“Tell me.” Wyatt tried to keep the plea from his voice.

“That’s Mira.”


***

After two days, Wyatt still couldn’t get inside Charley’s files, and with each try, he encountered yet another set of blocks. Ever since Stuart had revealed her name, Wyatt had been mired in anger and confusion. He’d done what any self-respecting male would do-he’d flown home and pulled every string he could find.

The broad mahogany desk before him suited the style of his home office but not his mood, which lent itself to sharp and pissed. His fingers flew across the keyboard as page after page of information scrolled before him.

He punched the intercom of his phone. “Sheila!”

“Yes, sir?” She answered with as much politeness as usual, despite Wyatt’s repeated outbursts.

“Will you please do some translation for me? I’m sending the files now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wyatt leaned back in his chair, thought of Charley or Candie or Mira-whatever her name. Stuart had relayed the same exact story Charley had about how they met, so at least that part had been true or as truthful as either wanted to be.

He leaned on his desk and put his head in his hands. He understood why her body had fit to his so well, why she’d been so familiar yet distant. He knew her yet didn’t. The woman he knew as Mira had become the biggest enigma in his entire career.

The knock on the door drew him away from his thoughts.

“Sir?” Sheila stood at the door. She waited until he nodded before she proceeded. “You have a visitor.”

He’d left his calendar clear but not for a guest.

“Who is it?” Wyatt scrubbed his head with his palm, regretting his gruffness. “I’m sorry, Sheila. I’m just not in the mood for company.”

“I understand, sir. But it’s your mother.”

Wyatt looked up. “My mother?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. Why’s my mother here? There’d be no way to avoid her. “Bring her back.”

As Sheila left, Wyatt rose and walked around his office-a quick dust check had to be in order. He knew his Mom wouldn’t mention it, but he really didn’t want to take the chance.

“Oh, well.” He sat behind his desk again.

The fact that little to none of his paperwork ever got printed kept his desk debris-free and at least clean-looking to the less observant.

“Wyatt!” His Mom held out her hands as she entered in front of Sheila.

He walked around his desk again. “Hey, Mom.” A nod to Sheila over his Mom’s shoulder as she embraced him, and Sheila disappeared.

“How are you, honey?”

“Fine, Mom. You?”

She patted his cheeks and smiled, her expression arranged into one he recognized well and filled him with happiness.

“You want to sit?” He held out one of the two leather-backed chairs that had come with the desk ensemble.

Katherine Jennings sat, her hands in her lap, one leg crossed over the other-as sweet and kind as ever she’d been. Her hair had yet to gray. Her eyes sparkled. Trim and fit, at a foot less than him, he still looked up to her. She shifted in her chair while Wyatt made his way back around his desk for the third time.

He sat with a thump and leaned back. “What brings you to the other side of town, Mom?”

She tilted her head, worried her hands, looked down at her feet and back up a number of times before she blew out a breath. “Well.”

Wyatt couldn’t help the smile. “Something going on with Dad?”

“No, no, honey. It’s not that.”

Her tone turned wary and sent Wyatt’s nerves fluttering. “Are you sick?”

“Oh no! No, honey, I’m fine.”

“Okay, Mom. Spit it out.” The shift from happy to worried only added to the strain that already weighed on his shoulders.

“Okay, well…” She sighed. “You remember that story I told you a long time ago?”

All the stories came from long ago. Wyatt blinked, unsure which one she’d bring up.

“Well… that family that lived in that house, they still live there. Though I’m sure she’s a grandmother by now. I heard on the news that their son-or grandson-I don’t know. Anyway, he’s missing, and I hoped maybe you could help.”

She’d come to ask for his help on behalf of Charley? “Are you talking about the Turner Point family?”

She nodded.

“There are detectives working that case, Mom. It has nothing to do with the FBI.”

She waved a hand through the air. “Oh, I know, honey. I just thought maybe you could be helpful-seeing as you live right here and all. You’re so good at what you do. You have all those commendations and awards.” She pointed to the framed plaques that adorned his office.

“Do you really even know them, Mom?”

She sat up tall in the seat. “Does it matter?”

Wyatt decided a few prying questions wouldn’t hurt. “How? You met them once, thirty-four-odd years ago, right?”

She softened again. “You never take for granted those who have helped you along the way. Plus, they were so kind-the four of them. They took care of me at one of my darkest hours. I’m not sure I would have survived without Charley, let alone been able to cope. She, Lily, James-and there was one more. I can’t remember his name.”

“Cael?”

“Yes!” She wagged a finger in Wyatt’s direction. “But, Charley… she’s the one who helped me. I think she must be in her fifties or sixties by now. I’ll never forget her.”

Charley had helped his Mom? Wyatt wracked his brain for the right story. He shook his head-a futile attempt to clear his confusion. “How old were the rest of them then?”

She closed one eye, the other and popped them open. “In their twenties. I haven’t seen them since then, but I wrote a few times, and they responded.”

“What do you mean?” He folded his arms on his desk, his head nearly at rest on them. His mother had both irked and intrigued him.

“Oh, I sent letters to them about you and as you got bigger, about your life. Since they were there… when you were born, I thought they might like to keep up with you.” She closed her eyes as if in mid-memory. “I told them about high school and going off to college and you settling right here back in town.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Charley always wrote me back and thanked me for the letters. They sent you Christmas and birthday presents, too. Bet ya didn’t know that.” She pointed a quick finger at him.

Wyatt shook his head and let out a small laugh. “Uh, no.”

She’d never told him, and he’d always assumed the gifts came from his parents-even when both of them lost their jobs during the recessions, he’d been oblivious.

“Anyway, I thought maybe you could help. I don’t know who lives there now-probably a daughter or other children-but my letters always get there and are always answered, so I keep sending them. I was just hoping maybe you could help me pay them back a little.”

What can I do? “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, honey.” She turned her watch toward her face. “I gotta run.”

“Where ya off to?”

“Lunch with your dad.”

Wyatt walked around his desk, lowered to the side of his Mom’s chair and hugged her right there in her spot. He breathed in her familiar scent-some perfume she’d always worn.

“One more thing. I brought something for you.”

“What is it?”

She dug through her bag, eyes and hands intent. “This.” Out of it, she pulled a box. “We cleaned out some drawers.”

Wyatt took it from her, rubbing the soft velvet. Together, they stood and walked to the door.

“I thought you might want that.” She reached up with one hand and pulled him forward for a kiss on the cheek. With a pat and a ‘you take care’, she headed down the hallway.

Wyatt opened the box to find the ring and stone as it had been tucked within almost two decades before. The one he’d intended to give his first love-the one Lily-or Leena, as she’d been called then-had forced him to promise to hold.


***

Charley carried a cup of hot tea in each hand as she bumped Lily’s door open with her butt. “Hey, Lil.”

Lily, covered to her neck in blankets, tracked Charley’s movements with red-rimmed eyes.

“Having the dreams again?”

Lily nodded.

Charley eased a hip onto the side of the bed as Lily sat up and took the tea.

“Thank you.” Her breath hitched.

Charley patted Lily’s legs under the blankets. “Detective Bland stopped by this morning.” Lily’s eyes lit up. “He said they’re looking at every lead that comes to them.” The pile of photos on Lily’s nightstand caught Charley’s eye.

She pulled them into her hands. On top, a picture of her and Chase on her bed, reading Goodnight Moon.

Tears welled in her eyes.

A flip to the second revealed Chase’s first Halloween as Batman, with Lily as Robin, James as the Joker and Charley as Batgirl.

Her breath hitched.

“Why do you have these in here, Lil?”

Lily set her tea on the table beside the bed and knocked tissues from the same. “In case-” The tears began again.

Charley let her own fall but not on the photos. Another of her and Chase at his first baseball game, where he’d hit the winning run.

A smile escaped, along with the bubble of a laugh. He’d run the entire bases without stopping, as if his pants had been on fire, though the ball never left the infield.

She turned the next photo to Lily. “We’re going to find him, Lil. We are.”

Lily smiled as the image of Chase in her kitchen, covered in flour from the biscuits they’d made together, faced her. Cael had helped, managing to cover himself just as much as Chase.

“Did the detectives say anything?”

Charley shook her head as she flipped to another image of Chase with the mouse-the third time he’d snatched it from school. His mischievous grin gave his plans away. “We’ve followed up on every lead. I promise.” Charley’d researched every one as it came through.