you. If we’re lucky, there’ll be some background clue that would narrow down the dates.” He pushed away from his desk and grasped her shoulders. “Please, tell me you still have them.”

For a second, she couldn’t tell him anything. The sensation of his hands on her shoulders was overpowering everything else. His face was so close, she could feel his breath on her chin and could see the blue of his eyes was shot through with tiny flecks of green. Jake really had the most beautiful eyes.

She inhaled unsteadily. It didn’t help calm her pulse. Instead, she drew in the clove-and-spices scent of his aftershave and the earthy aroma of warm, male skin. Her gaze dropped to his throat. The top button of his shirt was open. It gaped as he leaned forward, giving her a tantalizing glimpse of his chest. A nice, broad chest, with a sprinkling of dark hair in the center…

“Becky?”

She yanked her attention back to his face. “I only have a few of the albums my mother put together,” she said. “My father took most of them with him when he moved to Australia, including all the ones with my baby pictures. But there had to have been more since my mom took so many. I grabbed a few cartons of stuff from the attic when he sold the house. I haven’t gone through all of them yet. The extra photographs could be in there.”

“Are they at your apartment?”

“Sort of. My landlady lets me store my extra boxes in the loft above her garage.”

“How soon does your flight leave?”

“Not until tomorrow evening.”

“Great.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Do you have plans for the morning?”

“Just some packing.”

His thumbs moved on her shoulders. It was too light to be a caress. At least, it was light enough so neither of them needed to acknowledge it. “Won’t you be spending time with your boyfriend?”

“No. I’m not dating anyone. Why?”

“I’d like to take a look through those photos if you have them, and I’m an early riser. Just wanted to make sure I won’t be interrupting anything.”

“You won’t. How early?”

“How’s nine?”

“That’s fine. I’m usually up at dawn.”

He smiled. “I’ll bring breakfast.”

Becky could only nod. He wasn’t giving her one of his lopsided half smiles. This was a full one, stretching across both sides of his mouth, deepening his dimple, lifting his cheeks and lightening his eyes.

Fortunately, he let go of her shoulders and straightened up before she could do anything stupid. Like lean closer. Or lift her hands to stroke the ropy muscles that flexed in his forearms. Or touch her lips to that intriguing dimple beside his mouth…

Yes, it was a good thing that one of them was keeping their priorities straight.

T
HE CLEANING CREW
had taken their sweet time, and now Ralph Bocci needed a smoke. Bad. He hadn’t figured on waiting this long for them to clear out—pushing a broom along the hall and emptying a few garbage cans couldn’t be that complicated. They must have been getting paid by the hour, he decided, unwrapping another piece of gum and
stuffing it into his mouth. He crumpled the wrapper and was about to toss it on the floor when he thought better and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans instead. As soon as he heard the cleaners leave, he squeezed himself out from beneath the staircase and headed for the second floor.

The dentist’s office was tempting—there would be drugs in there that Ralph would be able to sell—but he bypassed it and went right to work on McMasters’s door. He hadn’t thought it would be any trouble when he’d cased it this afternoon, but it took him longer than it should have to pick the lock. The easiest way to get inside would be to break the window in the door, but Mrs. Brown didn’t want the guy to know he’d had a visitor. She was adamant about that detail. No traces.

Ralph chomped hard on his gum to stifle the curse that came to his lips whenever he thought about her. He hated that woman. He should have known better than to have trusted her when she’d offered him a second chance instead of calling the cops. Why should the company brass care what happened to a guy who was caught trying to leave the plant’s main parking lot with a car trunk full of cylinder heads? It was obvious now. It was because she’d known about his record when he’d been hired, and now one call from her to his parole officer would put him right back in prison.