Found (7 page)

Those were the sorts of details a PI couldn’t possibly feel comfortable sharing over the phone. Peace, God… give me peace. Be with me, whatever the news might be….

I am with you always, My son.

This time there was no mistaking the small whisper in John’s soul. The words were part of Scripture, something he’d read a hundred times before. But he needed them now more than ever. He felt his shoulders relax a little.

“Here we are.” Tim Brown opened a door halfway down the hall and moved straight to the simple office chair behind the desk. He motioned to the other one on the opposite side. “Have a seat.”

John did. He took hold of the chair arms and focused on feeling the Lord’s peace once more. He was about to ask if the news was good or bad, but already Tim was opening a file half an inch thick at the center of his desk.

“Mr. Baxter, I’ve found your son.”

The room began to spin. John leaned forward, studying the investigator’s eyes, his face. Was the news that was coming somehow tragic or heartbreaking? John couldn*t read the man. He swallowed hard and found the words. “Is he… is he alive?”

The man twisted his face, confused by John’s question. “Of course.” Then his expression eased. “You thought if I wanted you to come in person then maybe . .

.”

“Well, yes.” John felt warm relief shoot into his veins. “I was 45

concerned.” But not anymore. No matter what else the investigator had found, their son was alive. That much alone was enough to make goose bumps rise along his arms and neck.

“Wow …” Tim Brown tapped his fist on his forehead a few times. “I’m so sorry.

I never meant to put you through that. Sometimes I get so caught up in the answers in front of me that I expect a client to read my mind. I should’ve told you that I’d found him and he was alive. That much you could’ve known over the phone.”

“Don’t worry about it.” John wanted the guy to move on. He slid to the edge of his chair and folded his hands on the desk. “What is it then? What did you find?”

The man bit at the inside of his cheek and shook his head. “Once I located your son, once I figured out who he was, my search led me to another investigator in Los Angeles. The two of us have mutual friends in the business. He wouldn’t confirm anything, but he did say that he’d worked with your son in the past.”

What? The room was spinning again. Their son had hired a private investigator at some point? Tim Brown was on a roll; John stayed glued to every word.

The investigator shifted in his seat. “That got me thinking.” He stroked his chin. “If your son had hired an investigator, maybe he knew more about you than you knew about him.” He looked at the file. “Sure enough, I found a travel trail on the guy.” Tim looked up. “He’s been to Bloomington at least twice. Maybe more.”

John could hardly exhale. Was the investigator serious? Their son had been to Bloomington? If so, he must know who they were. But then why had he come so far only to avoid making contact?

“Let me see.” Tim moved his finger down a page partway through the file. “Here it is. The first time I have record of him traveling to Indiana was the summer before last.” He shot a look at John. “Wasn’t that when your wife died?”

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“Yes.” John gave him the date of Elizabeth’s death.

“That’s what 1 thought.” He turned the file so John could see the dates. “Your son was in Bloomington the day before she died.” He paused. “Did you know that?”

John sucked in a sharp breath. “Dear God …” He pushed the chair back and stood, clasping his hands at the back of his neck. He finished his prayer silently. Lord, did he find her? Did she really share an hour with him that day after all? He moved to the window and stared at the street below. Not for a minute had he believed Elizabeth. But if their son had come, if he’d shared an hour with her, then why hadn’t he stayed to meet the rest of the family? Surely Elizabeth would’ve told him that they were ready and willing-at least he was.

The rest of them could’ve known soon after.

He turned around and leaned against the windowsill. “She told me she met him that day, that he came in and talked to her while we were out getting dinner.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought… 1 thought she was delusional from the pain meds and cancer.” He squinted against the harsh glare of reality. “But if he found her, why didn’t he stay?”

“Eirst of all-” Tim pushed his chair back and kicked one leg over the other-“I hate to presume anything. I don’t know for sure if he spent time at the hospital. Just that it appears he was in town that day, and he left later that night.”

“One day?” The pieces weren’t coming together, weren’t making sense the way John needed them to. He gripped the windowsill. “Doesn’t that seem strange?”

For a moment Tim looked at the file and then back at John. “Mr. Baxter, Ihave a lot more to tell you.” There it was again. The seriousness in the man’s face, the hint that this-whatever lay ahead-was the reason the investigator had called him all the way to Indianapolis.

“Okay.” John crossed the room slowly and took his seat once more. “I’m listening.”

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Tim sorted through the file and made a sound that was more disbelief than utter amazement. “I’ve never had something like this happen in all my days as an investigator.” He studied John’s face and hesitated. “Mr. Baxter, your son’s in the entertainment business.”

John slid forward in his chair. Another wave of relief washed over him. So he wasn’t in jail or in a mental facility. H^ wasn’t homeless or living an outcast’s life. “That’s it?” A small nervous chuckle came from his throat. The young man must be a producer or an agent. “That’s the big deal?”

This time Tim laughed. “I don’t think you understand.” He flipped through the file until he reached a page near the back. “Your son’s an actor.” He pursed his lips. “One of the most famous actors of our day.”

“An actor?” John recognized the feeling coursing through him. Back when the kids were very young, the family would sometimes spend an evening putting together a puzzle. The harder the better. The Baxters developed a technique after a while.

Pull the edge pieces out first and try to make the frame. There was always a moment when the sections of the frame suddenly began coming together. That’s how he felt now. The picture wasn’t clear, but an image was definitely taking shape.

He put his hands on the desk. “Would I… would I know him?”

“Mr. Baxter-” he turned the folder around and pushed it toward John-“all of America knows him.”

John leaned in and realized what he was looking at. There, taped to the bottom of the page, was a photograph cut from a magazine.

A photograph of Dayne Matthews.

John touched the image, stared at it, giving himself time to process the possibility. Again he was on his feet. He paced to the window and back, and for the first time-where his oldest son was concerned-he had more answers than questions. He stared at the ceiling and fought the lightheadedness.

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He walked back to the window and sat against the sill. No wonder Luke looked like Dayne. They were brothers. Suddenly he remembered something. Elizabeth had mentioned Dayne’s name, hadn’t she? He pressed his palms to his eyes. Yes, that’s exactly what she’d said. His name was Dayne.

And he’d thought that was one more sign that Elizabeth was hallucinating. That somehow she’d remembered Luke’s story about meeting Dayne at the law office and how the two of them had looked alike, and her imagination had honed in on the actor’s name.

Only she hadn’t been hallucinating at all.

If she knew his name, then he must’ve made it to her hospital room. Which meant… tears made his throat feel thick. If nothing else ever came from this meeting, until his last breath John would have peace. Because Elizabeth’s final prayer, her dying wish had been answered. Or maybe he was only misunderstanding the man. He let his hands fall to his sides. “You’re telling me Dayne Matthews is my son?”

“Yes.” He gave a quiet laugh. “I’ve checked it every which way. Dayne was raised by missionary parents who were killed in a small plane crash in the jungles of Indonesia.” He scanned the file. “He grew up in a boarding school for missionary kids, and when he was eighteen, after the death of his adoptive parents, he moved to California and enrolled in UCLA’s drama department.” The investigator shrugged. “I guess the rest is history.”

John stared at the floor and tried to steady himself. Dayne Matthews? The son he and Elizabeth had given up, the child, he’d never seen, the boy they’d wondered about all of their lives… was Dayne Matthews? The investigator was*right.

He’d been to Bloomington at least twice, the day before Elizabeth died and again for the filming of his latest movie, the one due out soon. Had Dayne chosen Bloomington because he knew about the Baxters? because he had an interest in them?

Something Tim had mentioned when they first started this 51

meeting came back. Dayne had hired a private investigator. Maybe that’s how he’d found out about his biological family, about Elizabeth’s being sick in the hospital. But that left one question. John walked back to the chair and sat down. He searched the man’s face across from him. “If he hired an investigator, why haven’t we heard from him?”

Tim leaned back, his expression blank. “That’s where things get a little hazy.”

He flipped through the pages of the file. “He’s had the chance.” The investigator narrowed his eyes. “Something’s obviously holding him back. Like I said, he knew about you first. Could be his management team, his studio, something he signed in a contract. Hard to tell with people in his business.”

“Yes.” John tried not to feel the sting, but it was there anyway. Had Dayne figured out who they were and then changed his mind about meeting them? Did the Baxter family somehow not measure up to what Dayne had hoped to find in his biological family, or had something happened in his conversation with Elizabeth, something that would cause him to keep his distance? Or maybe Tim was right, and there was some reason regarding his career that he had to stay away.

Tim turned his chair and opened a file cabinet. From a folder marked Baxter, he pulled out a stack of papers stapled together. “I made copies of everything I found.” He slipped the papers into an envelope and handed it to John. “Dayne lives in Malibu, from what I can tell. But I can’t get an address. No phone number, either. Couldn’t find it.” He nodded to the envelope. “You will find an address for the studio that produced his recent film and a phone number for his agent. That might be helpful. His agent’s one of the best in the business.

Powerful, influential, from what I found out.”

“Meaning what?”

Tim lifted his hands and let them fall, clasped, onto the folder on the desk.

“Meaning I’m not sure he’ll help you. But if you want to contact Dayne, you’d start with his agent.”

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Or as brothers?

By the time John reached Bloomington he’d made up his mind to call at least one person about the news. A man in Los Angeles who held the key to the next door that separated him from the child he and Elizabeth had given away.

Dayne’s agent.

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Robin Hood was set to take the Christian Kids Theater stage in twelve days, and Katy had never felt less prepared. The parent committees were on target. The program was at the printer, and the props team had collected everything from the two dozen wooden swords to bows and arrows and a hand-painted target for the archery contest.

Al and Nancy Helmes were doing brilliant work with the music, and Rhonda Sanders was bringing together the dance details of everything from the Merry Maiden ballet to the highly choreographed fight scene. Even seven months pregnant, Ashley Baxter Blake was again helping out with sets, and already the forestlike backdrop was breathtaking.

No, the problem wasn’t with the people working to make the play a success.

The problem was with her.

The kids needed her fully committed, driven, and intense-the way she’d been with every show up until now. Normally at this point in the production she’d be fine-tuning the details, per

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fecting the blocking, and cutting precious seconds from the scene changes.

Instead, the practices were running together in a blur, and all for one reason.

She was still reeling about Dayne.

Even now, ten minutes before practice, she kept tuning out the conversations around her, ones between Al and Nancy and Rhonda, and even the information CKT

area coordinator Bethany Allen was sharing with the production team. They sat at a round table in a small room of the church, Bethany across from Katy, Rhonda on one side of her, Al and Nancy on the other.

Bethany was going over the ticket sales for the show. “We’re sold out for every evening performance and one of the Saturday matinees.” She checked her notes.

“There are still seats available for three afternoon shows.”

“What about the school days? Sold out, right?” Rhonda looked at her own notes and then at Bethany.

Bethany poised her pencil over her clipboard. “Actually, no.” She frowned. “Half the seats for Tuesday are still open. Two schools pulled out when they heard we are a Christian theater group.”

Katy wrote the details on the page in front of her. “We’re still trying to get the school district to give us across-the-board approval, the way CKT groups in other parts of the country have done.”

“Exactly.”

The conversation lasted another few minutes before Bethany led the group in a quick prayer and then went to open the doors of the sanctuary for the kids.

Only after Al and Nancy headed toward thopcoffeemaker did Rhonda turn to Katy and raise her eyebrows. “Where are you today?” Her voice was low.

“I’m here.” Katy put her pen down. A frustrated sigh escaped her lips, and she searched her friend’s face. “Do you read the tabloids?”

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“Katy …” Rhonda knew the truth. She’d known it since the day Katy returned to Bloomington. “Not until after the show’s over, remember? You need to focus. No talking about him until then.”

Katy waved her hand. “This is different.” She kept her tone even. “I’m talking about the tabs. Come on, Rhonda; do you ever read them?”