Page 105 of Child of Mine

“We need to find her.”

She leans off the bed to grab her purse. “It just so happens that my dad’s a bit of a pack rat. He kept our old call sheets filed away with other paperwork.” She pulls a faded mimeograph from her purse. “So I have her address from 1981.”

I check the clock on the bedside table. “Too late to head there now. But we could do it first thing in the morning.”

“Actually, my dad wants to go with me.” She leans back against the headboard and takes my hand, a relaxed smile on her face that I hope to see more often. “I appreciate everything you’re doing, but he knows her. We hope that together we can get her to stop whatever it is she’s got planned.”

Taking her hand and bringing it to my lips, I say, “Whatever you need. We should get back on the road by late morning, though.”

“Agreed,” she says over a yawn.

“I had dinner with Joe. Did you eat?”

“I had something with my dad. I think I just want to go to bed now, if that’s okay.” She drags herself out of her chair, strips again on the way to the bed, and crawls under the covers. “I wish I had the energy to…” The end of her sentence is engulfed by another yawn.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll join you in a couple minutes.”

After putting everything back in my briefcase, brushing my teeth, and hanging up my slacks and coat, I get into the bed and wrap my limbs around her, spooning her.

“Thank you, Hal.”

Kissing her softly on the shoulder, I answer, “Anytime, Bel.”

* * *

BELLA

The next morning, after sleeping like the dead, I wake up with more hope for the future than I’ve had in a long time. Even though I still have to face Nancy Billingsley and whatever grudge she’s got against me, it makes a huge difference to know that I’ve got not only Hal but also my dad in my corner.

After scarfing down a bagel and a schmear like you can only get in this city—and admitting to myself that I do miss some things about New York—I give Henry a quick kiss goodbye. The plan is to try and surprise our suspect before she leaves for the day, which will only work if she’s no longer working in television and has taken on a job with normal business hours.

“You’ve got Joe’s office info, right?” Henry asks.

After I talk to Nancy, we plan to meet at the network, where I’ll sign a new agreement. “I’ve got quarters, too, in case I need to call. Hopefully, she hasn’t moved.”

“I’ll ask around, see if they have a forwarding address, just in case.”

I give him another kiss and grab a cab downtown. Half an hour later, I’ve met up with my dad, and I’m pressing a doorbell marked with Nancy’s name. When she answers, my father takes over—we decided that he might be less of a threat—and she buzzes us in. When she opens the door to her third-floor walkup, she’s obviously surprised to see me, but she ushers us into her tiny living room.

“I suppose I know why you’re here,” Nancy says as she points to a loveseat. As we settle onto it, she perches on the only other chair. “I have to be at work by eight forty-five, so you might as well go ahead and yell at me now.” Holding up a finger, she adds, “But I will say this. I got fired for having drugs at work, so it wasn’t fair that you didn’t get punished.”

Meeting like with like I jump right in, doing my best to keep my voice calm. “I wonder if you could put yourself in my shoes. I was working a full-time job from the age of fourteen.” I point to my chest. “That part was my choice. But when adults I worked with offered me drugs and alcohol, I lost my childhood. I thought if people I looked up to said it was okay, it would be. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.”

My dad leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. “I’m partially to blame here, but it was still wrong that people offered Izzy those things.”

Mirroring his posture, I add, “I was in situations I never should have been in, making decisions I shouldn’t have had to make. When I was older, in my early twenties, it was on me, but by then it was too late. I was an addict. I had to get away from it all to save my life.”

Shifting in her chair, she toys with her watch strap. “It’s just unfair that I had to pay the price.”

“It is unfair if you were the only one, but believe me, I’d trade places with you.”

Her head jerks up. “But you have a job in TV again.”

“I do,” I say, struggling to stay on an even keel, frustrated at the childishness in this woman’s tone. “But I’ve worked hard to stay clean, and I’m working hard to keep this job.”

Nancy glances at the clock, and my dad jostles my knee with his. Just as I’m starting to worry that she’ll kick us out before we work this out, something occurs to me. “Did they actually tell you that you were fired for giving me drugs?”

“Well, yes and no.” Gaze lowered, she picks at a cuticle. “You see, I was always losing track of things. They’d get so mad when I lost my keys—claimed they were so expensive to replace. One day, these men came in with a big German shepherd and told me to stand up and step away from my desk. The dog found a stash of some kind of drugs in a drawer. It wasn’t mine, but I knew that whoever they belonged to must’ve had a set of my keys. I thought it’d be safer to claim the contraband than to admit that I’d lost them again. I mean, directors and producers did lines of cocaine right in front of everyone on the set, so I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal.

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