during the six-week period that this woman says she gave birth,” he replied. “But the list only has the names they were given, not the names of their birth mothers. There are eight or nine female babies, who would be about thirty-one now. I’m going to track them down and interview them all.”
“Why doesn’t your friend do that himself, and how are you going to be sure you have the right woman? Some might not even know they were adopted, and their birth mothers’ names might mean nothing to them.”
“True,” he agreed. “But evidently, this baby was marked with a tattoo.”
Lucy gave him a look of pure incredulity. “Really.”
“I believe my mate has the facts right,” Fletch said, his strong jaw set in defiance. “He has very good instinct, and he’s dependable and smart.”
Had she said he wasn’t? “Which brings me back to my first question. Why can’t this man go interview these women himself?”
“Because he’d like to dig into the murder investigation files in Charleston while I find the daughter. Since the mother’s sick, there might not be time for him to do both, so we thought we’d do the job simultaneously. Like I said, he’s an ace investigator.”
Lucy’s fingers began to tingle, the way they used to when she was an operative for the CIA and she just knew that right around the corner, someone was waiting to take her down. That tingle had saved her life more than once. “Who is this friend of yours?”
Fletch shifted in his chair. He glanced down, then back at her.
The soft scuff of a footstep outside her library door broke the silence. Lucy looked over Fletch’s shoulder, and suddenly all that hesitancy, that “you’re going to hate this one” tone, was crystal-clear.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Sharpe.”
Jack Culver leaned against the door jamb, his hands tucked into the pockets of khaki trousers, his thick, dark hair tousled as if he’d just rolled out of bed, his jaw stubbled.
She resisted the urge to swear and thanked God for the training not to move a single muscle in response to a man she’d stripped of responsibility and fired last year. Instead, she stood. “We’re finished here.”
“Aw, Luce, come on.” Fletch shot up. “Just hear him out. Tell her the story, Jack.”
She should have figured out what brought Fletch all the way up to the Hudson River Valley on a Sunday afternoon. He and Jack were as close as brothers.
She kept her gaze solidly on the Bullet Catcher she still respected. “What you do in your free time is your business, Adrien.” He flinched at the use of his first name. “I don’t mind, as long as you don’t get yourself killed and you return to work when I need you. But this time…” She cut her glance to Jack. “I would counsel you to steer clear.”
Jack kicked up one side of his mouth in a half-smile. A move that might weaken the resolve of most females, but not her. His sexy smile was wasted on her.
“I told you, Fletch.” Jack’s smile widened. “The woman has a heart of stone and a soul of steel.”
She stabbed him with a glare that had buckled the knees of men far braver, stronger, and smarter than Jack Culver. “You are not welcome in this house or at any gathering of the Bullet Catchers. I don’t give help to people who lie—”
“I did not lie.”
“By omission,” she volleyed.
“Lucy, listen to him,” Fletch insisted.
“I don’t want to hear—”
“Eileen Stafford did not commit murder,” Jack said, straightening. “She’s been rotting in jail for a crime she didn’t commit for thirty years, and now she’s going to die. I believe her in my gut, Lucy. She needs to stay alive long enough for me to prove it. To do that, we need her daughter. If we succeed, you get all the credit.”
“I’m not interested in credit.”
“Well, this job doesn’t pay, so you might have to take kudos instead of your usual astronomical rates. That, plus the fact that you helped free yet another person unjustly imprisoned. You take those jobs pro bono all the time.”
She crossed her arms. Of course, he would zero in on one of the things that really mattered to her; they all knew her pet projects. “There are a lot of wrongly accused people on Death Row, Jack. I can’t save them all.”
“You don’t have to save them all. Just give me Fletch, and let him use your resources. I believe Eileen Stafford when she says she’s innocent, and