TRACE (The TRACE Series, #1) (8 page)

I pull my hair into a high ponytail as I study his reflection in the large mirror in his bathroom. "I can come by your office tomorrow afternoon. I've never been there."

He pulls me into his chest, his broad arms enveloping me. "I'd love that, Vanessa. Shit, I'd love to have you there but I have to be somewhere else tomorrow afternoon."

I shouldn't feel as disappointed as I do. I have no idea what's waiting for me in Maine. I don't even know if I'm going to find a match to the storage locker key but I do know that the promise of coming back to New York to see Garrett's face will make the entire ordeal bearable for me.

"I'll stop by the hospital tomorrow night." He brushes his lips across my forehead. "You'll text me and tell me when you're break is and I'll be there."

"My break is usually at two in the morning when I'm on the night shift."

"I'll be waiting in the cafeteria for you."

"You'd get up in the middle of the night to come down to the hospital to sit with me for thirty minutes?" I cock my brow at his reflection.

"I would go anywhere at any time to see this beautiful face."

"Y
ou better believe I remember her." He claps his plump hands together. "Your mother is a looker."

She is. She was. My mother was beautiful for as long as I can remember. Even now, that her hair has grayed and wrinkles have overtaken the landscape of her face, she's still one of the most breathtaking women I'll ever know.

"You look nothing like her." He points out. "How do I know you're really her daughter?"

I yank open my purse and fish frantically for my wallet. I open it quickly, pulling open a zippered compartment before I feel the edges of a small, rectangular photograph. I scoop it into my palm.

"My mother and I took this when I was fifteen. We were at Coney Island." I hold the picture towards him, mindful of the fact that it's one of the few of the two of us together. We'd sat in a photo booth and had made ridiculous faces as the flash blinded us. This photograph is the only one where we're both smiling brightly. It's the last picture I have of my mother and me together, where her gaze is actually focused on the camera.

"That's the woman I remember." He pulls the picture closer to his nose, his head diving down to look below the line of his bifocals. "You look good in this too."

I accept the compliment with a smile. "I'm glad you remember her."

"She rented 7A." He gestures down a long hallway of lockers. "It's one of the inside units."

"I have the key." I reach into the front pocket of my jeans to pull it free. "I wasn't sure if you'd still have her things. I thought you might have auctioned them off."

"No way." He chuckles as he leans against his desk. "Your mother and I were friends. She gave me a watch in exchange for keeping her stuff here. I always hoped she'd come back to get it."

I don’t question the watch or its worth. It's inconsequential now. What matters is that when I walked through the doors of this building, the third I've been in today, I finally found the missing piece of the puzzle I've been searching for. I'm ten feet, and one lock away, from knowing all of my mother's secrets.

***

Z
oe rubs her hand over her brow. I can tell that she's on the verge of tears. I am too. I have been since I arrived back in New York this morning.

After I'd rummaged through the boxes of old clothes and holiday decorations in my mother's storage locker, I'd felt numb. I'd sat in the corner, holding tight to a toy doll she'd packed in a cardboard box with all the Mother's Day cards I'd given to her. I'd picked up two before the pain of knowing that she'd never smile at me the same way she did when I was a child overtook me. I'd wept in the tiny space all alone, convinced that I'd never know where I came from and who gave me away.

I reached to pick up the small pink suitcase my mother had given me on my tenth birthday when we took a weekend trip to Disneyland. She'd worked two jobs to save for the trip and I'd spent months at Aunt Nora's after school and in the evenings while my mother waited tables for meager tips so she could take me to see the place where dreams are made of.

I remember the trip's every rich detail. We'd stayed at a cheap motel in Anaheim and shared breakfast sandwiches bought from a local fast food place. There wasn't enough money for the rides, so we'd sat on benches, and closed our eyes, imagining what it would feel like to raise high in the air on a rollercoaster, or splash through the water as we raced down a mountain. It was the perfect three day trip. The pink hard shell suitcase that sat on the floor in the storage locker was proof of that.

When I reached to pick it up, the latch fell open. It had rusted over time and as I bent down to scoop up the papers that had fallen onto the concrete floor, my entire life had shifted on its axis.

I'd left the space with the broken suitcase in my hands, calling back to the man at the desk to donate everything else.

I'd fallen asleep feeling nothing and woke the same way. I don't remember boarding the plane or getting into the taxi that brought me to Zoe.

I'm here now and as she clings to me and sobs, I stare at the yellowed newspaper clippings and the grieving face of the woman with blonde hair and the same blue eyes as me. She'd turned her back in Central Park for not more than a brief moment and when she turned back, her little baby girl was gone.

"A
re we still on for tonight?" Garrett growls into the phone.

I pull in a deep breath. "I need to work tonight. I'll be at the hospital at eleven."

He's preoccupied. I can hear voices in the background and movement. "I'm looking forward to seeing you. I miss you, Vanessa."

I can tell that it's shifting to something more than two people who crave each other. He'd called me several times yesterday but I couldn't talk. I couldn't bring myself to even utter a word to myself, let alone him. I'd explained it away with bad cell service in Maine when I finally answered just now.

"I miss you too," I say it softly wanting to know how it feels on my lips. I do miss him. I want to tell him what's happening. I want him to tell me what to do but I can't. I won't. I have to find my way out of this maze by myself.

"I have a confession." He chuckles. "I can't believe I'm about to tell you this."

I close my eyes. "Tell me what it is."

"I took a picture of you that night you were reading your mother's diary," he pauses before he continues. "You looked so perfect sitting in the chair in my apartment, wearing my shirt."

My voice is thick as I try to hold in everything I'm feeling. "I don't have a picture of you. Can I take one when I see you tonight?"

"You can take as many as you want. I need to go." His voice shifts slightly. "I have a busy day but I'll be at the hospital at two. I'll kiss you in the middle of the cafeteria for as long as I can."

I cradle the phone against my ear, wishing he could talk for just a moment longer. "I'll be there."

The line goes dead and I close my eyes as I lean back into the seat and stare out the window of the dark sedan Zoe had called for us. The driver is taking us through the crowded streets of mid-town Manhattan as we make our way to the Upper East Side and the townhouse where Francesca Tomlin lives.

***

"I
'm scared," I whisper as I hold tightly to Zoe's hand. "What if I'm not her daughter?"

"We don't have to do this today." She rests her tablet in her lap. "We can go back to my place and research it more."

I know that she sees the panic in my expression. After she'd read all the clippings in the suitcase about the missing child from twenty-four years ago, Zoe had opened her tablet and typed in the name of the mother. We were flooded with images of her as she aged. There were pictures of her stunning home where she hosts charity fundraisers and dinner parties for some of the city's theatre greats. She is beautiful and giving and when I'd scrolled through the image results, I saw the shape of my nose, and the curve of my brow. I saw a familiarity in another's face that I've never seen before.

"I think I should just go to the door and talk to her." My heart leaps with the idea of seeing her face right in front of me. "I won't say who I am. I'll just talk to her for a minute."

She nods as if she thinks my plan holds any merit at all. "If she's your mother, she'll know Vanessa. She'll feel it inside."

I know she will. I sense it already. I know it's not wishful thinking that has brought me to the woman's doorstep. It's the words my mother wrote within her notebook, it's the newspaper clippings, but most of all it's the thin brightly colored rope bracelet I saw wrapped around her wrist in some of the photographs. It's the same colors as the bracelet I'm holding in my hands.

"Do you want me to go to the door with you?" Zoe nods towards the shuttered windows of the townhouse. "It would be easier if I was next to you, holding your hand."

She's right. It would be easier to have her support right next to me but this is a moment I've longed for since I was old enough to understand that there was a woman on the earth who had carried me within her body and had endured the pain of giving birth to me.

"I think I need to go by myself." I point towards the concrete steps. "Can you wait here for me though?"

"I'll be right here with the driver until you come back." She pats the seat between us. "I promise I won't go anywhere."

I lean towards her to pull her into an embrace. I need her strength. I need the belief that she carries within her that everything is supposed to turn out a certain way because of fate. It's how she lives her life since she met her husband and it's only given her the gifts that she's always wanted.

I want this to be the end of my journey. I want Francesca to open the door and pull me into her arms and cry because I've finally found her. I want that but I know that when I knock on the door, the woman who answers may not feel anything for me. She may view me as one of the many solicitors who roam the city's streets trying to sell magazine subscriptions or calendars for charity.

I push open the door of the car, dart my head back to look at Zoe one last time and step onto the sidewalk.

"I
'm here to see Mrs. Tomlin," I say with every ounce of strength I can pull from within me. I'd knocked softly on the door twice before ringing the bell.

"Mrs. Tomlin?" The shorthaired woman scratches her chin as she stares down at my face. "Francesca Tomlin?"

"Yes," I nod as I try to peek around her body to the interior of the townhouse. "My mother was a friend of hers many years ago and I was hoping she could spare a moment to see me."

"What's your name, dear?" she asks as she peers past my head to where the town car is idling on the street. "I'll need to know your name."

"It's Vanessa," I answer in a muted tone. It may be Charlotte Tomlin. That was the name of the child who was taken from her mother's clutches when she briefly turned her back.

"Step inside and I'll be right back." She pulls open the door and moves to the side.

I don't hesitate at all as I step over the threshold into the elegant space.

"I'm going to go down that hallway." She rests one of her hands on my shoulder as she points down a narrow hallway with her other hand. "I won't be more than a minute."

I nod, knowing that my voice won't serve any useful purpose right now. I pull my gaze around the foyer, noticing all of the small details. There is a tall, slender vase filled with flowers sitting atop an antique table. A pair of high chairs offers a respite for anyone who first enters the space. The walls are lined with paintings in ornate frames.

I reach into the front pocket of my jeans, seeking the comfort that the rope bracelet offers me. I've held onto it without thinking when I've felt overwhelmed the past few weeks. I'm never without it now and even though I couldn’t have understood its significance before today, I'd known instinctively that it held importance in my life. I knew it when I saw it in my mother's safety deposit box.

My head pops up as I hear the sound of heels moving across the floor. I sigh when I see a woman, not much older than me round the corner and walk towards me. She's not Francesca.

"Vanessa?" She holds out her hand as she nears me. "How can I help you?"

I reach for her delicate hand and shake it briskly before I pull mine back. "I was hoping to speak with Mrs. Tomlin."

"May I ask how you know her?"

I can't exactly launch into the twisted tale of my journey of self-discovery these past few weeks. My hand twitches next to me and I suddenly wish I'd have taken Zoe up on her offer to come with me. I feel isolated and shut off from everything I know and now I'm staring at the face of an unfamiliar woman who wants details I'm not sure I can share with anyone yet.

"My mother actually knew her many years ago," I lie with ease. "They used to meet in the park sometimes."

"Really?" Her hands leap to her chest in excitement. Her shoulder length brown hair bounces with the movement. "Was your mom one of the ladies she had tea with on Thursdays?"

I nod without thinking. "Yes. It was a long time ago."

"You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of them together, would you?" Her brow jumps up. "I'm trying to find more pictures for the memorial."

I feel all of the air rush from my lungs. "The memorial?"

"Yes." She nods with the assurance that I have every understanding of what she's talking about. "We've scheduled it for next week. If you have any pictures I'd love to see them."

"She's gone?" I feel the crack in my voice before I hear it. "Is Francesca gone?"

Her hand moves to my forearm. "I thought that's why you were here. I assumed you came to share your condolences."

"When did she die?" I can't control the rush of tears. I don't even try to.

"I'm sorry." She motions towards the high back chairs. "Do you want to sit?"

"No." I swallow hard. "When was it?"

"My mother died two weeks ago." Her voice trembles slightly. "She passed in her sleep."