Searching for Home (Spies of Chicago Book 1) (28 page)

But Whitney shrugged out of his touch. “It won’t be any different. Other responsibilities will take over.”

His face hardened. “This has to do with that Nate kid, doesn’t it?”

She shook her head. “This has to do with me figuring out who I am. We had no right dating, Owen. I mean, look at us. We’re like a fish and a bird trying to be friends. It just doesn’t work. This should have been over a long time ago.”

He opened his mouth to say something.

The access door swung open revealing his very red-faced mother. “What are you doing hiding in the stairwell? They’re ready to serve dinner and everyone’s waiting for you to take your seat.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Owen held up his hands.

Mrs. Taylor snapped her fingers. “You’ll come now. There are a hundred people in that room who need you. So whatever it is Whitney needs will have to save until tomorrow.”

Whitney started down the stairs. “Don’t worry about it. He’s all yours.”

On the drive home Whitney fought back tears, but when she closed the door to her apartment she went straight to her orange thrift-store chair and had a good cry. She was right to end things with Owen. There was no love between them. She’d used him for stability and for a chance to have a better life. Officially ending their relationship was for the best—it made her less like Lewis and more like Ellen. And now like Ellen, she needed to figure out what to do with her life—what her new game plan would be.

Fifteen minutes later, someone knocked on her door.

Whitney sprang to her feet and palmed the wetness from her face. It couldn’t be Owen—no, he wouldn’t leave an event to come fight for her. That wasn’t how he worked, right?

She pulled open the door and Nate’s comfortable smile made all her anxieties disappear.

“Wow.” He let loose a low whistle. “You’re stunning.”

Waving him in, she rolled her eyes. She hadn’t changed from her gala outfit yet.

“Seriously, you’re always pretty. Just right now, you’re off the charts.”

She had to laugh at him. “Did you need something?”

He hooked his hands in his pockets. “My phone? I think I forgot it here.” Nate glanced at her kitchen table.

“You did.” She dug the cell out of her purse. “Any someone kept trying to reach you today. I didn’t answer it, but I saw the name Beth.”

“Gotcha. Good to know.” Nate stepped closer to take the phone from her hand, but then he stopped. He frowned as he scrutinized her face. “You’ve been crying.”

“I broke up with Owen.” Whitney rubbed her sniffling nose.

Nate pursed his lips.

So Whitney shrugged. “I know I shouldn’t be crying. I’m the one who dumped him. I don’t know why I’m being emotional.” She grabbed a Kleenex and wiped her eyes. “But hey, you have your phone, so you’re good to go.”

“I have no clue what you ever saw in Owen.” He slipped his phone into his pocket.

She blew out a long stream of air. “I just couldn’t believe someone like him could have wanted me. I know that sounds stupid.”

“You know what the real shame has been all along?” Nate stepped close and framed her face with his hands. Whitney leaned into his touch.

He brushed his thumbs back and forth along her jaw. “I can’t believe someone as amazing as you would put up with a guy like that for so long.”

Searching his face, Whitney whispered his name.

More tears clouded her eyes as Nate leaned and pressed his lips to hers. He brought his arm around her back slowly, and cradled her head with a tender reverence. Warmth spread through her body and a tingle raced from her head clear to her toes. The kiss started gently and she thought it would be a quick peck. Then his hold on her tightened and he leaned her back—old-black-and-white-movie-style—and kissed her good and hard.

Afraid she might fall, she latched onto his biceps.

When he rocked her back to her feet, they parted. With Nate’s arms still around her, they both panted like they’d just finished running a marathon.

She wanted to throw back her head and laugh. No kiss in her life had ever felt like that—safe yet exciting. She wanted to kiss him again and again.

But Nate crushed her to his chest and wrapped her in a bear hug. Whitney hugged him back just as tightly.

Nate rested the side of his face against the top of her head. “I’ve loved you since the first day you walked into the archive area.”

Love?

She couldn’t offer a response, because something dark darted into her mind. Could she trust Nate? Or would he just let her down like everyone else?

Whitney popped her sunglasses on and then backed out of the parking spot. She peeked in the rearview mirror and laughed. The goofy grin wouldn’t be leaving her face for some time.

Last night, after a few more kisses that were sweeter than chocolate, Nate told her about an exhibit he’d heard about at the Chicago Cultural Center. Based on the dates of the letters they’d found, he believed Ellen and James would have been involved in the Haymarket Riot. Even if James and Ellen weren’t present, the riot would have affected them.

Unable to sleep, she emailed her magazine article to her boss at one in the morning. Later, at a more reasonable hour, she stopped by the office and finished her edits before taking the rest of the day off.

After leaving the SUV in the Millennium Park parking garage, she made her way to the main street. Chicago wind nipped at her face when Whitney jogged across Michigan Avenue toward the Chicago Cultural Center.

Once inside, she veered to the exhibit hall, but not before sneaking upstairs to snap a photo of the world’s largest Tiffany glass dome. With all the quotes tiled into the walls about books and reading, Whitney loved this building.

The exhibit was small but informative. Whitney took her time, absorbing paintings of people rioting on the streets of Chicago. Had Ellen died in the riot? Had James?

Maybe she didn’t want to know.

The information on the walls said that the strikers met at Haymarket Square to discuss the police actions at the McCormick strike—where Whitney knew Ellen had been.

A little shaken, Whitney left the Cultural Center and found her friend’s Honda in the parking garage. She gunned the engine, and then decided to swing by the Historical Foundation on a whim. Nate wouldn’t be expecting her tonight, but he’d want to see her.

He’d said he loved her, after all.

Wearing a giant smile, Whitney climbed the flights of stairs to the fourth floor archive area. She breezed through the main doors and spotted Nate instantly.

He stood speaking to a plump woman wearing an ill-fitting suit coat and jeans. She had a clipboard grasped in her hands.

Whitney approached and caught Nate’s eyes. Instead of his usual smile, his face fell. Nate scrubbed his hand over his face before taking a long, deep breath.

He didn’t seem happy to see her at all. “Hey, I didn’t expect you to come by today.”

Whitney froze. She clutched the strap of her messenger bag.

Nate reached for her hand. Sadness gathered in the set of his jaw. “Whitney, I’d like you to meet Beth.”

Beth turned and offered a handshake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Nate talks about you all the time.” The woman looked to be in her forties, but it might have been her haircut.

Why would this woman phone Nate constantly?

Whitney glanced at him. “How do you two know each other?”

Nate ran his free hand through his sheepdog hair. “Beth’s my probation officer. She’s here to check up on me.”

Whitney shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you right.”

His shoulders sagged. “You did.”

She dropped his hand. “Your
probation
officer? What does that mean?” Her voice quivered as she took a step back.

Rita rustled papers at the main desk and cleared her throat. Whitney knew she was being too loud, but suddenly it felt like she wasn’t living in her own body. She felt as if she was watching a slow motion movie. People researching at nearby tables stopped what they were doing to gawk.

“It means what you think it means. I’m a felon,” Nate whispered.

All those missed phone calls. His time spent volunteering. And hadn’t he told her that he lost his dream job?

She’d fallen for a felon. That made her no better than her mother.

Whitney spun on her heels. She tore out of the archive area and took the stairs two at a time.

Nate pounded—equally fast—behind her. “Whitney.”

She broke into a run and dashed out of the building toward the parking lot.

Nate caught up to her, panting as he grabbed her elbow. “Stop! Whitney. Stop and listen for a minute.”

She slapped his hand away. Her arms shook. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. You lied … this whole time. You sat there pretending to care, but it was all a lie.” Even if he cared, it didn’t matter. She had attracted a guy no better than the men who had filtered through her mom’s life.

“What I feel about you—that’s not a lie. I’m in love with you.” He reached for her, but she slammed her palms into his chest and gave him a firm shove.

Hot, angry tears blasted down her cheeks. “So that’s why you’re at the Foundation all the time. You’re making your community service hours. Here I thought you were this nice guy helping Rita because she’s an old lady from your church. You let me believe you were a good person.”

“Give me a chance to explain myself.”

“I can’t believe this.” She covered her face as she paced. “When I ran into Moody Church crying, you stood up for Lewis! No wonder. You two are birds of a feather—both backstabbing liars.” She stopped and jutted her finger at him. “This is why your girlfriend left you, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“And you had the audacity to make her sound like the bad person.
She left me when I was going through a hard time.
” Whitney mimicked Nate’s voice.

“I never meant to lie to you. It just hadn’t come up yet.” Looking down, he toed the pavement. “The more I got to know you, the more I didn’t want to lose you. I was afraid you’d walk away, too, when you found out.”

She slammed her hands onto her hips. “What did you even do?”

“It’s a long story.” He looped his hand on the back of his neck.

“See, you won’t even tell me.”

Nate grabbed her by the shoulders, his eyes wide. “I will. I’ll tell you everything. I just can’t right now. I have to go in there and finish up with Beth. She has other people to check in on today.”

“You mean
other felons
.” Whitney shrugged away from his hold. “What were your charges?”

He sighed and put his hands out in surrender. “There are three. One for contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, another for having a large amount of marijuana near a school, and the last was for having other controlled drugs in my possession at the time.”

“You were selling drugs to kids? That’s … don’t talk.” she froze Nate with a glare when he opened his mouth. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say and I want nothing to do with you. I can’t even stand to be here with you right now.”

When Whitney climbed into the car she couldn’t get the key in the ignition because her hands were shaking too hard. Cradling the wheel in her arms, she slumped and let sobs rock through her body. Would she ever be more than the perpetuator of her ancestors’ mistakes? Blessedly, Nate had gone back into the building, but she didn’t want to stay in the lot too much longer for fear he’d come out for a repeat performance.

Wiping her nose on her sleeve, she sat up.

She’d tried so hard not to be like Mom. That’s why keeping Owen had seemed so important until last night. But after everything, she’d still fallen for a man with a terrible past. A felon? Even Mom didn’t usually stoop that low.

A glance at the clock told her Gran wouldn’t be home from her senior walking group yet, and Whitney didn’t want to go home. She’d already told work she wouldn’t be in until Monday, and going to Owen was out of the question.

Only Ellen and James could help her mood. She pawed through the papers in her backpack. A week ago, Nate jotted down the address for the History Speaks museum in Wheaton. They had planned to travel to Wheaton and look through the Ingram stuff together tomorrow, but that wouldn’t be happening.

With a stroke of success she found the napkin with the information. She punched the address into the GPS and glanced at the name Gloria.

Forty-five minutes later, she pulled onto Main Street in Wheaton. The SUV’s wheels made a thumping sound as she crossed over the bricked downtown portion of the quaint town. She turned the car left when the GPS prompted her, and then parallel parked in front of a Victorian-style home. With one last peek at her puffy cheeks in the mirror, she left the Pilot.

Mums lined the walkway to the old house. After she climbed the creaky steps to the wraparound porch, she pressed through the front door. The tiny bell sang out a greeting, and musty air engulfed her.

A dark-haired woman rose from her desk. “Good afternoon. Welcome to History Speaks. My name is Gloria, please let me know if there’s some way I can help you.”

“Hi. Um, my name is Whitney Dean. I believe a friend of mine called here and had you set aside items dealing with a family by the name of Ingram.” Whitney glanced at the photos of a capsized boat on the wall. A banner proclaimed the horrors of the Eastland Tragedy, the greatest maritime disaster in Chicago history.

Gloria tapped her desk. “Yes. A nice boy named Nate Holland. Follow me.”

Whitney wanted to tell Gloria that Nate was not a nice boy—‘cause a felon couldn’t be categorized that way. But she bit her tongue.

Gloria led her to a small private room. One paper box sat on the table. Whitney ripped off the sticky note on the box that had Nate’s name written on it.

“If you need anything else, just let me know.” Gloria smiled as she backed out of the room.

“Thank you.” Whitney sank into a chair and pulled off the box top.

A stack of photos fanned over the top of a pile of papers. She gathered the pictures into a pile and flipped through them slowly. They weren’t the normal straight-faced, old-fashioned photos one sees in history books. The first one showed Lewis and Ellen as children, beaming ear to ear with a baby lying across their laps—Grace? The next had two boys with their arms thrown across each other’s shoulders and their heads tipped back in laugher. It could only have been James and Lewis. She found one of James and Ellen. Both must have been teenagers when the picture was taken. Ellen had a look of pure murder on her face and James wore a half-smile. Whitney imagined he’d just teased her about something. Or called her half-pint.