Madison's Quest (20 page)

Her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and frowned,
not recognizing the number.

Looking over her shoulder, Tyler said, “Nevada. Could be
Reno.”

She answered.

A female voice said, “This is Tanya Meadows. My aunt said I
should call you. She said you were looking for Desiree Owens.”

Madison’s pulse sped. “I am.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“When I was two, but I don’t remember her at all. She gave
me up for adoption.”

“No, that’s not right. She wouldn’t have done that. Besides,
Desiree’s daughter was named Maggie.”

Tyler’s arms tightened at her waist. Her entire body buzzed.
“Maggie?”

“Yeah, Margaret, Maggie for short. Only the kid couldn’t
pronounce the
g
. It came out sounding like Mattie, sometimes like— Oh,
Maddie. Madison. You’re really her daughter?”

“I have pictures of me as a baby with Desiree. I’m her
daughter. There’s no doubt about that. I was at Cantaloupe Springs Apartments
yesterday. The man who lives in the apartment above and over the one where
she—where we used to live—recognized her. He’s the one who gave me your name.”

“She gave you up. I’m still having a hard time believing
it.”

Madison’s palm slickened against the phone. She hadn’t
known, sitting in the Jeep outside of the apartment building, how far she meant
to pursue Bio-mom, but now, now she knew she couldn’t let it stop here.

“Can we meet?” she asked. “I want to know what she was like
back then. Who she was.”

And where she is now?

Madison was less certain about that.

“I’m in Reno,” Tanya said. “But I’m about to head to work.
We can meet after my shift, or maybe on one of my breaks if we make it quick.
I’ll be at the Gold and Silver Casino.”

“It’ll take a while to get there. We’re near San Francisco.”

“Just call me when you get here. If it goes to voicemail I’m
still on the floor. I’m a poker dealer. Don’t try to talk to me about this
while I’m working.”

“We’ll be there in a little while.”

“You sure you want to do this?” Tyler asked.

“I’m sure I want to go as far as Reno. How long to get
there?”

“Four hours, a little longer depending on traffic and how
many stops we make.” He kissed her neck. “And how long it takes to get Shane up
and going.”

“I need to get a picture of the woman who claimed to be my
mother.”

“As Shane would say, true. For all we know, Tanya Meadows is
playing you.”

“That’s a little cynical.”

She felt his shrug.

“I
do
work for both the police and Crime Tells.”

He’d said that before. She
knew
it was true, but she
realized that she thought of him as an artist first, because he had the soul of
one.

She pressed against him, absorbing his strength and heat.
She couldn’t put off calling her parents’ friend any longer.

“Here goes,” she said.

It took surrendering her name to get transferred to
Elizabeth Gold.

“What can I do for you, Madison?” Elizabeth asked, her voice
chilly with disapproval.

It made Madison wonder how often adopted children contacted
the firm in an attempt to be reunited with their biological parents. It told
her that she wouldn’t get a picture of Suzanne Turner, not without telling
Elizabeth the truth.

So she told it—from discovering that her parents might lose
their house to meeting with the Richmond lawyer to the forged birth certificate
to having located someone who might be the woman who’d shown up in Virginia,
claiming to be Suzanne, or who might recognize her.

“Will you send me a picture from the adoption file? And
please, please don’t tell Mom and Dad about this. I’ll do it when I get home,
but I don’t want them upset.”

“Oh, Madison, I had no idea things were that bad.”

The chilly disapproval was gone from Elizabeth’s voice,
replaced by honest distress.

“I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t gone into their office.
You know Mom and Dad…”

Familiar pain washed in at being excluded, but the
tightening of Tyler’s arms was like the erection of a storm-surge wall—a
permanent barrier created by the knowledge that she’d been so, so lucky to have
parents who loved her enough to shield her from fear and worry, while he’d
experienced the exact opposite.

Safe in his arms, and with Bio-dad’s revelations, it
occurred to her that maybe the true origins of that old pain, the sense that
her parents didn’t
need
anyone else in their lives but each other, came
from the loss and separation she’d experienced when she was two, of having been
loved, part of a family, and then surrendered.

“I’ll have to tell my boss about this,” Elizabeth said. “He
did due-diligence. He can’t be found at fault. But he needs to know.”

“Will you send me the picture?”

Madison felt Elizabeth’s hesitation.

“Please, it’s important. I’ll share what I learn. He’ll want
to know that as well.”

Madison heard a slow, shaky exhale.

“Where do you want it sent?”

She gave Elizabeth both an email address and her phone
number. “You’ll do it now?”

“As soon as I pull the file.”

Madison set the phone on the counter.

Braden came into the kitchen.

Shane followed, coming over and leaning around to give her a
kiss.

Her phone buzzed. Elizabeth sending the picture.

“Suzanne Turner?” Shane guessed at seeing it.

“Yes.” She was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, short and
blocky.

Tyler said, “Doesn’t resemble either you or Bio-mom, not
that I’d expect her to. Also doesn’t look like Ryan Bergdorf’s description of
Tanya Meadows.”

Madison told Shane and Braden about the call from Tanya as
she got to work making pancakes and bacon. The guys poured coffee and got the
table set.

“Change of name is a smart move,” Braden said. “Adds another
degree of separation.”

“He got lucky I couldn’t say my own name.” Maggie to Maddie,
what her parents had called her until she was thirteen and wanted a more
sophisticated sounding name.

Shane leaned against the counter, his eyes devouring the
strips of bacon she’d just flipped.

When he reached toward the skillet, she threatened him with
the spatula.

He jerked his hand back. “That’s harsh.”

Grinning, he glanced at Braden who was pouring a second cup
of coffee. “Isn’t that harsh, bro?”

“It’s harsh.”

“So who won last night?” she asked.

Shane rubbed the fingers on his left hand together. “Yours
truly got a necessary infusion of cash.”

Braden snorted. “Couple of lucky rolls at the end. That’s
all.”

Madison plated the bacon along with the first batch of
pancakes.

Shane took the dishes to the table.

She poured another round of pancakes then claimed a chair
that’d allow her to monitor the stove.

Braden leaned over his plate and inhaled deeply, sighing
with pleasure. “How about we do this again tomorrow morning?”

“Gotta get back to you on that, bro,” Shane said, slathering
butter on a pancake.

Braden laughed and lifted his glass of OJ. “It makes me wish
for the days when Calista lived in Lyric’s place. She was always good for a
home-cooked meal.”

He took a swallow of OJ.

Shane said, “Madison’s right. You need to get a wife.”

Braden choked, orange juice coming out of his nostrils.

Wiping the OJ away he said, “Tell me you didn’t say that.
Tell me you haven’t gone over to the dark side like almost everyone else in our
family.”

Shane crunched a piece of bacon.

Braden glanced over his shoulder, suddenly looking a little
nervous. “Anybody visit Grandma M lately?”

Shane snickered. “Scared? Picking up on some vibes and
afraid she’s already
seen
what’s coming your way?”

Madison glanced at Tyler and saw him studying Braden
speculatively. “What
are
you guys talking about?”

“Grandma Maguire has the
sight
,” Shane deadpanned.
“Braden and Lyric do too, though not nearly as strongly.”

“Ha ha.” She got up to turn the second batch of pancakes and
stayed next to the stove.

He slapped one hand over his heart and raised the other.
“Seriously. Boy Scout Promise.”

“Were you even a Boy Scout?”

“Of course I was.”

“Yeah right,” Braden said. “For all of three months. And it
was Cub Scouts.”

“Whatever. That’s not the point.” He looked at Tyler. “Tell
her I’m not bullshitting about Grandma M.”

“He’s not.”

“Okay, give me an example of this famous sight.”

“There was the time she warned Lyric’s parents about going
on that expedition in Colombia,” Braden said.

Shane claimed the last piece of bacon. “That’s a good one.”

Tyler added syrup to his pancake. “I like the hitman story.”

Braden took the syrup bottle from Tyler. “Yeah, that’s
probably a better one.”

“Okay, here goes,” Shane said. “This involves Bulldog. He
took a job in Atlantic City. One of the casinos there thought something hinky
was going on at the blackjack tables. Almost every day a group of people who
looked like they didn’t have much money would come in and mostly play at the
same three tables. They’d lose a bundle. But the funny thing was, every day,
three to six people would come in and play at those same three tables, and
adding it all up, would win just about what the other players had lost.”

Madison set a fresh batch of pancakes on the table and
reclaimed her chair, totally intrigued. “Let me guess, they were laundering
money.”

Braden grinned. “Maybe you ought to work for Crime Tells.
How’s your poker game?”

“Better than mine,” Tyler said.

Both Braden and Shane smirked. Shane said, “Back to the hitman
story. And yeah, you’re right. They were laundering drug money in exchange for
cash or product. It was actually a good scheme, but to get away with it they
needed way more fresh faces at the table.”

“That’d only go so far,” Braden said. “What they really
needed was to be willing to let the money ride at the casino or trust the
losers to play at other tables and not try to cheat them, or at least change
things up so it wasn’t obviously money in, money out.”

“True.” Shane snagged another pancake. “So the casino got
suspicious. They called Bulldog. He agreed to investigate. But one of the
blackjack dealers involved somehow found out about it—something that came out
afterward. He told the guys he was working for and they ordered him to find out
when Bulldog was showing up. He did, and they arranged a hit.”

“Only Grandma M had a premonition while he was traveling,”
Braden said.

Madison leaned forward, pancake cooling on her plate.
“What’d she see?”

Shane said, “The first two letters of a New Jersey license
plate on a black car parked behind a yellow one about a block away from a
street sign. That image was followed by flashing lights, a coroner’s van and
Bulldog—with most of his face and head missing.”

Madison shivered. The hair on her arms rose. “She called and
warned him?”

Shane nodded. Braden said, “She had to wait until his plane
landed. She says it was close to being the longest three hours of her entire
life.”

“Then what happened?”

“Bulldog called in a favor. The cops found the car where
Grandma had seen it. The guy waiting for Bulldog had a gun and a couple of
felony convictions, so back to jail, do not pass Go or collect two hundred
dollars. He lawyered up. It didn’t matter. Bulldog got to the casino and
figured out how the three dealers were tipping the winning players so they’d
know when to bet big. That caused a race to confess and cut the best deal.”

Madison put butter and syrup on her pancake. “How’d the
gunman know where to wait for Bulldog?”

“Easy,” Braden said. “The hotel sent a car for him. The
driver pretty much always traveled the same route.”

They polished off the rest of the breakfast.

Tyler asked Braden, “You going to be around today?”

“Yeah. Don’t have anything that’ll take me too far.”

“You mind keeping the girls?”

Braden grinned. “Returning them means I get invited to the
next meal, right? As long as Madison’s cooking, taking on some responsibility
would be a yes.”

Tyler glanced at Madison, silently asking if she wanted to
slave over the stove for another meal.

“You’re invited,” she said.

Braden pumped his fist.

She couldn’t help but laugh.

Tyler stood. “Ready to head to Reno?”

“Definitely.” Though they stayed long enough to clean up
after breakfast, then left with an exuberant Kiki and Daisy at the end of their
leashes.

Madison snickered when she saw the jacked-up monster truck
parked behind Shane’s Rubicon. “Overcompensating much?” she asked Braden.

He grinned. “You’re in a better position to answer that one.
Until little brother had his bad run of cards, the truck belonged to him.”

She turned to Shane. “Really?”

“What can I say? Boys and their toys.”

Braden lifted the wriggling dachshunds into the truck. “Now
that I’ve got the babe-magnets, I think I’ll take them someplace where the
scenery is more interesting.”

They got in the Jeep, Madison up front, Tyler sliding into
the back. “Tell me some more
sight
stories,” she said.

And they did, most of them involving Grandmother Maguire,
but more than a few about Lyric and Braden.

Tyler’s phone rang as they hit Stockton.

“Possibly a Modesto number,” he said, quickening Madison’s
pulse.

Shane changed lanes, moving to the far right and slowing to
the speed limit.

Tyler answered. Listened. Said, “Madison is with me. We can
be there in thirty-five, forty-five minutes.”

He leaned forward, his hair brushing her arm. “That was Alma
Escobar, apartment twenty-one. Last week a lawyer showed up at her door with an
envelope to hold for you. He paid her a thousand bucks, with the promise of
another thousand when she handed off the envelope. He told her that she had to
give it to you directly, and that you would be with someone from Crime Tells.”