Chapter Twelve

Neal took a look at the groceries Emma was unpacking and sighed. "Pop tarts, Pringles… Cheez Whiz? Not even American slices, but Cheez Whiz?"

Emma gave him a glower. "Don't start," she muttered.

"Hey," Neal's smirk disappeared at once. "Hey, you okay?"

Emma sighed. "Yeah. Sure. I guess. Scratch Boston Angels," she said. "They shut down two years ago, around the time that Ross's arrest made the news. I spent all afternoon trying to track down an employee list. I even checked out LinkedIn at the library."

"Sorry, what?"

"Internet site," Emma clarified. "Been up for a year or two, now. It's good for networking. I thought some former employee might've mentioned having worked there in their profile, but no luck. I guess, if my place of business got linked to a black market adoption scandal, I wouldn't mention it either, but I was hoping."

Neal nodded. "So, it was a rough day."

"Yeah. Oh, uh, when you mentioned bounty hunting," she took a breath, "just how serious were you?"

Neal blinked. "Why?"

"Because," Emma groaned, "I can't get a PI license in Massachusetts without three references from Massachusetts residents who've known me for at least three years." She made disgusted face. "I spent a lot of time in the foster system here, but I was never in the same school for more than two years, never mind the same placement. One of the firms I went to said they'd hire me to do office work and maybe some process serving." She sighed. "And I'll probably do it, too; it'll pay the bills and this city isn't cheap. Still, if you think bounty hunting would be better…?"

"It might be," Neal said cautiously. "Let me think about it. And… maybe at first, we can sort of do both. I mean, one thing I do know about bounty hunting: you get paid by the collar. If you spend six months hunting down your guy… or gal," he amended, "you don't get paid till you catch and deliver them. And you get paid a percentage of the bond they skipped out on. Usually it's like ten, maybe twenty percent. Might be a good idea to have a steady salary between gigs."

"I get that," Emma nodded. "And if we are going to give bounty hunting a shot, well, one thing I learned from doing all those skip traces is that I'm actually pretty darned good at finding people."

"Meaning it's just a matter of time before you get a lead on our son," Neal reminded her.

Emma nodded slowly, a tiny smile playing on her lips.

The other agencies Emma contacted were polite, but unhelpful. "While we keep our employee records confidential, of course," one receptionist told her, "I don't think it's a policy violation to tell you that we wouldn't have hired anyone here who was employed at Boston Angels during the period in question. I mean, unless they were cleaning staff or something like that."

"What about if it was through a temp agency?" Emma pressed.

The receptionist paused, and Emma could hear the frown in her voice, when she answered. "We don't generally hire temps, though it's possible that one of the other agencies might. You could be onto something, though; a temp wouldn't be on the adoption agency's books as an employee. Anything else?"

Emma hesitated. "Well… maybe it's a longshot, but uh… did you place a baby girl for fostering or adoption in October of 1983? She would've been found on the side of a highway in Maine."

"Sorry," the receptionist said. "That's confidential."

"I was that baby," Emma said quickly. "I'm just trying to find some clue about who I am or where I came from. All I know is that I was put into foster care in Maine; the family that took me in moved to the Boston area about a year later. They were planning to adopt me," she was horrified to hear a quaver in her voice and started speaking even faster, as though she could outpace the wave of emotion washing over her, "but then, my foster…" not mother, "she found out she was having a kid of her own and they decided not to go through with it and I ended up in the system here when I was three and—"

"I understand," the receptionist interrupted her. "I do. Unfortunately, I can't pull up any files. What I can do, is give you the contact information for an adoption reunion registry."

"I wasn't adopted."

"I know, but given how you were found, your biological parents might not be aware of that. If either biological parent is on the registry, you'd be able to find them that way. And if they aren't, you can put yourself on the list in case they ever try to find you."

The woman kept talking, but Emma's mind was racing. That wasn't the only reason to get her name on the registry! Yes, of course, she wanted to find her parents still, after all this time, but meanwhile, the son she was trying to locate might be looking for her in a few years. If that happened, she thought grimly, then she was damned well going to make it easy for him!

"It's a good idea," Neal said approvingly that evening. "I should probably get my name on it, too."

Emma nodded. "We'll have to update our information if we move," she warned. "It's probably going to be a few years before he reaches out to us. If he ever does."

"I know," Neal sighed. "But we can hope. And if they tell him the date we get on the registry, maybe it'll mean something to him if he finds out we've been looking for him for that long."

Emma nodded again. When she'd been younger, she'd sometimes pretended that she was a long-lost princess who'd been kidnapped and spirited away and any day, her parents would turn up in a coach pulled by six white horses in royal robes and glittering crowns to whisk her away from her foster placement and bring her back to her palace. Growing up had meant facing the harsh truth that her parents had abandoned her by the side of the highway as a newborn and never even tried to find her. Because if they'd been trying, they would have found her by now; it wasn't like the bureaucracy that was the Massachusetts DCF (and later Minnesota Child Care) didn't have her paperwork. She hadn't been that hard to track down, she didn't think. The thought that her son might be entertaining similar fantasies tore at her. He wasn't even five, yet, she told herself. He might not even know he's been adopted. But he would one day. She only hoped he'd want to find her, and not decide that if she'd given him up, he wanted nothing to do with her. She'd known a few kids with that mindset in the group homes she'd been placed in.

She realized that the room was silent and Neal was looking at her expectantly. She blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"Bail bonding," Neal repeated. "If we're both serious about giving it a shot, then we ought to start contacting firms and seeing whether there are any openings. And if we find one, more to the point, if you find one, they get a seasoned, if not licensed here, PI. Stick it out for at least three years? There are your reference letters for a Massachusetts license, right there."

Emma smiled. She didn't seriously think it would be that easy, but maybe it wouldn't be that hard either. Maybe… Maybe she could let herself hope a little. She ran her fingers over the stones of her promise ring absently. Maybe she could.

The interviewer glanced down at the resume Emma had submitted and her eyebrows shot up. "So, you were a private investigator in Arizona before this?"

"That's right," Emma confirmed, hoping her nervousness didn't show.

"Tell me a bit about that," the woman said, smiling pleasantly.

"Well," Emma began, "for the last four years, I've been doing skip traces, process serving…" As she spoke, she felt herself relax. Neal had been on more job interviews than she'd been and he'd spent last night coaching her through the sort of questions she could probably expect. So far, this was going well.

"What got you into PI work?"

She'd been hoping they wouldn't ask her this one. She felt her walls spring up, even as her arms pressed stiffly into her sides. "I…" Damn, why was her heart pounding so loudly? "I was abandoned as a newborn. I was hoping I'd be able to find some trace…" This was what she'd decided to say. It was safe. It was understandable. It wouldn't open up that whole business about juvie and her baby and… "I'm sorry. Could we move on, please?"

The interviewer's eyebrows shot up again, but she shrugged, scribbled something on her notepad, and asked, "Why are you interested in bail-bonding?"

"Uh…" Her composure was gone. She was blowing this and blowing it badly. "Actually, I was hoping to work as a PI here, but I don't have three people to vouch for me, and this seems like a good way to keep my skills sharp."

"Why did you move from Globe, Arizona all the way to Boston without checking into whether you'd be able to work in your field?"

That was a damned good question, but she didn't have a ready answer. Because there are six adoption agencies in New England I want to look into and Boston seemed like a good base of operations. Because I wasn't thinking that far ahead when I got the idea to move here. Because my boyfriend thought there'd be more opportunity. Because… "Because I'm an idiot," Emma muttered. Then her face went hot when she realized she'd just said that out loud.

Somehow, she didn't think she was going to get this job.

She was right. She didn't get that job. Nor did she get the second one she tried for, nor the third. Neal had better luck; his second interview led to an offer, which he quickly accepted. "It's going to mean a lot of traveling," he reminded her. "I can ask to only get local cases, but since I'm just getting started, and since I only get paid when I bring in the bail-jumper, if I'm too picky about the cases I take on, then it's going to mean less opportunity."

"No," Emma sighed. "It's fine. At least, expenses are covered. So, when do you start?"

"Well, training starts next week. Since I can't carry a gun, they… uh… strongly encourage me to take some self-defense classes; I've got a list of options to check out." He gave her a weary smile. "Apparently, I'm not the first bounty hunter with that problem; Dog can't carry either."

"I think I remember him mentioning that on the show," Emma said slowly. "Did he say why?"

"He did time for murder," Neal replied. "Not gonna lie; it bugs me a little that as far as the law's concerned, when it comes to gun ownership, a felony is a felony, and whether I swiped some watches out of a safe or killed a guy doesn't make a difference, but here we are. At least, your record was sealed."

"Maybe you could get a pardon?" Emma suggested.

"That's… complicated," Neal sighed. "Varies by state. Anyway, I'm not really upset that I won't be carrying; if I had to, I guess I'd have to, but it's a stretch to say I want to."

Emma nodded. Then, hesitantly, she asked, "Does it bug you that I carry?"

"What?" Neal's jaw dropped for one second. "Oh, no. No. No, I've got no issue with people who carry guns, as long as they know how to treat them. But me, personally, it's… not something I'm comfortable with in the first place, so I'm not exactly torn up about the fact that I can't, you know?"

"Okay," Emma said, reassured and smiling just a little. "Okay. Meanwhile," she sighed, "I've got another interview tomorrow. This one's office work, but it's with a PI firm." She shrugged. "That's how I got started with Ray."

"It won't feel like you're taking a step backwards?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "But I've got the experience, and it's a steady paycheck if I get it. I can deal."

"Sure," Neal agreed. "Sure. What time's the interview?"

"Ten."

"Okay; I'm setting the alarm for seven. I'm going to check out a few of those self-defense classes. You want to get up then?"

"Yeah, might as well," Emma nodded. She looked at the time. "And since it's after eleven, I guess we'd both better get some sleep."

She thought the interview went well, but she wasn't sure until she got called back for a second one and then hired. Less than two weeks after Neal found a self-defense class that fit his budget and schedule, she started taking the train to Belmont. The work wasn't difficult, but it was tedious and, despite herself, Emma was force to admit that it did feel like a step backwards.

The other people in the firm were cordial enough. Still, on her first day of work, she found herself feeling the same sensations she'd had as a child, every time she'd move to a new placement and start in at a new school. No matter if it was the beginning of the year or—as happened more often—the middle or end, walking into her classroom, she'd inevitably discovered that everyone already knew everyone else, the lab partners and swimming buddies had already been chosen, the cliques were established, and she was on the outside, eating lunch by herself.

It wasn't that anybody at her new job condescended to her or bullied her, but neither did they make any attempt to socialize with her or get to know her. The three-person team who'd interviewed her knew her background from her resume, of course, but they'd also been upfront about hiring her as office support staff only. "If you should become licensed in this state, of course you'd be eligible to apply for an investigator position in this firm, should one be made available. Our current opening, however, is in records."

Emma had nodded and said she understood. So far as she knew, her employment history was buried in their personnel files and, in an office full of private investigators, nobody else seemed to have shown the slightest interest in checking her background or finding out anything more about her than what time she took her breaks and how long it would take for her to retrieve a file. She told herself it didn't matter. Repeatedly. And she hoped that at some point, she'd even mean it.

It was a few months later, when she came home to find Neal sitting at their new computer, a cup of coffee beside him and a donut almost as glazed as his eyes. "Hey," she greeted him.

"Hey, yourself."

She came up beside him, leaned over, and brought her hands down over his shoulders, clasping them below his neck. "What're you up to?"

Neal groaned. "They're having me shadow someone, or at least, that's what they described. Turns out the guy wants me to try tracking down the fugitive myself first. I get the feeling that if I can't do it, they might tell me this thing isn't working out after all."

Emma made a sympathetic sound. "How's it going?"

"Terrible," Neal replied with mocking good cheer. "Oh, it started off okay, sure, but then I hit a wall and I don't know how to get around it."

Emma hesitated. "You want me to take a crack at it?" she asked.

"You've got to be exhausted," Neal started to demur. "You're up at the crack of dawn; you come home a couple of hours after I do—"

"Hour and a half, and I get to nap on the train."

"You could take the car."

"We've been over this," she sighed. "Once you start getting solo bounty-hunting jobs, you're going to need it. Meanwhile, I hate driving in rush hour, the train station is only fifteen minutes' walk from the office, and seriously, I don't mind. Look, if this is something you have to do on your own, I get it. But if you want me to take a look, I mean I'd sort of like a chance to keep my skills up, so I don't forget everything in three years."

Under Emma's forearms, Neal's shoulders rose in a half shrug. "Pull up a chair and I'll bring you up to speed," he gave in. "And, at least, let me make you some cocoa. I did a little grocery shopping on the way home and picked up a canister."

"Tell me you bought—"

"Cinnamon? C'mon, Emma, after all this time, you think I wouldn't remember?"

Emma grinned back and planted a kiss on his temple.

Three hours later, Emma looked up. "Okay," she said. "I think I've got it narrowed down to two likely options. If your guy's in the country, then he's either in Boise or Des Moines."

"What about his cabin in the Adirondacks?"

Emma shook her head. "At the time of the arrest, the newspapers profiled him and his holdings. Most of them mentioned the Malibu beach house and the Adirondacks retreat. He likes creature comforts too much to go off-grid and he hasn't got a passport. Faked documents are a possibility, if he did leave the country, but I'd check out those cities first."

"What's so special about the Midwest?"

"He's got two sets of cousins there. And going by these," she pulled up a number of photos of smiling, tanned people at picnics and parks, clearly relaxed and having a good time, "he enjoys being around them. Maybe he isn't there, but… I'll bet you he's been in touch with them. He's got to know that the cops are keeping an eye on his family in this part of the country. But I bet they're ignoring the nice, normal, middle-class relatives in Iowa and Idaho."

Neal considered. Then he picked up the folder and rifled through it. "Hang on... Okay, I need someone new to the family whose voice they won't recognize yet... Bingo." A moment later, he picked up the phone. "Here's hoping," he said, as he keyed in the number, "that this guy I'm impersonating won't be sitting in their living room when I reach ou— Uh… hi," he injected a note of good cheer into his voice as the party on the other end of the call picked up. "Is this Madge? Yeah, this is Connor; Pam's husband?" A moment later he smiled. "I'm great, how are you? Listen, I was cleaning out my dad's garage, and I found a box of old sports cards. I remember Brett being into them and I was wondering, if I gave you some of the names of the players, if you could tell me if they're worth keeping around for when Brett can think about stuff like that. Sorry, I know the timing stinks, but he seemed like a cool guy when we talked at Marla and Billy's wedding and I'd hate to think I tossed something he's been looking for and… Uh… yeah. Sure," he gave Emma a thumbs-up, "that'd be great. Yeah, I can be by the phone then. Actually… let me give you another number. Just in case they're watching the home phone…"

As soon as he ended the call, he planted a kiss soundly on Emma's lips. "Brett Simon's not there now, but he'll call back on Friday!" He turned back to the computer, his fingers racing along the keyboard. "Just filling in my supervisor. The number I gave was one of the office's; they have a couple for situations like this. I can't believe… Actually, scratch that; I've watched you in action before, I ought to know by now that… Ah, screw it. I know you're amazing, but I didn't realize until now just how amazing!"

Emma laughed. "It's seriously not that hard to do, and you pinpointed him all on your own!"

"Yeah, after you got me ninety percent of the way there!"

An email notification showed on the screen and Neal opened it. "Ticket confirmation from here to Des Moines leaving tomorrow," he said. "Looks like my supervisor agrees with you."

"So, your job's safe?" Emma grinned.

"Looks like. Never been to Iowa before."

"Me either. I hear Iowa and I think cornfields."

"I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that. I mean, it's the future birthplace of Captain Kirk."

"Future birthplace?" Emma repeated. "I wonder if they're leaning into that. Like, 'future elementary school of Captain James T. Kirk; on this spot, a bench will one day be installed to commemorate the successful completion of Captain Kirk's five-year-mission; future site of Captain Kirk's farmhouse…"

Neal laughed with her. "Tell you what," he said, "if I get there, and they do have stuff like that? I'll bring back photographic proof."

He didn't bring back a photo, but he did bring back an offer. "I told my supervisor how you helped me out and I… might've mentioned your Arizona PI license. He said that if you fax in your resume, he'll check it out."

For the first time in weeks, Emma felt her hopes rise. But, "He didn't promise?"

"He promised to check it out."

Emma hesitated. "I'll need to update it. I haven't added Rushton-McCormack, yet."

"You've only been there four months."

"And if they want to check references, they might be more interested in local ones." She sighed. "I just hope it won't push the end of it to page two."

"That'd be bad?"

"Yeah, if it means that it's just two lines at the top and the rest of the page is blank. If that happens, I'll either have to figure out how to cut some of what's already in it to get it back to one page or… find more stuff to add."

Neal thought about that for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Want some help?"

She had a call for an interview two days later. It must have gone well, because a week later, she received a formal job offer. At first, she spent most of her time behind a desk, but after a while, like Neal, she was working in the field.

One year passed before she knew it, and then two more. She obtained her Massachusetts PI license and with it, a nice jump in salary. Neal insisted they go out to celebrate.

"They're probably going to keep my field assignments in-state from now on," Emma told him. "The license really just means I'm allowed to open up my own office instead of working for someone." There were a few other differences, but that was the main one. "There are a few jurisdictions where it makes a bigger difference, though, and if I stick closer to home, it's less of an issue."

"Plus, a stable home environment, when we find our son," Neal nodded.

Emma flinched guiltily. "Do you know how long it's been since I've really thought about that?" she asked. "He'll be nine in August. He wouldn't know who we are; he's got another family now and they must love him…" She swallowed hard. "He's probably happy and… and secure and…"

"You don't want to tear him away from the people he knows and loves," Neal sighed. "I get it."

"Is it okay?" she asked, sound for a moment like a young girl.

Neal nodded. "I want him to know about us. I want to meet him. At least, if he wants to meet us, too. And if he's happy where he is, but he still wants to know us, I'm all for it. If he doesn't want us in his life, I'm not going to push myself in where I'm not wanted, but I kind of hope he does."

Emma was silent for a long time. Then, slowly, she said, "I've spent more than twenty-six years wondering about my parents. More than eight wondering about my son. It's been eating at me for so long. Maybe… maybe it's time I tried to move on from it. My parents obviously don't want to know me, or they'd have tried finding me by now."

"You don't know they haven't," Neal pointed out.

"They left me by the side of the highway. I don't think they were planning on coming back." Her lip curled bitterly. "Maybe I'm better off not finding them; I'd probably end up wishing I hadn't if I did. And… it was a closed adoption. I asked for 'no contact'. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I was being manipulated. Maybe I didn't think it through. But I still signed."

"An illegal contract."

"I can't afford to hire a lawyer to fight it. And the family that the baby went to… they had enough money to pay my medical bills and living expenses and take on a kid. If I go up against them, it could mean years of fighting, probably traumatizing our kid by ripping him out of the only life he's known, and there's still a good chance a custody fight wouldn't go our way. I… I'll always wonder about him. About them. But the life we've got here, it's… pretty good just the two of us, you know?"

It was Neal's turn for silence. Finally, he said, "Could you promise me one thing? Make sure that we get our names on as many adoption registries as we can find, and that our contact information is always up to date on all of them. Let's give our son his best chance to find us, if he ever wants to."

Emma nodded. "Deal."