§ § § -- December 3, 2005

"Oh, my gosh," Cindy whispered, her eyes huge. "Oh, Mr. Auclaire, I'm so sorry. But if anyone in the world can find your son, it's Mr. Roarke."

Roarke chuckled. "I appreciate the vote of confidence, Cindy, but surely you're both aware that it won't be an easy thing. I believe I will be able to locate him, but first I will need certain pertinent details in order to begin my search. You'll have to provide me with your son's date and place of birth; I'll also need to know the name of the agency that handled the adoption."

"I'll give you all the information I can, Mr. Roarke," Auclaire said with great hope in his voice. "Something tells me I won't be able to rest till my son is found and everything is officially passed along to him. Thank you both for whatever help you can give."

"I don't know how much help I can be," Cindy said. "It's more likely Mr. Roarke's daughter will be helping him out."

"Your daughter? I never knew you were married," Auclaire said.

Roarke laughed. "Actually, Leslie is my adopted daughter," he said. "Like Cindy, she came to me as a ward, at the age of nearly fourteen; we grew close, and I formally adopted her as a high-school-graduation gift. She has been my assistant for the last fifteen years, and Cindy is correct—Leslie will be doing additional research into the matter."

Auclaire nodded. "I see. Leslie, huh?"

"Leslie Hamilton," said Cindy. "Well, Enstad now. You must've seen the press that surrounded her wedding to Prince Christian of Lilla Jordsö a few years ago."

"Actually, I'm afraid I didn't. I stopped reading papers or watching television after Trudy died, and I was already pretty ill myself. It was a lingering and painful illness, and I have to admit I'm more than glad it's all over. So, Mr. Roarke, you've got a prince for a son-in-law, eh? Must be pretty strange."

Roarke laughed. "Christian is quite unlike any royalty I have known in my time. He is a fine young man, and he and Leslie are very much in love. They have triplets, two girls and a boy."

"Oh, you're a grandpa," Auclaire said, grinning. He sighed, the grin fading into a wistful little smile. "Maybe I'm a grandpa too. I sure hope you can find out for me." He went on to give Roarke the basic information he had asked for.

"We will do our very best," Roarke promised. "Now, perhaps Cindy would prefer to repair to her bungalow for a while, and once I fill Leslie in, we can begin."

Auclaire smiled, then his image stilled back into the original photo; and Cindy picked up the frame, rising. "Thanks, Mr. Roarke. I figured this was going to be a pretty weird thing, but you rose right to the challenge."

"That's my business," Roarke replied. "Take a rest, now, and Leslie or I will notify you when we find something."

‡ ‡ ‡

In the bungalow she had been assigned for the weekend, Cindy carefully placed the framed photo atop the coffee table in the main room and went into the bedroom to unpack the small suitcase she'd brought with her. She'd barely opened the lid, though, before she heard Kenneth Auclaire's voice call her from the other room, and returned a little hesitantly to respond. "Is something wrong, Mr. Auclaire?"

"Oh, not at all…I just wanted some company. Come and sit down where I can see you. Hmm, looks like a nice little place."

Cindy, feeling absurd despite herself, slowly lowered herself onto the sofa facing the frame. "Mr. Roarke's resort is very well kept-up," she said. "It's a hallmark of his to provide the best possible accommodations."

"That's a man who knows how to cater to his guests," Auclaire said approvingly. "I just wish I'd been able to get here once before I died. Always meant to, but somehow I never got around to it. Strange way for me to finally make it happen."

Cindy blew out her breath. "You're not kidding. I helped Mr. Roarke out for a while, years ago, when he set up a trial run with granting children's fantasies. It turned out to be too much for him to handle with the extra workload, so he ended it after a couple of months or so. In any case, while it lasted, I acted as an extra assistant…and I definitely saw a few peculiar things. Nothing like this, though."

Auclaire chuckled. "Yup, I just bet I'm one of the really weird ones. Don't mince words, Cindy. Call it whatever you like, we both know it's true."

Cindy shifted in her seat. "Mr. Auclaire…if you don't mind…tell me about your son, the day he was born." She saw the mask of grief and regret transform his face and bit her lip. "I don't want to seem harmless, but who knows…maybe something you remember could help Mr. Roarke's search."

He considered this for a moment, then sighed, long and quietly. "You have a point. I really do want everything squared away so I can rest." He met her gaze, and she leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, listening intently.

Auclaire's voice was soft, almost a monotone; his eyes had lost focus and his mind was somewhere very far away. "He was born in 1941, my little boy…I guess that'd put him at close to retirement age now, wouldn't it? April 28, 1941, in a little hospital in Beverly Hills, a quiet place where they were used to celebrities giving birth and knew how to keep out the press and how to maintain privacy. I guess even then I was afraid of something happening, like a jinx or something. If only I hadn't been so right.

"Poor Lyddie, she strained and strained. Sweated rivers, gasped for breath, could barely stay conscious enough to keep pushing. That boy just didn't want to come out. They said he was breech, trying to come out backside first, and every time the doctor turned him the proper way and told Lyddie to start pushing, the kid turned himself back around. It happened four times before someone finally got the bright idea to just grab him and pull, but by then it was too late. Lyddie'd been in labor for almost fifty hours at that point and there was just nothing left in her. The baby was too big. She was so tiny, barely five feet tall. The baby weighed almost ten pounds when he finally came out. She'd lost too much blood and she was too weak, and she just…let go."

Cindy was outraged. "That should never have happened! Granted, it was over sixty years ago, but they should have known to do a C-section!"

"Lyddie wouldn't allow it. She was an actress too, you see, and she didn't want them cutting her open and leaving scars that might get captured on film later. Nobody could talk her into changing her mind, and she died for her vanity. And yet…" Auclaire's face contorted. "Yet I blamed that innocent baby for killing her, when it was her own fault and she could've been saved if she'd let them perform that damn operation."

Cindy swallowed and ventured, "You must have loved Lydia so much that there was no way she could do wrong in your eyes."

Auclaire finally focused on her. "I'm afraid so, Cindy. It took me a long time to fall in love with Trudy later, and an even longer time for me to see that it was Lyddie's own fault she died in childbirth. All for the sake of preventing a few stupid scars."

"What happened afterward?" Cindy asked gently.

"I was mad with grief and I really couldn't think beyond losing Lyddie. By the time I had any of my wits about me again, the baby was three days old and they were asking me when I wanted to take him home. That's when I exploded. I told them I wanted nothing to do with that child and I wanted arrangements made to give him up for adoption. They brought in people to try to talk sense into me, but I was young and stubborn, and I wouldn't listen. So the hospital made the arrangements for me. I don't really know the particulars. The only thing I remember is signing the paper giving up all rights to the baby and seeing the name of the agency that was handling it. Stupid name, I thought, that was the only reason I remembered it. Bluebell Adoptions."

Cindy nodded; Roarke had collected this same information at the main house earlier. "You don't even know who the person was who was assigned to your case?"

"No, a nurse brought me the papers. She tried one more time to coax me into at least holding the baby before I signed, but I just held out my hand for the paper, and she had to give it to me." He sighed again. "For all their lack of approval of my decision, they respected my privacy after all. That's why nobody ever found out about it, outside the hospital and the adoption agency."

Cindy settled back in her seat, feeling drained for some reason. "Well, believe me, Mr. Auclaire, like I said—if anyone can find him, it's Mr. Roarke."

‡ ‡ ‡

"I have to admit," Leslie remarked from the computer where she was researching the Bluebell Adoption Agency, "I'm amazed Kenneth Auclaire's secret stayed a secret. You'd think the press would be all over it, reporting this terrible thing he did to his own child."

Roarke smiled slightly. "The press was rather different in those days, Leslie. Show business itself was different. There was no television, as you well know, and the film studios had almost complete control over the medium. Of course, there were as many so-called 'scandals' in those days as there are now; but the studios worked to keep as much as possible under wraps, so that the public could believe in the illusion that their cinematic idols were perfect, shining examples of glamorous and wonderful lives."

"Were people really that gullible?" Leslie asked, amused, clicking on a link.

"I don't think they were gullible so much as they were simply innocent," Roarke said. "At the time Mr. Auclaire's son was born, the Great Depression was a very recent memory and the country was still recovering. World War II was in progress and within several months, the United States itself would become involved. It was a time when people wished to escape the real world and pretend that everything was lighthearted and fun."

Leslie nodded slowly, absorbing this. "I guess I can understand that. Problem is, with things like that kept so well hidden, that just makes it all the harder to track him down."

"Indeed," Roarke said. "But have faith, Leslie, as I've so often reminded you."

She shot him a defensive look. "I didn't say it was impossible. I just said it'd be hard."

Roarke laughed. "Very well, I stand corrected. Have you been able to find anything yet on the adoption agency?"

Leslie turned her attention back to the computer screen. "As a matter of fact…" she began, letting her voice trail off while she read what was on the monitor. After a moment she shook her head. "The Bluebell Adoption Agency closed down in 1969. All its records were turned over to the county archives, it says here. So whatever county Beverly Hills is in, that's where we'll have to go for the records."

Roarke nodded. "Look that up for me and give me the phone number if you would, Leslie. I'll handle the problem from there, and in the meantime I'd like you to get the day's mail to the post office and check in with Julie and Chef Miyamoto about menus."

She read the phone number to him while he picked up the phone and began punching it out; then she gathered up the mail and left, still thinking about the Auclaire fantasy. She'd started calling it that from the moment Roarke had filled her in on the conversation he and Cindy had had with what appeared to be nothing more than a moving, living photograph; after all, Cindy had simply been the vehicle by which Auclaire had contacted Roarke, and it was his fantasy. She grinned to herself on the way into town, anticipating Christian's reaction when she got the chance to tell him about it at lunch.

When that hour arrived and they had all seated themselves at the table, with the triplets in their high chairs contentedly munching on carrot strips and small, thin slices of ham, Roarke remarked, "It seems both fantasies are going very well so far. Lila Murchison is greatly enjoying her climb of Mount Everest, and I've managed to track down Mr. Auclaire's current descendants."

Leslie caught the plural of the last word. "So there're more than one?"

"Yes," Roarke said. Christian paused to listen in. "I've already arranged for them to make the trip here, and they should arrive on tomorrow morning's plane."

"Ah," Christian said with a smile, "a family reunion?"

Roarke hesitated just a second or two. "Not exactly, Christian," he said.

Leslie grinned. "It's more of a lost-family-found thing," she said.

Christian glanced back and forth between them and rolled his eyes. "You two do enjoy tormenting me," he complained lightly. "Go ahead, what's the rest of the story?"

"I have tracked down the long-lost son of actor Kenneth Auclaire," Roarke said, "a man whose existence is unknown to the public. We just found out about him this morning from Mr. Auclaire himself."

"Kenneth Auclaire…Kenneth Auclaire…" Christian muttered, frowning slightly. "For some reason that name sounds familiar, even though I'm sure I've never heard of him."

"You saw his obituary in the newspaper last month, my love," Leslie said helpfully.

Christian snapped his fingers, making the triplets look up at him. "Oh yes, that's right. I remember seeing it alongside Agata Grimsby's death notice." Then it hit him and he froze, only his eyeballs moving to fix upon Roarke. "Now wait a moment. If this man's dead, how could he have told you about his long-lost son this morning?"

"He spoke with me himself," Roarke assured him. "Through a photograph."

Christian groaned. "Now you've lost me completely. Leslie, my Rose, would you be so kind as to fill me in?"

Laughing, Leslie provided the full story of what had happened that morning. "Mind you, I myself didn't get to see the phenomenon," she said. "He'd show himself only to Cindy and Father. But you can bet that if Father says it happened, then it happened."

Christian was chuckling a little ruefully. "I should know better by now than to be amazed by much of anything that happens here anymore. A moving photograph, hm? I find it interesting that you've never encountered this particular situation before, Mr. Roarke."

"So do I," Roarke agreed, sitting back in his chair to contemplate for a moment. "One would think that there are far more souls than merely Mr. Auclaire's out there, leaving unfinished business behind when they pass on. I'm sure that much of this business is in fact completed eventually, by descendants; but Mr. Auclaire certainly isn't the only one in his situation. Confronted with his predicament, I find myself wondering why this hasn't happened already, and more often."

"I'd venture a guess that it probably has happened in the past," Leslie suggested, "but the previous times, you were contacted via different methods. Mr. Auclaire just seems to have chosen an unusual way of doing it."

"Highly unusual," Roarke agreed. He cast Christian a teasing glance. "Now that he's paved the way, as it were, somehow I doubt I would be surprised if you come to me in the near future claiming that a photo of your mother or your father has been speaking to you."

"Then please fate, let it be Mother," Christian said with another eyeroll, making them laugh. "Although with my luck, it would probably be my father. Before that image decides to take over my brain, let me ask—who are Mr. Auclaire's descendants?"

About ninety minutes later Cindy, having been summoned to the main house and told to bring the photograph, asked the same question, and Roarke cleared his throat, seeing the image of Kenneth Auclaire reanimate itself and focus intently on him. "I have discovered," he said slowly, "that your infant son was adopted in mid-May, 1941, by a couple named Hollister, from Wisconsin, and given the name Dennis. He was married in 1963 to a woman named Maria, who bore him a daughter in 1965; her name is Melody.

"In 1967 Dennis Hollister, who had enlisted in the Marine Corps five years earlier, was sent to Vietnam, where he was killed that same year." Roarke said this very softly, with a sympathetic look at Auclaire, who winced. "I am terribly sorry."

"Vietnam," muttered Auclaire. "So many good men died there…I'm sorry, Mr. Roarke, what happened to my son's wife and little girl?"

"It seems that Maria died of cancer when Melody was still a child; there is a record of her death on file in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The lady seems to have endured more than her share of hard knocks: at this time Melody lives in a homeless shelter with her two children, Nathan and Hannah Ireland. I have arranged for all three of them to come here to the island, at my expense."

Auclaire was gaping at him. "Good Lord, Mr. Roarke, how'd you do all that?"

Roarke smiled. "It wasn't very difficult," he said cryptically, making Cindy grin. "But I must warn you…her reception of the news that you are in fact her biological grandfather may not necessarily come as a pleasant surprise to her. And to say the least, having you yourself tell her so…"

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Auclaire admitted. "But I'd think she'd welcome the knowledge that she's inheriting everything I owned."

"Inheritances may seem like blessings, but too often they can be burdens," Roarke said. "However, it will be your granddaughter's decision to make. She and her children will arrive on the charter plane tomorrow morning."

"Is there some way, any way at all, that I could be around to see them?" Auclaire pleaded. "I have to know what she looks like, whether I can see any of myself or Lydia in her or her children. I never got to see my son after what I did. I want this chance to see my granddaughter and great-grandchildren. It'll be the only one I have."

Roarke smiled. "I am sure Cindy will be more than glad to show them this very photo of you, Mr. Auclaire, so that they can see as well what you look like. However, I'd advise against your attempting to speak to any of them."

Cindy giggled, and Auclaire grinned reluctantly. "I guess you have a point, no matter how much I hate the restriction. But if I can't speak directly to them, then maybe you'd do me another undeserved favor, Mr. Roarke, and deliver a message to them for me."