"I found her."
"Oh?"
Guy fought back a smile and wondered how one person could convey so much information in such a short word - doubt... disdain... disbelief.
"Yes Gramama, I did." He allowed himself a full grin, mostly because his not-even-related-grandmother wasn't with him to see it and give him hell. He was the only person who could get away with calling Dorothea Lindell that affectionate name. He'd never understood why she'd opened her arms to him anyway, given his dubious heritage.
"Wipe that smirk off your face. I'm not too old to still take a round out of you." Her indrawn breath sounded like a shop vacuum sucking up a pool of water.
Oooh, I'm scared, Grams. He waited her out.
"How do you know it's her?"
"Well, Gramama, I know because I'm good at looking at a picture and seeing similar details in someone else's face. That's why you hired me to find her. Of course my charm and good looks had to have played a part in that."
She snorted in mock disgust while Guy continued to smile. He loved his relationship with her. He was very fortunate to have it or any acknowledged connection with her. She was a lot softer than people knew but he didn't plan to share that bit of news.
"Just a moment."
He could hear his grandmother's muffled voice along with a man's. Uncle Geoffrey or at least that was what his step-grandmother had hoped Guy would come to know him as, was angry as usual. Guy flinched, an automatic response. They'd never gotten along. Geoffrey had hated Guy from the moment they'd met.
"What the hell do you mean to bring that brat into this family?"
"Watch your mouth, Geoffrey. He is my grandson and will be treated as such."
"He's no blood relative of mine."
"No he's not but he's important to me. If nothing else, you owe me the respect I deserve and you need to trust me. I'm asking you to accept this boy."
"You want me to accept the grandchild of a maid, whose daughter swears she was raped here, on our property? Hasn't she brought enough embarrassment to this family? You want to raise that brat as one of us?"
"You ever talk like that to me again and you're out."
Geoffrey had backed down immediately but he'd seemed angry enough to strike her. And he'd never accepted Guy, treating him the same way he treated chewing gum clinging to the bottom of his five-hundred-dollar shoes, doing whatever he had to do to get rid of it.
Many years later, Guy realized that his grandma held the reins at Caspian Winery. She'd given them to Geoffrey when someone had leaked to the media that her husband, Joseph, was his father. Guy would have loved that. The real reason she'd given up the reigns for a while was because Joseph had cancer. He'd been fighting for his life and she'd been right there beside him. Once he'd pulled through all the chemotherapy and radiation and seemed to be on the mend, she'd taken back the CEO position but Geoff remained her right-hand person and had continued to act as though he owned the place.
And nothing had changed. Guy had learned to stay out of Geoffrey's way.
"Guy, we've got a problem," his grandmother said.
Guy shook off that horrid memory of meeting Geoff. What else was new? Geoffrey always had something crawling up his butt. Guy just hoped his grandmother hadn't shared with him what he was really doing. "What do you mean a problem?"
"Geoffrey just came to tell me that we're having some issues with our new acquisition in Southern California. They want more money. Since I've been bragging about your skills as a negotiator, he seems to think I should hire you to run our south shore winery. Well, at least the one that will be ours if he doesn't screw up the deal. You'd be very good, at least when I got done with you, anyway." She huffed.
"Thanks but I don't-"
"Of course you don't have time right now. I need you to keep working on this case."
Guy shuddered as he wished he had the nerve to tell her outright there was no way he would be going into the family business. Ever. Definitely not while her brother, Geoff was there.
After a short silence, she said, "Send me a report and tell me all that you've found out already. And no, don't email it to me. And yes, I do know how to use it. I just don't trust it. You can tell me all the firewalls and antiviruses that keep it safe but I believe that if someone wants the information they'll find a way to hack in. Fax it to me. Make sure it's her, Guy. Make sure."
He tapped his index finger on his chin, a quirk he'd involuntarily picked up from his grandfather. He chuckled, remembering he'd always done that whenever his grandmother challenged him. "It's her, Gramama. If you could see her, you'd know it too. Don't worry, I know what I need to do. I'll keep this quiet as long as I can. You need to prepare Gina and Daniel, though. They need to hear this from you."
She huffed again. "Don't tell me how to handle my daughter. I'll let them know when I'm good and ready. And when I am as convinced as you are that she is the one. I won't have her hurt this family again. When I meet her I'll decide what's right."
He shook his head. He understood her anger but she couldn't blame it on a kidnapped baby, the only innocent party in the mess.
"Take care of yourself," she said as she rang off.
He wished she hadn't said that. She wasn't sentimental, so a strong sense of foreboding hit him like a smack in the face with a newly caught fish. Uneasy, he stared at the phone as he tapped the end button on his Blackberry, and then searched for his business partner's number.
He watched the woman known as Bailey Saunders walk out of the funeral home, looking dazed and confused. He had to add to her burdens and regret struck him, along with sheer fatigue. He almost wished he'd taken that vacation he'd been putting off. And off. And off. But as soon as this was done he was going to go far away and lie on a beach.
Despite the hard work, he loved being a computer geek. Although he'd only been at it for a little more than a year with his partner, Graham Knight, Guy had excelled. Knights Associates had been tough slugging for a while to get clients. And when they had business, the hours were long and grueling.
Their other cases tended to involve cheating spouses but the work was impersonal. The private investigators who hired them wanted any online traces of emails and pictures that would support their theory of infidelity. He and Graham didn't care for those jobs but they had paid the bills in the beginning. Some interesting cases had come along from the police department, wanting them to check out fraudulent activity in a few companies. Then Guy's grandma had approached him with finding the lost baby. This task was way outside of their normal work, which was hunting the internet for people who were breaking or had broken the law. Searching for and finding someone who was stolen almost thirty years before wasn't their usual assignment and although it fascinated him, he hadn't wanted to take it. In fact he'd begged Graham to do it. Graham had just smiled that knowing smile and had shaken his head.
The tears that had filled his grandmother's eyes when she'd asked had really been his undoing. He'd never seen her shed a tear or even come close. And she'd had plenty of reasons to over the years, especially when he'd been brought into the fold-an offspring from an ugly situation and no relation to her at all. But she hadn't turned him away and had insisted that he call her grandmother. She hadn't turned him away when his mother had died in a car accident, nor when the scandal of rape had hit the newspapers, for a second time. Nor when his grandfather, her husband, her friend, had died suddenly.
She'd taken it all in stride. Her one goal had been to protect him at all costs. She'd known he was innocent and would not let the media nor his money-grabbing grandmother use him to smear the Lindell name and gain fortune.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He would do anything for Dorothea. She'd been the one to save him from a life of hell in foster homes, for that alone, he'd have helped her.
Hitting the number two on his speed dial, he waited for it to be answered.
"Are you calling because you need advice, you miss me or your grandma is giving you a hard time?" Graham asked.
>
Guy smiled. "Kiss mine."
"Ah but then one would presume that I wanted to and after catching Mr. Simon doing that exact deed with Mr. Traemont, I don't know that I'll ever be able to get that vision out of my head. I think the only thing worse was telling Mr. Simon's wife, 'yes, he was cheating but no, it wasn't a younger woman but a younger man.' Eecccchhhh."
Guy burst out laughing. Graham had worked as a private investigator for a large company for a few years. He'd been hired on to do computer work for them but he'd soon found that they'd really needed an extra body to do legwork and he'd been it. Investigations had never been something he'd wanted to do but he loved to share the stories of the stakeouts he'd been on.
"How's it going? Any luck?"
"Well, after covertly entering the plane and flying all the way across country, I landed in the airport. After several hours of sleuthing-"
"Don't tell me you got some dumb luck and found her right away?"
"You won't believe it. This case might be over before it starts."
"What happened?"
"I get off the airplane at Victoria Airport, walk into the terminal and guess what? There she is in line getting on a plane. So I get in line, buy a ticket and now I'm in Calgary."
"Alberta? What in the world are you doing there? Are you sure you didn't just decide to take that vacation you keep saying you will and are actually calling me from Cancun after one too many rum punches?"
He tapped his finger on his chin as he took a deep breath. Things were good. "I seriously am doing that once this case is over. In fact I should get Sherry to book me a trip for next week."
"You think it'll be over that fast?"
He'd thought a lot about it. His role was to find her and tell her who she really was, which made him uncomfortable. How would she feel? Then he'd hand her over to his step-grandmother who would decide how to handle the rest. He'd already done half the job. "Yeah, it's looking like it."
"So what's in Calgary?"
"Her mother. And unfortunately her mother's funeral."
"Shit. Sorry to hear that. It'll make it tough telling her she's not who she thinks she is."
You have no idea. "I've got to go. Tell Sherry to check out some prices for me. Hmm? Hawaii, I think."
"Good choice, ol' boy. Ta ta for now."
Guy chuckled as he ended the conversation. Graham's snobby British accent was bad but it sure lifted Guy's spirits.
Glancing out his window, he noted that Bailey was finally on the move. He started his SUV and pulled into traffic four cars behind her. His gut clenched, twisting his insides. This case wasn't going to have the quick finish he wanted.
CHAPTER FOUR