Chapter 4
"Have a seat, hon." Tristan pushed Juliet down on one of the stools that lined her breakfast bar. It was ten minutes past midnight. He'd already dug into the fast food they'd bought on their way back from her office, but she'd yet to eat her sandwich. Considering how little he'd seen her consume at the restaurant more than twelve hours ago, she had to be famished.
"I'm not hungry," she protested as he unwrapped her chicken sandwich and placed it in front of her on the counter.
"Just give it a try," he insisted. Tristan crossed to the refrigerator and opened it to consider the contents. "Jesus." The scarcity of food dismayed him. She had stocked up on Dr. Pepper. There was a half-empty bottle of white wine and a nearly empty box of donuts, and that was it. "Don't you ever cook for yourself?"
"Not really," she admitted.
He grabbed two cans of soda and let the refrigerator door swing shut as he set them next to the food. Juliet had picked up her sandwich and was eyeing it with rising interest.
"Let me guess. You spend all your time either working or working out," Tristan said.
"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up." She took a small bite and slowly chewed.
He couldn't blame her for feeling dispirited. Her afternoon had been one big rollercoaster ride of emotions and had ended on a flat note.
They'd left Golden Pond hopeful of finding evidence suggesting Dieter Goebel was her parents' killer. But after five straight hours of sifting through the internet—without Hilary's help because her assistant had gone home to feed her cat—Juliet had found nothing to corroborate her suspicion.
Dieter Goebel might have been head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance and number two in power behind General Secretary Erich Honecker himself, but there wasn't a single photo of him online. Considered one of the greatest spymasters of all time, Goebel had always taken great care to avoid publicity. As a result, he'd been dubbed "The Man Without a Face."
After the Cold War was over, and with Germany reunifying, Goebel had made a vain attempt to seek asylum in Russia. He'd returned to Germany, where he'd been convicted of treason and sentenced to six years imprisonment—a sentence Goebel never completed because he mysteriously disappeared from the prison in 1992, never to resurface.
Refusing to call Hilary back to the office, Juliet had hammered away at the mystery of Goebel's vanishing act, to no avail.
She'd been wilting in front of her computer when Tristan had taken matters into his own hands. He'd hauled her to her feet and dragged her home—with Juliet too tired to protest.
The bloodshot look she sent him as he stood beside her stool made him hide a grin behind a swig of soda. Even given her exhaustion, he could read sexual interest in her heavy-lidded gaze. If the events of the last six hours hadn't occupied her life so exclusively, she would probably have torn his clothes off by now.
At the moment, she could barely sit up by herself let alone seduce him, and that was a good thing. Honestly, if she'd truly put a move on him earlier, he'd have had a hard time holding out. Resist her he must, however, because the only way to raise his odds of becoming her boyfriend was to keep her wanting him.
"Finish it," he cajoled when she put her half-eaten sandwich down.
She glared at him and shoved a huge bite into her mouth.
"You got a bathtub?" he asked, figuring she probably did.
Her bleary eyes cleared. Feeble flames of lust flickered in them.
"Just off my bedroom," she said around her mouthful of food.
Still hiding his grin, he walked toward the master bedroom.
"Oh, sure, help yourself," he heard her mutter. But her tone lacked acerbity. If he didn't hurry and draw a bath, she'd fall asleep waiting for him.
Her oversized Jacuzzi tub incited his envy. Now, this is a tub. He'd give both his eyeteeth to get in there with Juliet, but that wasn't going to happen.
In good time, he assured himself. Twisting the faucets, he set about filling the tub with warm water. To his surprise, Juliet had amassed a collection of girlie bath stuff in a basket—proof she had a softer side even if she rarely showed it.
He sprinkled bath salts under the gushing water. They started to foam, releasing the scent of lavender. Turning to fetch Juliet, he found her standing at the door. She leaned against the doorframe, her eyes half closed.
"What're you doing?" Her words slurred.
"Gettin' you ready for bed." Before she could protest, he marched up and started to undress her, unbuttoning her persimmon-colored blouse. She wore a pink lace bra beneath it.
With uncharacteristic docility, she submitted to his ministrations.
When his hands dropped to the button at the front of her trousers, he thought for sure she would stop him, but she didn't. He released the button, lowered the zipper, and peeled her gray slacks over her hips and down her long, toned legs. Tristan crouched to pull them off her bare feet. At eye level with her pink panties, he forced himself to avert his gaze.
Standing up swiftly, he ordered her to turn around.
With the appearance of holding her breath, Juliet did so, and he efficiently unhooked her bra. Before he caved to temptation, he pushed the straps off her shoulders, divesting her of both her undergarments, all with a practiced swipe of his hands.
"In you go." He palmed her elbow and turned her toward the tub. His gaze went straight to her pink nipples, both flushed and taut with arousal.
She thought he was going to make his move on her—no question. If that kept her cooperative, he wouldn't bother to correct her assumption.
"You look amazing," he said, unable to withhold a comment. "Just like I remember."
"Thanks." She stepped into the tub, shaking off his assistance and groaning with unabashed enjoyment as she collapsed rather ungracefully into the fragrant bubbles.
"Not too hot?" he asked, reaching for a washcloth and a bar of soap.
"Un-unh." Sliding lower into the water, she eyed him from beneath half-closed eyes as he wet the cloth and rubbed soap into it.
"Aren't you coming in?" Her question betrayed confusion.
"Nope. This is all about you. Hold your arms out."
"I can bathe myself," she said, but she offered him an arm, all the same, while dropping her head against the end of the tub. "Mmmm." She moaned her appreciation as he ran the washcloth from her hand to her shoulder then reached across the tub to do the same to her other arm.
"Sit forward," he instructed. "Better get your back before you fall asleep."
"I am tired," she admitted, adjusting her position. Her head nodded, and her hair concealed her face.
By the time he pressed her back into a reclining pose, her eyes were closed, making it easier for him to apply the washcloth to her full, pert breasts without bending toward them to flick them with his tongue. They puckered at his ministrations, a treat that turned him as hard as a rock under the confines of his zipper.
This ain't about you, hotshot, he reminded himself.
Still, he had to confess to a teensy bit of self-interest as he slid the washcloth to her waist then underwater to sluice it over her hips. To his immense gratification, she parted her legs wordlessly. He drew the washcloth lower, wiping it slowly and sensually along the insides of her thighs. Her knees emerged from the water as she bent her legs. Her pelvis tipped subtly to give him better access.
Abandoning the washcloth, he skimmed his palm lightly over the petals of her sex, watching her response before repeating his caress. Her breasts rose as she gave a light gasp, but she didn't attempt to stop him. He stroked her again.
In spite of her exhaustion, she lay as open and inviting as a flower in bloom. He traced the silky soft folds with his fingertips and felt them swell. Her clitoris made itself apparent, firming beneath the pad of his thumb as he teased it.
Juliet whimpered, but her eyes remained shut. Her lips parted as though she were suddenly short of breath. He took that as his cue to continue, thumbing the sensitive nubbin with a skill he had learned the good old-fashioned way. When her thighs began to tremble, he teased her slick opening with his middle finger.
Her breathing grew faster, shallower. A shimmer of sweat appeared on her upper lip. Beckoned by the slippery moisture at her opening, Tristan slid his middle finger inside her and was rewarded with a lift of Juliet's hips. Hidden muscles squeezed him. He added a second digit, pushing them both into her snugness to caress her G-spot. As he drew them out, she gave a whimper of deprivation.
He thrust again, and she rose to meet him.
When she covered her own breasts with her hands, squeezing and rolling her nipples right in front of him, he thought he might disgrace himself.
God Almighty. He took a mental snapshot of how sexy she looked with her head thrown back, tongue riding the curve of her lush lips. Lost in the throes of ecstasy, too tired to care what she revealed to him, she gave herself to him unabashedly.
Did she even realize it was he who was doing this to her? Or would she have let any old Joe have his way?
"Tristan." Her ragged cry reassured him. "Please!"
He'd have given anything to drive his aching flesh into her responsive body, but that was not his plan. For the moment, he let his fingers do the talking.
Her muscles clamped down on him and her face contorted with rapture. She issued a keening cry that was almost a scream.
His testicles responded helplessly. A small spurt of semen wet the insides of his boxer briefs in what had to be the world's most unsatisfying climax. But triumph took the edge off his frustration as Juliet slowly relaxed, heaving a gratified sigh.
She'd think about this night every time she took a bath. Mission accomplished.
"That was wonderful," she whispered, her words running together as he gently withdrew his hand and reached for the washcloth like nothing had happened. Her eyes remained shut. Her breathing slowed. He finished rubbing down her calves and feet.
Not a word more was spoken. Suspecting Juliet was fully asleep, Tristan opened the drain on the tub, wrung out the washcloth, and set it aside. He stood and reached for the fluffy blue towel hanging on the towel rack.
Getting Juliet dried off and into bed would take more than a feat of strength. At five foot seven and made of lean muscle, she wasn't exactly a featherweight. It would also be a real test of restraint. But what the hell, he'd been celibate for six long months. A couple more days wasn't going to kill him. He'd fulfilled his objective. Come morning, when Juliet awoke refreshed and hankering for more than he'd given her last night, she was going to reconsider her hang-up with relationships.
* * *
Juliet squinted at the alarm clock by her bed. Reading 10 a.m., she jerked up onto her elbow to find her room awash with morning sunlight and her apartment smelling of coffee and bacon.
What the hell? She hadn't slept this late on a weekday in her life!
Kicking off the covers, she sat up to realize two things at once. First, she was completely naked. And secondly, someone had slept next to her, given the imprint in the other pillow. She bet she knew who that someone was.
Tristan had shared her bed. No, wait. Pleasant memories flowed through her. First, he'd fondled her in her tub, giving her the most fantastic orgasm in recorded history. And then what? Had they had sex after that?
She put a hand to her forehead. No. Recalling the physicality of their sex in Mexico, she was positive she would remember if Tristan had ravished her as he'd done last spring. Besides, she would surely be tender down there, if they'd done the deed, considering how long it had been.
So... he'd only slept beside her. And he'd apparently switched off her alarm clock because it hadn't gone off at six as it should have.
Bastard! He couldn't just show up in the middle of an investigation and take over her life. She had work to do!
Stalking across her bedroom in search of her robe, she was still tying it around her waist when she stormed into the kitchen. Tristan stood at the stove, cooking breakfast.
"Mornin'." His grin made her stomach cartwheel. The memory of his fingers stroking her G-spot derailed her thoughts for several seconds. "Hope you slept as good as I did. Hilary called," he added, nodding toward her phone which was now sitting next to her purse. "She says she got your note last night, and she's got stuff about Goebel that you can look at when you make it in. Also, she found another match for the composite of your suspect."
Juliet processed several things at once. Tristan had violated her privacy yet again by digging into her purse and answering her phone. Moreover, he'd forced her to sleep in when she had work to do. What's more, he intended for them to share a hearty breakfast. It took another second to find her voice.
"Get out," she said. Her ears started to burn, and her hands curled into fists when Tristan sent her an unruffled glance and picked up two eggs.
"How do you like your eggs?" he asked. "Over-easy or sunny side up?"
"Scrambled." Juliet forced the words between her teeth. "Because that's what I'm going to do to your brains if you don't stop trying to run my life!"
He glanced at the eggs in his hands, shrugged, and reached for a bowl to break them into. "Suit yourself." A strange light twinkled in his eyes as he glanced at her again.
The gall of the man! Juliet took closer stock of him, wondering why he looked so at home in her galley kitchen. Watching him break open the eggs, two at a time, and dump them into a bowl, it occurred to her that some time while she'd been fast asleep, he'd gone shopping for groceries. While she resented his nerve, she had to admit she was ravenous. Her stomach rumbled noisily. Scrambled eggs and bacon sounded really, really good right then.
"Did you get any bread?" she asked, venturing closer.
"Yep." He glanced at her toaster, and she saw two slices peeking out of it. "Toast is on the way."
His cheerful tone annoyed her. And so did the fact that he hadn't taken her threat seriously. Surely, he realized he had overstepped his bounds. If any other man tried to pull the stunts Tristan was pulling, she'd have given him the boot hours ago. Juliet was only letting Tristan slide because she was hungry—and that was the only reason.
Besides, he looked incredibly sexy in the navy crewneck sweater he had paired with cargo pants.
"Hey, where'd you get those clothes?" she demanded. They weren't the same ones Tristan had worn yesterday.
He shot her an innocent look. "From my suitcase."
She cast an eye around but didn't see it. "You didn't have a suitcase yesterday."
"Sure, I did. In Bullfrog's Jeep. I picked it up this morning while I was out getting groceries."
Although they were staying with friends of Emma's, her sister and brother-in-law were obviously aiding and abetting Tristan's cause. "You brought your suitcase here on your motorcycle?"
"Uh—" Tristan cast her a wary glance. "No, actually, I had to borrow your SUV to carry groceries anyway. Hope that's OK."
A pulse began to tap at her temples. She felt herself sizzling in tandem with the milk-and-egg mixture Tristan poured into the hot pan.
"Sure," she bit out tartly. "Is there anything else of mine you'd like to help yourself to while you're here?" She gestured sarcastically at the interior of her apartment.
His gaze slid with unmistakable appreciation over her silk-clad figure. Given her question, she expected him to say, How about I help myself to you? Instead, he turned his attention to stirring the hardening egg mixture.
"No thanks. I'm good," Tristan said lightly.
Juliet realized both her hands were buried in her hair. "I'm going to get dressed," she muttered, turning away before she killed him.
"Don't take too long," he sang out as she marched back to her bedroom. "Breakfast is just about ready."
Closing the door firmly behind her, she leaned against it a moment feeling her heart thumping in her chest.
Damn it! What was this game Tristan was playing? He'd babied her last night in a way most women would find endearing, if not downright seductive. But Tristan had also invited himself to stay in her apartment. He'd even helped himself to her vehicle without her permission.
The man had some gall. He must think that simply because he'd pleasured her last night without asking for anything in return, she owed him her hospitality.
Bullshit. Juliet owed him nothing. And as soon as she could comfortably extricate herself from his unwanted company, she would do so.
But given the stubborn twinkle she'd glimpsed in his eyes earlier, he had more plans up his sleeves. Getting rid of him wouldn't be all that easy. Good thing she had Hilary working on his consolation package. If anything could tear Tristan away from her, it would be the promise of a reunion with his long-lost birth mother.
* * *
"Goebel was a huge patron of the arts," Hilary announced swiveling her chair to face them as Tristan and Juliet blew into the office.
Tristan blinked at the woman's outfit. Today, Hilary wore a hot pink jacket over a lemon-yellow, figure-hugging dress. A beaded necklace that contained every hue of the rainbow drew his gaze straight to the dress's plunging neckline and her voluptuous bosom. Surprisingly shapely legs sheathed in sheer, cream-colored stockings emerged from beneath the dress's high hem, held up by a garter belt, if the eyelet and satin strap he glimpsed were any indication.
Holy hell. He averted his gaze with difficulty to take in her five-inch, hot pink high heels.
"Show me," Juliet demanded, unaware of her assistant's effect on Tristan's ocular nerves.
Tugging primly at her skirt, Hilary swung her chair back around to display her findings.
Juliet tossed her purse aside and went to stand over her right shoulder. As Hilary brought up an image of a whitewashed brick building, Tristan flanked Hilary's other side.
"Goebel collected artwork, specifically works of Art Nouveau and Art Deco."
"I have no idea what that means," Juliet admitted, though her mother most certainly would have.
"I'll show you some," Hilary promised. "He displayed his collection in this building just blocks from the Stasi's headquarters in Lichtenberg. The pictures would have looked something like this," she continued, directing their attention to a different monitor. "Though these aren't actual pieces in his collection because that was seized by West German officials when the Wall came down."
Hilary clicked through a series of oil paintings that displayed gritty images of downtrodden factory workers, farmers in the field, and small, grubby children.
"You see, Goebel was a Marxist," she continued, warming to her history lesson. "He was born into a Jewish family, and when Hitler gained power, Goebel's family moved to Russia where he attended school and got involved in politics. When Russia gained control of East Germany, he was appointed as head of the Main Directorate of Reconnaissance.
"You've heard of how the Stasi spied on Germany's citizens to weed out potential dissidents? Well, Goebel was behind that, detaining, torturing, and coercing his own people. He was also in charge of espionage against the West, and he sent hundreds of moles, whom he called his Romeos and Juliets, to seduce unsuspecting government workers, NATO employees, and scientists, all with the objective of squeezing intelligence out of them and reporting back to the East."
"Moles like my mother," Juliet murmured, thinking it ironic that her mother had named her Juliet, considering its Cold War meaning.
"Right. Anyway, Goebel's efforts ultimately failed. The Cold War ended, and East and West Germany united. Goebel was thrown out of office, sentenced, and imprisoned. Only, he disappeared from prison, and no one ever saw him again."
"Right, I read about that last night." Juliet shifted impatiently.
"Anyway, back to the art, which I found interesting. Goebel was a painter and an art collector. He saw art as a means of propagating Marxist ideals, and he proudly exhibited his own original paintings in a building close to where he worked each day."
She clicked her mouse, and the picture of a white brick building reappeared. "It's now an elementary school."
"What happened to his art when he went to prison?" Juliet asked.
"It was seized and sold," Hilary replied. "But that got me thinking. If Goebel was that proud of his collection, he might have tried to get it back in the last few decades. Maybe if we track down the art, we can track him down."
Juliet expelled a long breath. "Then we don't yet know if he was alive in 2006."
"Not yet," Hilary admitted. She glanced over her shoulder at her boss and added, "But he would be eighty-one by now, so there's a good chance he's dead."
"I need to know for sure."
Hearing the stubborn note in Juliet's voice, Tristan realized she wouldn't give up until she had an answer.
"You know," he said, "I've got a friend on the team who could help. You want me to ask him to look for Goebel, too?"
Juliet and Hilary shot him identical looks of affront.
"If Hilary can't find what I'm looking for, I doubt your friend can," Juliet retorted.
Hilary cast her boss a grateful smile even as she lifted her chin higher. "Well, thanks, Jules. Nonetheless, I'd like to see what this friend of yours has got," she challenged. "Go ahead, Tristan. Ask him to find Goebel for us." Multicolored bracelets jingled on her wrist as she plucked a business card from a holder on her desk and handed it to Tristan. "Tell him to give me a call if he finds anything."
Glancing at the card, Tristan wasn't surprised to find Hilary's full name written in lime-green cursive next to the silhouette of a black cat. Her cell number and email appeared in bold font under that. He wondered if she wasn't angling for some internet romance.
"Sure," he said, pocketing the card.
Juliet eyed him severely, her hands on her hips.
"What?" he asked innocently. Hack could use a little romance, internet or otherwise. Tristan couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his friend talk to a woman.
"Nothing." Juliet focused her attention back on Hilary. "You said you found another match to the composite," she reminded her.
"Oh, yeah." Hilary swiveled to face a different screen. "This guy came up in a more recent search. He's a retired police officer living in San Francisco, sixty-six years old. While he was on the job, he received some award for getting gang members off the streets and got his picture in the paper. That's how I found him."
She brought up a picture of a policeman shaking the hand of a long-ago Mayor of San Francisco. Next, she tossed up two more images—the man's LinkedIn photo and California driver's license.
Tristan watched Juliet's reaction. Seeing the blood drain from her face, he took a closer look at the pictures.
"My God, that's him!" Juliet whispered, her voice conveying a depth of fear he'd never before heard from her.
"Wait," Tristan protested, thinking she had to be wrong. It was true the man resembled the composite drawing, but.... "What are the odds that a mole for East Germany is living in California doing police work?"
Juliet just looked at him. "It's possible," she insisted. "We don't know what his job was back in Germany."
Hilary glanced back at him. "Facial recognition pegs this hit at eighty-three percent accurate," she informed them. "That leaves only a seventeen percent chance of error."
"What's his name?" Juliet asked, leaning closer to the monitor. "Hans Coenen. Isn't that German?"
"I think it's Dutch," Hilary replied.
"Dutch. German. What's the difference?" Juliet leaned toward the monitors to skim the news article and peruse the LinkedIn page. "Nothing here connects him to Goebel, though," she said straightening. "We need to keep digging."
"You got it, boss." Hilary looked at Juliet. "You want to tell Tristan what we found for him?" she asked.
Tristan's antenna went up. "What?"
Both women fell quiet, and Juliet's expression became unreadable. "Hilary found your birth mother," she announced. "She got confirmation just this morning."
Tristan felt like the walls were slowly spinning around him. "My what?"
"Your real mother, Tristan."
His heart started to thump. "Why'd you do that?" he asked.
Juliet visibly hesitated. "I don't know. It just seems like something you should know. Maybe it explains—" She cut herself off and crossed to her side of the office to busy herself with the coffeemaker. "If you don't want to know who your mother is, that's your prerogative."
He eyed her stiff back, conscious of Hilary's owl-like gaze as she watched their tense exchange.
"Finish what you were going to say," he demanded. "Maybe it explains what—why I'm always in a relationship? I've been single for the last six months. You really think Bullfrog knows everything about my life?"
Juliet swung around with a K-Cup in her hand. "That's not what I was going to say."
"What were you going to say?" He refused to back down.
"I was going to say maybe it explains why you sing so well," she said, taking the wind out of his sails.
"What?" He didn't understand what singing had to do with anything.
Juliet gestured to her assistant. "Go ahead and show him, Hilz," she said, turning back to brew herself a cup of coffee.
Tristan pivoted toward Hilary, who leaned back in her chair to look at him. "Here's how I found your mother," she explained. "I started by contacting the detective division in Wilmington—"
"Where I was born," he finished.
"Right. In October of '88, they investigated the case of an infant left in the lobby of the emergency room at New Hanover Regional Medical Center."
"That was me. The authorities never found out where I came from." Behind him, the coffee maker gave a whine and a hiss.
Hilary snorted derisively. "True, they didn't. But they still had the security footage from the hospital, on VHS tape, and they let me look at it."
"The security footage never showed anything."
She shot him an arch look. "It did, actually. The police were looking for women coming into the ER. That led them to overlook the man who came in carrying a backpack. He loitered for a few minutes, pulled a baby out of his pack, and left it wrapped in a blanket under a chair."
Tristan nodded. According to his adoptive parents who'd both worked as doctors in the ER, that was where he'd been found, sound asleep under a chair in the hospital lobby.
"Lucky for me," Hilary continued, "this man wasn't just some random unidentifiable person. Facial recognition software found a match immediately—Mike Fontana. He's been active in the music industry for decades as the manager of several country music stars."
Tristan's imagination caught fire. "So who's my mother?"
"Well, this is just an educated guess, but at the time Fontana was acting manager for the country music phenom, Cassidy King." Hilary shared a look with Juliet, who'd finally turned around.
Tristan glanced her way and found Juliet watching his reaction through the steam rising from her coffee mug. He had recognized the name, Cassidy King, but only a vague image of a cute, blonde singer came to mind. "How long have you been looking into this?" he asked.
"Since Emma's wedding," she admitted.
A buzzing filled his ears. That Juliet had gone to the trouble to find his mother might have been touching under certain circumstances. However, Tristan had a feeling her motives weren't that altruistic.
"Are you OK?" she asked when he didn't say anything.
He wasn't sure. Hearing that his mother might have been a famous country music star didn't bother him. Finding himself the object of Juliet's investigating did. "When were you going to tell me?" he demanded.
She shrugged uncomfortably. "When the time was right," she said vaguely. "Anyway, Hilary only recently found out where she lives. Where does she live, Hilz?" she asked, managing to dodge his question.
"California," Hilary said, glancing back to observe Tristan's reaction. "You've heard of Carmel-by-the-Sea, haven't you? Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor."
"I like Clint Eastwood," he said irrelevantly.
"If you see her picture, you'll know she's the one." Juliet nodded at Hilary. "Go ahead and show him, Hilz."
As Hilary brought up photos of Cassidy King, Tristan edged closer to the monitors. Images of a blonde beauty populated three screens at once, driving the breath out of his lungs. Hilary enlarged one photo in particular. The young woman with a mane of golden curls and devil-may-care blue eyes reminded him of his middle school class picture.
"Holy shit," he breathed. There was no question he was looking at his biological mother.
"Here, have a seat." Juliet wheeled the chair from her desk over and shoved it behind his knees. He sank wordlessly into it, his emotions too tangled to sort out. The excitement of finding the mother he had never known vied with the realization that Juliet, despite her assertion to the contrary, thought he had abandonment issues. Why else would she have gone to the trouble to locate his birth mother?
"I looked through tabloids that dated from around the time she would have been pregnant with you," Juliet volunteered from her spot directly behind him. "Cassidy disappeared from show biz for about six months, right around the time you were born."
"Why'd she leave me in Wilmington?" Tristan's voice was hoarse.
"That's where she's from, originally," she explained. "She must have gone home to have her baby."
He struggled to process all the information at once. "So, my birth mother's manager left me in the hospital." He wondered if Cassidy had instructed Fontana to do that or if the man had just whisked her baby away, hoping she'd get back to work.
"It would seem he did," Juliet agreed. "There's no way to know if Cassidy told him to leave you there, or whether she was left out of that decision since she was only sixteen. The only way to find out would be to talk to her in person."
And there it was again—the suggestion that Juliet wanted him to leave, just like when she'd ordered him out of her apartment earlier that morning. The confidence he'd felt last night was leaking from him like air out of an old balloon.
Hilary turned her head to look at him. "Mike Fontana's been dead for years. Your mother changed her name, which made it really hard for me to track her down. She goes by Casey Edwards, now. This is the most recent photo I could find online."
Facing forward, she brought up and enlarged a photo of a middle-aged, bleached-blonde in dark sunglasses who only vaguely resembled her younger self.
"Her stardom tapered off in the early nineties when she went to jail," Hilary explained.
"She went to jail?" Dismay added itself to the mélange of emotions swirling inside him.
"For stabbing a boyfriend," Juliet clarified, her tone suggesting that the guy might have deserved it. "She served a four-year sentence. After Cassidy got out, she changed her name and all but disappeared. I don't know how Hilary managed to find her."
"Through her veterinarians." The assistant smiled smugly as she leaned back in her chair. "She's either had the same dog for twenty-five years, or she names them all Dolly." Her magnified gaze conveyed sympathy as she looked at Tristan. "It's up to you if you want to meet her again. I have her address but she doesn't seem to own a phone. You could write to her and see if she responds."
"I think he should fly out and meet her in person," Juliet suggested.
Tristan tensed. Yep, she was trying to get rid of him. He swiped a hand over his face. The queasy feeling that had ambushed him earlier hadn't subsided. The need to escape the confines of Juliet's office had him rising from the chair and patting down his pockets for the key to his motorcycle. Then he remembered it was parked back at Juliet's apartment. They'd driven her SUV to work.
"I'm going to get some air," he announced, heading for the door.
The uncertain look on Juliet's face heartened him only slightly.
"Do you want company?" she asked.
"No, I'm good. I just need some time to think."
"OK, well... Keep in touch."
He regarded her more closely. Wearing slender black slacks and a pale pink cardigan that clung to her curves, it almost hurt to look at her. Especially with his memory of how she'd looked naked in her bathtub, climaxing.
What did "Keep in touch" mean? Send her a postcard from the road? Or catch up with her later that evening? He wanted to ask, but Hilary was all eyes and ears waiting for him to say something. Too proud to ask for clarification, he stalked out of the office.
Fresh air and a long walk would help him sort out his thoughts.
Concern tugged at Juliet as the door closed in Tristan's wake.
"I thought he'd be more excited," Hilary confessed.
"Well, it's a lot for him to take in." Juliet crossed her arms and hugged herself. She realized she'd never asked for nor received Tristan's cell phone number. She deliberated chasing after him to get it, but what would that accomplish? The whole point of finding his birth mother was to toss him a bone so he wouldn't resent her when she pushed him away.
She did want to push him away, didn't she?
Yes, but maybe not just yet. If Tristan took off to California right away, he might not get around to putting out the fire he'd stoked in her the night before.
"Maybe I should go after him," she mused aloud.
"Oh, no, you can't."
Hilary's assertion wrested Juliet's gaze from the door. "Why not?"
"You're working the Royer case today, remember?"
Juliet rolled her eyes and groaned. "Seriously?" Rolf Royer, a wealthy investor, had hired her to gather evidence that his wife was cheating on him. If not, she would take him to the cleaners when he filed for divorce. "I hate these adultery cases," Juliet declared.
"Yeah, but they pay the bills." Hilary pushed her wheeled chair toward the printer to pluck up a printout. "Here's Mrs. Royer's itinerary." She glanced at it before holding it out to Juliet. "She's probably still at the nail salon on Main Street. If you hurry, you'll get there before she leaves."