you talk to Lacey?” Reed whispered.
Noah nodded and tried not to grimace.
As if by unspoken agreement, they moved the discussion to the kitchen. Keeping his voice down once they were all assembled there, Noah said, “Lacey didn’t leave Joey on our doorstep.”
“She told you that?” Reed asked.
“She didn’t have to. If I hadn’t been in shock, I would have realized it right away. If she’d been pregnant with my kid, she would have gotten in my face or served me with papers. She wouldn’t have left the baby on my porch and then crept away without telling me.”
“You’re positive?” Reed asked.
“Covert moves aren’t her style,” he said. “If Joey is a Sullivan, he isn’t mine.”
Marsh, Reed and Noah had personalities very different from one another. But one thing they had in common was an innate aversion to asking permission to do what they thought was best. Consequently, Noah wasn’t the only member of this family who sometimes wound up in the uncomfortable position of asking for forgiveness. Remembering all the times these two had been waiting for him when he’d broken curfew or worse, and all the times they must have wondered what the hell they were going to do with him, he felt an enormous welling of affection for his brothers.
“Obviously, you were both with somebody a year ago. Do either of you have an address or phone number?” he asked.
The first to shake his head, Reed was also the first to drag out a chair and sit down. “She was a waitress I met when I was in Dallas last summer. She spilled salsa in my lap and was so flustered she tried to clean it up. I stopped her before—Anyway, she blushed adorably and said her shift was almost over. She had a nice smile, big hair and—” His voice trailed away.
“What was her name?” Marsh asked after he’d taken a seat, too.
In a voice so quiet it wasn’t easy to hear, Reed said, “Cookie.”
Noah didn’t mean to grin. Marsh probably didn’t, either. It was just that the fastidious middle Sullivan brother normally went out with women named Katherine or Margaret or Elizabeth.
“What’s her last name?” Noah asked.
“I’ve been trying to remember ever since we brought Joey inside.”
Reed Sullivan had sandy-blond hair, but his whisker stubble was as dark as Noah’s and Marsh’s. Letting whisker stubble accumulate was a rare occurrence, so rare in fact that Noah had forgotten how dark it was. Scratching his uncommonly stubbly cheek, Reed looked beyond mortified. If he expected chastisement, he wasn’t going to get it from either of his brothers.
“You said she was a waitress,” Noah said, trying to make a little sense of a very strange situation. “What was the name of the restaurant?”
Reed said, “It was a small Mexican place near the airport. Now I wish I’d used a credit card so there would be a paper trail.”
Noah turned his attention to Marsh, who had grown unusually quiet. “What about you? Are you dealing with a one-night stand, too?”
Marsh shook his head. “Her name is Julia Monroe. At least that’s what she told me.” His voice got husky and took on a dreamy quality Noah had never heard before. “I met her on vacation last year on Roanoke Island. We slept under the stars and visited just about every coffee shop up and down the Outer Banks.”
“Have you talked to her since the week was over?” Reed asked, obviously as curious as Noah.
“The number she gave me was out of service,” Marsh answered.
That seemed odd to Noah, but there wasn’t much about this dilemma that didn’t seem odd. “What about the note?” he asked. “Does the handwriting look familiar to either of you?”
Marsh and Reed wore similar expressions of uncertainty. After a moment of quiet contemplation, Reed asked, “Why wouldn’t she have signed the note? Or addressed it?”
It was just one more thing about this situation that didn’t make sense. Leaning back in his chair, Noah thought about the note. It hinted at desperation, contained a written plea and a promise that Joey’s mother would return for him. Maybe that was all she wanted them to know.
“Does the middle name Daniel mean anything to either of you?” Noah asked.
Again, Marsh and Reed shook their heads.
Reed said, “We’re back to square one. We’re going to need a DNA test. I checked online a little while ago. Kits are available at drugstores everywhere. The test looks pretty straightforward and simple to perform, but it can take up to six weeks to get the results.”
“I don’t want to wait six weeks,” Marsh said firmly.
“Neither do I,” Reed said with the same amount of force. “Our only alternative is to hire a private investigator.”
Reed reached across the table for his laptop. Marsh went to the cupboard and dragged out an old phone book.
Before either of them went a step further, Noah stopped them. “You can’t pluck some name off the internet or from the phone book for something this important.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Reed asked.
As a matter of fact, Noah did. For once in their lives, having a hellion for a brother was going to come in handy. “A few years ago I tested an airplane for a guy calling in a favor. He’s a P.I. over in Grand Rapids and flies a blue biplane called Viper. I don’t have a business card but I know somebody who does. I’ll make a few phone calls first thing in the morning.”
“Is this investigator any good?” Marsh asked.
Noah said, “He’s found runaways and exes and bail jumpers and just about everything in between.”
His stomach growled audibly. Trying to remember how long it had been since he’d eaten, he went to the refrigerator and opened the door. He saw various cartons, bags and containers of leftover takeout, one of which was starting to resemble a science experiment. This was why he always cooked when he was home.
“When are you leaving?” Marsh asked.
“I’m not,” Noah said, cautiously sniffing a carton before tossing it into the trash. The science experiment went in next.
“You don’t have another flying engagement lined up?” Reed asked.
“It’ll keep.” Unlike the leftovers on the top shelf. “I’m not going anywhere until this is resolved. I figure we can use a couple of extra hands around here.”
While Noah threw out everything except eggs, butter, condiments and cans of soda and beer, Marsh and Reed talked about what they might expect on Joey’s first night here. According to the information Reed had gotten from the 83,000 Google hits, children this age generally required a feeding every two to six hours.
“You’re saying we could be in for a long night,” Noah said, closing the refrigerator.
Reed
