Chapter Eight

Six months later, Emma still hadn't sent in the form to let Neal know she wanted to hear from him. She did want to. Hear from him, see him, talk to him, touch him… But something kept holding her back. At first, she thought she knew what it was: people who came into her life, even good people, never stuck around for long. And if she ever met up with them again, no matter how great they'd been in the past, any attempt to rekindle a friendship just got awkward, as though one of them had… matured… and the other hadn't. Or they'd both moved on in different directions. Or something. She told herself that she just wanted to hold onto the memories of the good times she and Neal had shared and not replace them with uncomfortable pauses and throat-clearings and trying to find stuff to say.

And then she realized that she had plenty she wanted to tell him, but she didn't know how to start. How could she tell Neal that she'd borne his child and given him up and had no clue where he was or who'd taken him in or if he was even still ali—She viciously tamped down that scary thought. She'd given birth to a healthy baby boy. He was fine. Or he should be. Or...

She didn't know. She didn't know now, but one day she would find out. But right now, she still didn't know how she could explain it all to Neal. Not when she had a pretty good idea of how he'd react when she did…

"Drugs?" Emma asked, with a hint of bitterness.

Neal hesitated. "Close enough, I guess, yeah. I was… well, trying to find a way to help him clean up. And he said he was going to, if there was a way we could stay together and he'd have something waiting for him when he got done. I started doing my research—"

"Hang on. How old were you?"

"Fourteen," Neal replied at once. "Yeah, I was precocious. Growing up the way I did, I sort of had to be. Anyway, I found a place and it sounded great. And Papa was on board, or at least I thought he was, until the last minute."

"What happened?"

Neal hesitated. "I… I went on ahead to check it out. I sent him the money and a train ticket. He never showed up. I never heard from him again. At the last, he just… couldn't kick the habit. He chose it over me and that was that."

Emma's lie detector was pinging, and she'd been about to call him on it, but the last sentence had rung true. Or at least, it was what he believed. Still, she found herself asking, "Are you sure? I mean, if you never heard from him again, maybe something else… happened. Like he lost the ticket or he got mugged or—"

"No," Neal said with finality. "Just because I never heard from him doesn't mean I never heard about him. He's still out there." He blew air out between his teeth. "And no matter how many times I try to remind myself about the good times and how he was there for me before he got into the other stuff, the bottom line is that he abandoned me. I'd never do that to any kid of mine." He leaned back into the cushioned seat of the VW.

Emma's throat felt dry. "I-I never thought about having kids," she murmured. "I mean, sure, one day, maybe. I mean…" She swallowed hard. "I grew up in the system. I know more about not being a good parent than being one. A-and I'm only sixt—"

"Hey, easy," Neal was smiling. "I didn't mean right now! I'm not ready either! But," his expression turned serious once more, "if anything did happen, then ready or not, I wouldn't try to duck my responsibility. And there's no way I'd ever turn my back on anyone I had a hand in bringing into the world."

And her lie detector didn't go off at all that time.

Emma's throat was dry. She wanted to see Neal, talk to him, hear his voice… After all this time, she'd forgotten so much about just being with him. And he'd probably moved on like everyone else in her life who had ever meant anything to her, she told herself.

For a minute, she wished her superpower worked on herself.

Actually, in this case, it wouldn't make a difference; if a person believed that they were telling the truth, her power never told her otherwise. And anyway, what reason did she have to think that Neal would be any different from all the rest?

He wasn't lying when he told me he loved me.

Yeah, but he'd told her he loved her… She did some rapid calculations. It had been almost a year and a half since she'd seen him last. Eleven months in Durango, or eleven months minus the three weeks or so she'd been at Second Chance. six months in Miami, because she hadn't had anywhere else to go after her release, and when Durango had set her up with an employment counsellor shortly before her release, she'd jumped at an opportunity to work outside Phoenix, if only barely. And now, she'd been here in Globe for just under three months.

She was a stone's throw from the minimum security prison; she could walk there on her lunch break, for crying out loud (though she imagined that it would take longer than that hour to get through security)! What the hell was holding her back?

She didn't want to find out that he'd changed. She didn't want to find out if she had. And she didn't want to find out his reaction when he found out that she'd given up their child for adoption. When he found out what an idiot she'd been. Because Neal would have been smart enough to know that the deal Ross had proposed wasn't legal. He would have asked all the right questions, raised all the right doubts. Better yet, he'd never have considered making it. When he found out what she'd done, he wouldn't want anything more to do with her.

The smart play, she knew, was to never contact him again. She should leave Globe tonight; there was nothing holding her here now. Well. Apart from her lack of transportation, the fact that the cash payment she'd gotten from Ross had pretty much gone on rent, clothes, and furniture and she'd need to scrape up first-and-last for a deposit on any apartment she might get, if she found one at all. And she'd have no jobs lined up, no connections, no… No way she was going anywhere now.

Besides, she liked working for Ray Manuel and she was starting to think that she might actually have what it took to become a good investigator.

She didn't have to make a decision now. But maybe... Maybe she should send in the form. She could see Neal, talk to him, find out how much longer he had until he got out, and find out how he felt about her and how she felt about him.

If whatever they'd had was gone, she'd never have to tell him about the baby. And if it wasn't, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

Emma looked up in surprise when her boss set a thin file folder down beside her. "Did I miss something?" she asked a bit nervously. She knew she sometimes got sloppy when she was bored and a lot of the data entry was boring. So far, Ray had been decent about it, but if she made too many errors, Ray would probably be decent about telling her that hiring her had been a mistake, too.

"This is a skip trace case," he said. "We get a few of those from time to time. There are a number of third-party collection agencies in the area. Uh… you know what those are, right?"

"Uh… Well, I know what collection agencies are."

Ray nodded. "When an account goes past due, the creditor likes to try to handle things in-house with their own collections department first. If the accounts remain unpaid, and especially if the customer doesn't try to work out some kind of arrangement—and if they don't declare bankruptcy—then usually at the six-month mark, the creditor turns around and sells the debt to an outside—or third party—agency. These guys buy the debt for pennies on the dollar, so the creditor can cut their losses with the delinquent customer. Then the agency tries to collect. Now, there are all kinds of reasons why an account can fall so far into arrears, but in general, it boils down to the customer being either unable or unwilling to pay. If they're unable, they might do a number of things from hide their heads in the sand and hope people get tired of calling them, to declaring bankruptcy or going for credit counselling, to working out some kind of arrangement with the creditor where they're paying consistently what they can afford until the debt's cleared, no matter how long it takes. And it's not uncommon for the creditor to agree to either freeze the interest or forgive some of the debt, as long as the person continues to deal in good faith."

"Okay," Emma nodded. "And this folder…?"

Ray smiled. "Well, now we're getting to 'unwilling'. These people have the money, or some of it anyway, but for whatever reason, they refuse to pay. I heard one case where a guy went three hundred over limit on his MasterCard. When that happens, the amount you're over is typically added to the minimum due. So, if your minimum due is five percent of the outstanding balance and you went over your limit by a hundred, you pay the five percent, plus the hundred."

"So if your credit limit is," Emma frowned, "I don't know, a thousand, and your balance is eleven hundred, are you charged five percent of the thousand, or five percent of eleven hundred plus the hundred?"

"Good question. Not relevant to the story, but go ahead and research the answer in your spare time if you're curious. Anyway," Ray went on, "this guy thought he knew the law better than the credit card company. He claimed that the credit card company was at fault for letting him go over and because of that, they were legally required to write off that three hundred. That's wrong on all counts, by the way. He then decided that he wasn't going to pay anything until they wrote off the three hundred, plus all fees and interest incurred by his refusal to pay."

"Seriously?" Emma gasped. "How'd that work out?"

"Well, I only know about it because my contact at the collection agency was sharing it as an example of the type of specimen of humanity he deals with. It's not something this firm had to deal with because there's not much to investigate. Last I heard, they were pursuing it through the courts; the outstanding balance was over ten thousand. This, though?" he tapped the folder.

"College graduate with his first card. Maxed it out in a month and never made a payment. After the first two collections calls, the phone was disconnected. Statements were returned to sender with 'Addressee moved' written across the envelope. Now, unfortunately," Ray sighed, "the three most common surnames, bar none, in Arizona happen to be Smith, Johnson, and Garcia. So, maybe it shouldn't be a shocker when you look at the name in the file and discover that our missing man just so happens to be named Scott Johnson. Your mission," he went on injecting an ominous note into his voice, "should you choose to accept it, is to track down the right Scott Johnson."

Emma's eyes widened. "Wait. My mission? You're saying that this is a real case you want me to handle?"

He placed three stapled sheets of paper down beside the folder. "Do's and Don'ts. Read them before making any phone calls or sending any correspondence. Ask me if you're not clear on something. We've got a lot more leeway than the courts or the cops as far as how we uncover our evidence, but better safe than sorry. For the next little while, you'll do your data entry in the morning and after lunch till two o'clock. From two to five, this one's all yours. And if I'm staying later, so can you."

Emma touched the folder almost reverently. "Okay," she said. Then more confidently, "Okay, I'll do my best."

"I know," Ray said. "And Emma, you remember your math classes where you got points for showing your work, even if you didn't quite get the answer you were looking for?"

"Yeah…?"

"There are a lot of Scott Johnsons in Arizona. And there's no guarantee he's still in Arizona. At this point, I'm more interested in seeing how you look for him than in whether you find him. In other words, your job is not on the line if you don't. Just so we're clear, okay?"

Emma smiled. "Okay," she said, for the third time in as many minutes.

It took her a week. "He's in Scottsdale," she told Ray at 4:30 that afternoon. "I just spoke with him."

The smile that had already begun forming on Ray's face froze. "What did you say to him?" he asked, a little too calmly.

Emma shrugged. "I told him I was in theater club with his sister Nikki—it's Nicola in the information you gave me, but she just finished high school in Phoenix. I took a chance I could still pass for seventeen—that's where I went on Wednesday, by the way—caught the bus in, went to the school and checked out the yearbook. That was when I found out she went by Nikki and what her interests were."

"Impressive," Ray said, "and…?"

"And the 'Where Are They Now' section of the book told me she was deferring college for a year and taking a gap year to save tortoises in the Galapagos Islands. So I told him I was trying to get in touch with Nikki as part of an alumnae project to give this year's juniors and seniors an up-close look at what's out there and did he have an address for her. He told me she was hard to reach these days, and usually she calls every few weeks just to let everyone know she's alive." Emma spoke faster now, her words nearly tumbling out. "So I asked if maybe I could mail him some information about the alumnae project and he could mention it to her the next time she checked in." She held up a piece of paper triumphantly. "And he gave me his address!"

Ray broke into a huge grin. "All right, Emma!" he exclaimed. "Great work. Now, serious question: Did you enjoy your chance to play Nancy Drew?"

Emma nodded, still smiling. "Yeah," she said, "I did."

"I don't mean finding the guy; of course that's amazing. But the time you spent going through the paperwork, travelling to Phoenix—I hope you kept your receipt for the bus ticket by the way; that's the kind of expense you get reimbursed for—"

"I didn't," Emma admitted, her face falling. "I mean, it's okay; I didn't mind—"

Ray cut her off. "Did you have to show ID to buy the ticket?"

"Uh… yeah."

He walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled out a triplicate form. "Fill this out, fax it to Greyhound, and see if they can print you another copy. As I was saying, everyone likes a good result, but how did you enjoy the process?"

"I…" Emma hesitated. "I really think I could see myself doing more of this kind of thing."

"Good," Ray said, his smile turning fiendish. "Because I've got a whole pile waiting to be worked. You can get started after you send that fax."

Emma hesitated. "Uh… Ray? When I send that fax, could I send a personal one? I've been carrying it around with me for a while and I sort of keep forgetting about it—"

"You're not sending it to Abu Dhabi or Tasmania, right? Business is good, but since it's also 99 percent local, I signed on for the cheapest long distance plan they had."

Emma shook her head, smiling a little, to let him know she recognized that he was joking. "No, it's local."

"Then have at it. Oh, and next time, clear your travel with me. Some of our clients want to okay those expenses beforehand."

"Got it."

She almost didn't send the second fax after all. Her fears and doubts were still there and she wasn't sure if she was ready to find out the truth. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she told herself in an undertone. "And if I don't hear anything from him, or I do and it doesn't work out, then I'll know." And if she never reached out, she'd always wonder what might have been.

All the same, her hands were sweating as she took the form out of her pocket and she had to wipe them before she unfolded it, so she wouldn't smudge the ink.

The form slid into the scanner and out the other side. Electronic beeping blended with the hum and squeak of the motor. And then, a moment later, the confirmation printed. It had gone through.

Now, the ball was in Neal's court.