Chapter 1: Seek Him Out
"Are you sure she'll be fine here?" Anna Nardini asked her brother Steve for the umpteenth time.
"Anna, it will just be for one night. We'll be fine. Go to your meeting!" Steve admonished her with a smile.
12-year-old April Nardini was on the couch, the flickering lights of a television program dancing on her face. Anna went over to her daughter and placed a fierce kiss on her forehead. "Now you be good for your uncle, and you do what he tells you."
April sent Anna an easygoing smile. "Yes, Mom."
"I love you, my precious."
April smirked. "Gollum, Gollum..."
"Oh stop it!" Anna laughed, turning back to hug her brother. "Thanks, Steve! I'll call you when I get there!"
"Bye, sis." Steve closed the front door, before plopping onto the couch next to his niece. "Just you and me tonight, tesoro. What are you watching?"
"Double Jeopardy."
"Ooh, Alex Trebek?"
April laughed. "The movie, Uncle Steve, not the show!"
"Oh." Uncle and niece fell into silence as they observed Tommy Lee Jones leaping into a car before it got driven off the edge of a ferry. "You know, I always thought Ashley Judd looked a little like your mom."
April giggled.
April fell asleep in the middle of the movie, so Steve carried her up to bed. It was deep night when the little girl woke up to go and get a drink of water. On her way back, she paused on the landing when she heard her uncle's voice downstairs.
"I can't leave now, Officer, I am watching her child! I am not leaving April in an empty house. Look, if I can be of assistance... bring her to my lab and I can perform identification there. I am a scientist, sir... Of course. Thank you, Officer. Goodbye."
Confused, April ran back to bed, fearing the worst.
The next morning, April trudged downstairs to breakfast. Her uncle was already at the table, with a cold cup of coffee in his hands. He looked pale, with dark circles under his eyes, making April wonder if he had slept at all.
"Where's Mom?" April dared herself to ask, flashing back to the conversation she had overhead.
Steve met her eyes, looking utterly broken. April returned the gaze intensely, her heart rate speeding up.
"Your mom..." Steve cleared his throat loudly, trying to mask the crack that seemed to come into his timbre, but this only sent April into more of a panic. She didn't think she had ever seen her uncle cry. Ever. "Your mom got carjacked, sweetie. On the way home from her meeting. When the officers found her, there were multiple gunshot wounds. She's... she's gone, tesoro."
April stared at him blankly, her mind whirring. What was she supposed to feel? She berated herself for not yet bursting into tears on the spot. She gulped heavily, and in the tempest that was her brilliant mind, she leapt to one train of thought and seized onto it.
Her mother was gone... but there was someone else...
"Uncle Steve, I need to find my father. Now."
Steve stared at her. When his sister had fallen pregnant, she had been unable to tell him who the father of her baby was. Only that she had been with three different men at around the same time. Anna had not found her brother's subsequent joke about Mamma Mia very funny. But she had told him she remembered the names of each of her lovers, even kept pictures of them. Pictures that were now stored in a secret compartment in her dresser.
April appeared determined, resolute. If this was her way of beginning to grieve for her mother, than it was better than his niece sinking into a depression. And April had asked Anna about the identity of her father for years, never receiving a satisfactory answer. There seemed to be no better time than now for April to receive closure. The consideration of what Anna's wishes would have been was only briefly entertained by Steve. Surely, his sister would give her blessing, in this situation?
And so, he rose from his seat. "Come with me."
Steve led his niece back to her house, and they got in with little trouble. Steve then opened the hidden compartment in Anna's bedside table. Inside were three photographs, each one stapled to a marked envelope.
April held up the first one. A young, well-built man in a flannel shirt and a backwards baseball cap stared back at her. He appeared handsome, rugged, mysterious. Turning to her uncle, April's eyes gleamed with excitement and hope. "Will you help me with a science experiment, Uncle Steve?"
Her uncle, who had always been thrilled by April's love of science, nodded. "They don't call me Dr. Nardini for nothing."