He wouldn’t lie about something like this.
It was all happening too fast for her to process. A little tickle in the gut told her to be cautious. She handed the man back his card. “I don’t think so.”
The man looked resigned and a little disappointed, but offered no hard sell. “Just so you know, there’s no second chances. This business is too hard for any self-doubters. We look for people who think they were meant for something more. I thought I had it right with you.” He shrugged. “Maybe all this shopping has dulled my instincts. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck.” He stuck out his hand.
As soon as she shook it, Nadine felt numb all over her body. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Ashamed? Disappointed in herself? What were his words exactly?
People who think they were meant for something more.
That struck a chord. Despite her parents, she thought she was worth something more. She could make something out of her life and show them all. That’s right. Become somebody and get on Ellen or Good Morning America and have a tear-filled reunion on live TV while her parents apologized to their celebrity daughter for years of mistreatment. Wouldn’t that show them!
She watched Stephen Macan walk away, swinging the bag that contained a beautiful scarf for his daughter, who wasn’t pretty enough for a movie career of her own. He wasn’t creepy at all. She got no vibes like that from him. He had a wife to whom he spoke sweetly and a kid about her age. It was happenstance that he saw her and asked a very reasonable question about the gift, and then luck that he saw something in her.
It was the real deal, Nadine decided, a genuine opportunity that she let pass by. And think! The next time her mother might see her could be on TV or in the movies. She tried to imagine her expression. It would be priceless!
The man was a good distance away, almost out of sight.
Nadine took a determined breath and went running after him.
CHAPTER 2
Four weeks later
Angie DeRose arrived on foot at the Columbia Firehouse to have lunch with her parents at the scheduled time, on the scheduled hour, on the scheduled day. Given the fluid nature of her job, that was a minor miracle.
Angie loved the work, though. A good thing because it was all consuming. The phone rang day and night. No one took vacations when kids ran away, and run they did, twenty-four by seven by three sixty-five.
The calls varied. Sometimes it was a crisis with a child custody case, or surveillance work that might require her to spy on a cheating spouse, or follow a lead on a possible parental child abduction. Maybe an irate spouse had gotten wind that their ex was headed off to party—and who was going to watch little Joey while Mom or Dad did the Harlem Shake with a shot of tequila in one hand and a beer chaser in the other? An anxious parent didn’t care one iota what time of day it was, whether or not it was a holiday, or if Angie had plans to meet her parents for a meal. Thus was life as a private investigator. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
The restaurant, a renovated fire station with exposed brick walls, served quality American eats. It was a favorite of the DeRoses. Angie and her mother Kathleen ordered salads and soda water with lime, while her father got the salmon special. It was easy to meet for lunch because her parents lived near her office, still in the same house in Arlington, Virginia where Angie grew up.
Having lunch with her parents grounded Angie. Since founding DeRose & Associates at twenty-eight, five years ago, she had struggled with orbiting so closely to the dregs of humanity. She had gone into the business with a purpose, but had been na?ve about the depth of human cruelty. The deplorable ways parents could treat each other or treat their precious children were too numerous to count and endlessly gut-wrenching. Each case was like turning over a rock to see what sort of horror might slither out.
Most difficult were the surveillance gigs to get proof of child abuse. Those hit her the hardest, but they were also the best way to get a kid out of danger. Some of her colleagues—the men, mostly—could shut it off, go to bed without seeing the cigarette burns dappled on a young kid’s arm. Not Angie. She took it all to heart, carried with her the emotion of what she saw every day.
When it was a runaway or a child custody case, she went overboard to get results, to get proof, in order to protect the child. She lived and breathed it. Her wheels were constantly going, just like her office phone. Hell, somebody had to make sure the kids ended up safe or with the right parent.