Page 49 of Return to Whitmore
The investigator chuckled. “I never assume anything until I know for sure.”
“It’s Lorelei, my oldest daughter,” she said. “She lives in Rome. They both do.”
“Both?”
“Both daughters I keep in contact with,” Francesca said. “I have four in total.”
“Four? I thought only three.”
“You thought wrong,” Francesca said.
Charlotte eyed Nina, curious about this change of pace. Never had she thought her mother would accept Nina as one of her own. Time had been kind to her heart, maybe.
“That’s Allegra, Lorelei, Charlotte, and Nina,” the investigator listed. “And you have two sons. Jack and Alexander.”
“Jack is dead, as I told you last week.”
The investigator sniffed. “We have reason to believe he isn’t, Madame.”
Charlotte’s eyes were thick with tears. A part of her wanted to tear out from her hiding place and demand answers from this man. How dare he come sniffing around like this? She wished she had her camera to film him. These people were the lowest of the low, leeching off other people’s needs and spying on people.
“And why is this so important to you?” Francesca demanded.
“My client is very interested in discovering where your son Jack is,” the investigator stated.
Something struck Charlotte, suddenly. The way the investigator said the word “client” was terribly familiar, as though she’d heard it before. Had she met this man?
Unable to resist, Charlotte poked her head out from the side of the fence, peering through the dense pine trees to find him. Nina was mouthing like crazy, “What are you doing? Stop!” But Charlotte couldn’t stop herself.
When she realized who it was, her heart stopped.
It was the private investigator she’d met twenty years ago—the same gray-and-black-haired man who’d met her at the SOS Diner and told her he wanted to find Jack. Charlotte nearly leaped up with surprise. It was clear he wasn’t a very good investigator. He was twenty years into this game and still none the wiser about Jack.
Charlotte hid herself away and shook with a mix of fear and intrigue. Had Tio Angelo sent him? Why hadn’t they found “Seth Green” in Hawaii? Had Jack grown better at hiding his tracks over the years? Maybe everything was in Addison’s name. Her thoughts raced in circles until, finally, Francesca told the investigator to see himself out.
“I told you, I don’t know where my son is. I know he’s dead. It’s time for you to get that through your head.”
“What about your husband?”
Francesca scoffed. “You were spying on me here in the garden for days. Did you find anything relating to my husbandor my son? Did you discover anything about my brother, too? Did you scour my parents’ place, looking for proof that Angelo was alive?” She took a beat. “Or is my brother perhaps this secret client who sent you here? Is he behind all of this?”
“I can’t tell you who my client is,” the investigator said, standing. “Thank you for the water. I’ll be in touch soon.”
If only they knew where he was off to. If only Charlotte was better at following a car without them noticing. But she wasn’t James Bond. She was mostly just jet-lagged and heartbroken and terrified.
Suddenly, Charlotte remembered her tracking tag! It was here in her purse, right here at her side as she hid from the private investigator. Such luck. She pulled it out and ran around the side of the property, not waiting for Nina to call her back. She had to get to the investigator’s car before he did. She was pretty sure she could still hear her mother berating him on the veranda, telling him that he was irritating and insulting an older woman—an older woman who lived on her own. But where was Jefferson? Charlotte would have to deal with that question later.
Miraculously, the private investigator’s car was parked directly in front of Charlotte’s with its passenger window cracked just enough for her to hurl the tracker tag into the dark shadows under the back seat. In all likelihood, he wouldn’t find it for another week or two. She had to hope and pray.
Without hesitating, she sped back around the side of the house and collapsed in the weeds next to Nina. She heard the back door open and close, followed by the sound of the private investigator’s engine turning on. Charlotte gasped and grabbed her phone, eager to track him. She watched as the little dot connected to her tracker went down the road and back toward what looked to be Florence.
Nina grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to real life. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I put a tracker in his car,” she whispered. “Maybe he’ll lead us directly to his client.”
Nina’s mouth hung in alarm. “You’re good,” she said finally.
“I’m not an anthropologist, but I’m scrappy,” Charlotte said. “Sometimes that’s all that matters.”
