I owed Alan something far more valuable than mere money. I owed him the truth.
Chapter 20
I REMEMBER READING SOMEPLACE THAT 99 PERCENT OF what we worry about never happens. It might have been in Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking—another long-ago birthday present from my mother. Is there a corollary to that? Maybe that other 1 percent represents the things we really should worry about. For example, after my one-night stand with Jasmine Day, I was never the least bit concerned that she might have gotten pregnant, and yet that’s exactly what I should have been worrying about. And now the thing I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to was right here biting me in the butt.
The phone rang, and Mel’s photo appeared on the screen. “Just got back to the house,” she said when I pressed the call button to answer. “I’m wearing my robe, sitting by the fireplace, and just finished eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I miss you, by the way,” she added. “How are you doing?”
So I told her—the good news and the bad news—that I had found Naomi and she had agreed to relinquish her parental rights. I told her the other part, too, that even without my DNA profile, it was clear to me that Naomi Dale and I were related.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Fess up,” I said. “It’s time for me to tell Alan the truth. The DNA is nothing but a formality. Naomi and Kelly could just as well be twins.”
“Good luck with that,” she said.
“How did your situation sort itself out?”
“All right, I suppose. The bad guys are in jail, the woman injured in the hit-and-run is hospitalized with serious injuries, but she’s going to live, and the wreckage has been cleared off all affected roadways. The only thing left to handle is a mountain of paperwork, but that’ll have to wait. I deserve a break. As tired as I am, I decided it was too late to head out tonight, but I’ll show up there first thing in the morning—probably around nine or so.”
“Your usual dressing-room space will be off-limits,” I warned her.
“I’m a big girl,” she assured me. “We’ll manage.”
Once I was parked in the garage, I took Lucy out for her final walk of the evening and went looking for Sam. As expected, he was ensconced in his usual digs.
In the old days when I was first on the job, I was lucky if I had fifty bucks of walking-around money in my wallet at any given time. These days I usually have five one-hundred-dollar bills and a few smaller ones tucked into my billfold. It’s just my thing. I guess, after growing up poor, it’s nice to know I have a bit of spare moola in my pocket—in this case the reward money I owed Sam Shelton.
“Anybody awake down there?” I called into the alcove.
Someone stirred beneath the mound of blankets at the bottom of the stairs. Billy Bob was the first to emerge from under the makeshift shelter.
“That you, Beau?” Sam called.
“It is,” I told him. “I came to bring your reward.”
“You found her, then?”
“We certainly did, at the all-female homeless encampment you told me about. I’m here to make good on my promise.”
Keeping some of the blankets wrapped around him, Sam lumbered up the stairs. “Is she okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, “at least I think so. It’s hard to tell.”
I counted out five bills and handed them over. Sam took one and passed the others back. “I got me Billy Bob, but you know what it’s like out here. If I end up getting rolled, I’d rather the thugs get away with only one of these hummers instead of all of ’em. So why don’t you put the other ones in an envelope and leave them with that nice doorman, Mr. Bob. When I run low on funds, I can always stop by during one of his shifts and pick up the next one. It’ll be sort of like having a savings account. Don’t think I’ve ever had one of those before.”
“Envelope it is,” I said, putting the four remaining bills back in my pocket. “I’ll give these to Bob the next time I see him.”
“By the way, I’m still looking for that Petey guy,” Sam told me. “I’ve talked to a couple of people who remember him and his girlfriend, too, but no one has seen him lately, and that’s a bad sign. When people disappear off