some sort of a pick-up line?” She grasped the phone and he knew he was mere seconds from being escorted out of the place by security.
“No! Of course not,” he protested, realizing how it sounded to her. First he tells her the television screen didn’t do her justice, then he tells her she’s the girl he’s been looking for…she probably thought he was some sort of crazed stalker. “What I meant to say is that I think you are one of the people I’ve been trying to find for the past three years. I’m a private investigator, Dr. Jones, and three years ago a man contacted me and hired me to find four siblings.”
“Siblings?” For the first time her eyes lit with interest.
He nodded. “Three sisters and a brother.”
She sat back in her chair and gazed at him intently. “And you think it’s possible that I might be one of those siblings?”
“Yes, I think it’s possible. I know the woman I’m looking for has the first name of Phoebe.” But, he’d also been told that the people he sought would probably live near the ocean, and Kansas City, Missouri, couldn’t be farther away from an ocean.
A dainty frown appeared between her perfectly arched pale eyebrows. “But, Phoebe isn’t such an odd name. There must be hundreds…thousands of women named Phoebe,” she protested, then looked at her watch once again. “And I really don’t have time to get into this right now.”
She stood and he stood as well. He hadn’t been able to ask her about the necklace and that was the key to discovering if she was the Phoebe he was looking for.
“Look, could we meet later this evening to discuss this further?” He could see the hesitation in her eyes. “We could meet some place public, and if you think I’m wasting your time, you’d be free to walk away.”
She glanced at her watch once again, then looked back at him. “All right,” she agreed, although he could see the skepticism in her eyes. “There’s a little café called Myrtle’s not far from here. I’ll meet you there at seven.”
“What’s the address of this Myrtle’s?” he asked.
She smiled tightly. “You’re a private investigator, Mr. Cartwright, I’m sure you can manage to find it somehow.” With these words, she turned and disappeared out of the office.
Kevin stared after her, wondering just how difficult the doctor was going to be. As he left the office and stepped into the elevator, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a large chunk of gold nugget. The nugget had been his latest payment for his time and expenses.
He walked across the hospital lobby, then exited into the bright midday sunshine. He drew a deep breath of the early spring-scented air, grateful to leave the hospital and all its memory-stirring odors behind.
As he strode across the parking lot to his rental car, he worried the nugget between his fingers, his thoughts filled with the man who had given it to him.
Loucan. A strange name for a strange man. Initially when Kevin had been contacted by him and told that Loucan wanted to hire him to find four siblings, Kevin had thought nothing about it.
He’d been involved in finding people before—adopted children seeking their biological parents, parents wanting to find children. It was a large part of what he did as a private investigator.
But this case had been strange from the very beginning. Loucan had initially contacted him by phone and they had set up a meeting at a restaurant on the wharf in Santa Barbara.
The tall, powerfully built man had retained Kevin’s services and had paid him with a handful of high-quality pearls. Since that time three years before, Kevin had met with Loucan several times a year and each time had been paid with perfect pearls, old gold coins, or gold nuggets.
Instantly, Kevin’s ex-cop nose had smelled a mystery, but it was a mystery he had yet to crack. If Phoebe Jones had the necklace he’d thought he had spotted her wearing in the news report, then she was a piece of the puzzle.
He shoved the nugget back into his pocket, then got into his red rental car. At the moment, the biggest mystery he had to solve was to discover exactly where Myrtle’s Café was located.
Phoebe stood beneath a hot shower spray in her bathroom, hoping the steamy water would wash away at least a little bit of her exhaustion.
Her morning had begun before five, when an emergency appendectomy had needed to be done. That had set the tone for the hectic day. Besides the three surgeries that had been planned well in advance, she’d had three more emergency surgeries to undergo.
Still, the exhaustion was nothing new. Working at an inner-city hospital, it was no secret that all the doctors and nurses were overworked and underpaid. The only thing that compensated for that was the incredible sense of satisfaction her work brought to her.
She stepped out of the shower and grabbed a fluffy blue towel. Drying off, she thought of the man who had been in her office at noon that day.
Kevin Cartwright. He was a devilishly handsome man, his light-brown hair a perfect foil for his deep blue eyes. In the first instant of seeing him sitting across from her desk, she’d felt an immediate magnetic pull toward him.
But now she wasn’t sure if it had been the man himself or the sweet possibility of his words that had drawn her to him.
Family. Was it possible she might have family members somewhere out there? She had given up hope of ever finding any a long time ago.
And now this good-looking stranger had appeared in her office and spoken a magic word…siblings. Sisters and a brother—it would be so wonderful.
She padded out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where she had carefully laid out the clothes she was going to put on.
As she dressed, she steadfastly shoved thoughts of the possibility of finding family members aside, afraid to get her hopes up only to have them dashed once again.
It took her only a few minutes to pull on a pair of tan slacks and a green and tan flowered blouse. She ran a brush quickly through her shoulder-length blond hair, touched a dab of pink lipstick to her lips, then grabbed her purse and left her apartment.
Moments later she was out on the sidewalk headed toward Myrtle’s. She’d moved into her apartment building when she’d been a resident at the hospital and money, or lack thereof, had been an issue.
The apartment building was not only walking distance to the hospital, but also to the café she frequented on a regular basis and a public library.
Even after her residency had ended and money woes had eased, she’d never considered moving from the small apartment building. She liked keeping things the way they were.
It was fifteen minutes before seven when she entered Myrtle’s Café and took her usual seat by the window. From this vantage point she could see Kevin as he arrived.
“Hi, Dr. Jones,” Camilla greeted her with a friendly smile as she poured Phoebe a glass of iced tea. “Long day?”
Phoebe smiled at the attractive older woman. “They’re all long days.”
“The usual?” Camilla asked.
“Yes, but could you wait to place the order? I’m meeting somebody.”
One of Camilla’s gray eyebrows danced upward. “Somebody of the male persuasion?”
“Yes, but it isn’t what you think,” Phoebe hurriedly said.
Camilla frowned in disappointment. “It’s never what I think, and it’s not right, a pretty young woman like you eating alone every night.”
Phoebe smiled. “I don’t mind. Most evenings I’m too tired to make good conversation with anyone.”
“And I think you are selling yourself short, Dr. Jones,” Camilla replied, then excused herself to hurry to another table.
Phoebe