She shifts, gesturing to the young woman joining us. “This is Cora Hollis.” The rest of what she says fades to background noise.
It takes everything in me to stay still and not let the careful mask I’ve perfected slip. Behind Cora is the young man from the photograph. His gaze connects with mine and I hear an audible snick like the sound of a lock being engaged or the cock of a gun hammer. Danger radiates in the air around him. Instinctively, I adjust my stance. He watches me like he knows me, like he knows what I’ll do next before I can even think to do it. The other two women in the room seem oblivious to the force of him. No. Not the receptionist. She keeps just out of his reach.
He tilts his head to the side and looks me over like he can see through my carefully maintained appearance. It amuses him that he can do it. I raise my chin and look down my nose at him, staring right back just as bold and brazen as he does. Standing a full foot and a half taller than me, he clearly has the advantage. I’ve fought men his size and lost, but that wouldn’t stop me from taking him on if I had to. He concedes this with a nod that tells me he means me no harm. His eyes crease at the corners in a smile that doesn’t reach his mouth.
I slowly let out the breath I’ve been holding. He uses his size and attitude the way I use clothing and makeup—to project an image the rest of world would expect and accept. His is as careful and meticulous as mine. Predictable. Protective. Very, very protective. Inclining my head, I acknowledge him in return.
I shake Cora’s offered hand. Her handshake is firm and brief. She’s about my age, I’d guess, with striking blue eyes that match the streaks woven through her black hair. She introduces me to a man who doesn’t need an introduction. Beau. Beau Hollis. Her brother. She explains that he’ll be taking the meeting with her and asks if that’s okay.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s fine.”
It is. Despite my initial reaction to him, I know Beau wouldn’t harm me. I don’t know why I know this, I just do. He responds with more eye crinkling and doesn’t offer his hand. I’m glad. I don’t like touching strangers. Especially men.
He gives me a wide berth as I pass, following Cora into a conference room. I can feel him behind me, but it’s not an uncomfortable sensation. It’s an I’ve got your back awareness, unlike the watch your back feeling I get from most men. We move around each other like potential opponents on a battlefield, sizing up each other, gauging strengths and weaknesses. There’s some admiration as well, and a keen sense of attraction between us that has me struggling to maintain my cool, unaffected fa?ade.
He mesmerizes me. I seem to hold the same fascination for him, because once we make eye contact again across the conference table we’re reluctant to break it. If Cora notices, she doesn’t let on as she asks me how the agency can help me.
“I need help finding my sister,” I tell them.
Cora holds her pen suspended above a notebook. “Can you tell us about her?”
“Her name is Marie Saint Claire, but they might have her in the system as Molly Johnston. We were taken from our mother and placed in the custody of Child Protective Services when I was three and she was about six months old. We have the same mother, but different fathers. She’s about to age out of the system at eighteen, and I want to find her before that happens. I had a lead that she might be in a group home in Santee, but that’s old information. I’m not sure where she is now.”
“We’ll need her birth date, your mother’s name and birthday, any information on her father you might have, and her Social Security number, if you know it.”
From my purse I pull out a sheet with all the info I have on my mother and sister and pass it Cora. “I don’t know her Social Security number, but I do have copy of her birth certificate.” I slide that over too. “There’s no father listed. Our mother wasn’t very…particular or careful. She liked the extra money she got to charge for going bareback.”
“Your mother may be of some help.” Cora doesn’t blink at the fact that my mother was a prostitute and didn’t have a clue who had fathered either one of her daughters. “Can we contact her?”
“Not unless you have a direct line to the hereafter. She was murdered about a year after we were put into the system.”
Beau does a slow blink, absorbing this info as though it confirms something for him about me.
“I’m so sorry,” Cora says.
I ignore her well-meaning sentiment. It’s wasted on that worthless piece of shit I get to call my mother. “This is the address of the group home Marie was in. I’m concerned about her. We used to communicate through social media, but she hasn’t logged in to any of her accounts for months.”