Chapter 32

Chase rolled out the office-remodel plans on Floyd’s desk to bring the man up to speed on what the changes would entail.

“Instead of moving walls, we’re going to create a new office space in place of the smaller conference room. It makes the most sense to move you to the new space, and I’ll take over yours. Good news is, it will be bigger.”

Floyd stared at the plans, his lips pressed together. “If it’s bigger, why don’t you take it?”

“Piper can’t be in two places at once.” Chase pointed to the space needed for Julia. “We’ll shift this around to accommodate your assistants.”

Floyd shrugged and moved away from his desk. “Piper . . . of course.”

The hair on Chase’s neck stood on end.

“There are rumors going around.”

“I’ve heard.” Chase had yet to speak with any of the staff about his relationship with Piper. The way he saw it, it wasn’t their concern.

“You and Piper?”

Chase answered with a single nod. He wasn’t about to give the man more.

Floyd huffed a laugh, looked away, and did it again. Standing at the window, he said, “You move fast, Stone.”

Chase felt there was more. “If you have something to say, say it now. But tread lightly.”

Floyd smiled like he had a secret. “Just be careful with that one.”

A nerve in Chase’s jaw twitched. “Why do you say that?”

“I can’t help but think there was a reason your father fired her, now you’re dating and rearranging the office to accommodate her. Bit much, don’t you think?”

“You know damn well Piper isn’t the reason for the remodel.”

Floyd dropped his smile. “I do?” He shook his head. “I’m looking out for the best interest of this company.”

Chase saw this for the pissing match it was. “It is in the best interest of the CEOs to have their assistant close to both of their offices and not running to opposite ends of the floor to do her job.”

The fake smile returned to Floyd’s face. “You’re the boss.”

“That I am.” Chase rolled up the plans. “You’ll be given the opportunity to weigh in on the new office space and a budget.”

“Sounds appropriate.”

Chase clapped the plans against his free palm. “And the subject of Piper is closed.”

Floyd looked him directly in the eye and nodded.

Chase walked down the hall and passed the break room, where he noticed Piper out of the corner of his eye. She stood talking to Julia while three other employees were milling about.

He stepped into the break room and caught Piper’s attention.

She smiled, as she did more openly since the news of their relationship got out, but instead of only smiling back, he moved to her side and immediately placed a hand on her hip. “These plans are good to go. Floyd has two weeks to offer input.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll drop these on your desk.” He brushed his lips against hers and dispelled any question of their situation to all who watched.

He smiled as he turned and left the room.

Piper sat poolside, under a cabana.

Kit went from lying down on the massive Baja step to shaking out and panting in the shade of one of the many trees surrounding the pool.

Even though Chase and Alex had no desire to live in the Beverly Hills estate, they had both found it easier to be there. When Piper suggested a few hours poolside since the weather was heating up, they agreed to make a day of it.

Piper’s bikini felt a little off, considering the baby inside of her was making herself known. So far, she’d managed to buy a couple of larger pants and skirts and avoid anything maternity. But it was getting harder.

Chase pulled himself out of the pool and walked to her side.

The double lounge chair she occupied had his towel sitting beside her.

He crawled over to her and placed a cold hand on her leg. “You don’t have to do that.”

Piper held a section of Aaron’s will with the many art pieces they had yet to identify in the inventory, which she found surprisingly relaxing to comb through. “I’m almost done.”

Alex lay in the sun several feet away, her body lax in her sleep.

“We’re here to relax and cool off.”

Piper nodded toward Alex. “She got the memo.”

Chase ran his hand up Piper’s side and rested on her belly. “She’s working too hard. Just like you.”

“This doesn’t feel like work.”

Chase pushed the papers to the side and pressed his lips to Piper’s belly. “What do you think, Baby Girl? Is Mom working too hard?”

Piper watched as Chase alternated between pressing his ear to her belly as if listening and talking to it. “I agree. What’s that? You want to go shopping?” Chase glanced at Piper. “She wants more wiggle room and thinks you need to buy the right clothes.”

“You’re not buying my clothes.” They’d had this discussion before. Fancy dinners and carnival pearls. But maternity clothes were off-limits. Piper brought the paper in her hand in front of her again.

“Why not?”

“I can do it.”

“But you’re not.”

“I will.” Piper read the passage in the will a second time.

“When?”

“Soon.” She read it a third time. Something felt off.

“If you don’t want to go into a store, I can bring the store to you.”

Piper read it a fourth time. “Okay.”

“Seriously?” Chase asked.

“Ah-huh . . .”

“I’ll set something up this week.”

“This is strange. Of all the things in the house, why would your dad think you’d want more of an artist’s collection and even tell you where to go to buy it?” Piper asked.

“What does it say?”

“It says, ‘To complete the set, contact L. Davis at Freedman Galleries.’ Why would he . . .”

A shiver went up Piper’s spine, she dropped the paper to her side and stared at Chase, who was still hovering over her abdomen. “L. Davis. Lisa Davis.”

Chase pushed up on his forearms. “Holy shit.”

“Freedman Galleries.”

Chase reached around Piper, grabbed her computer, and started typing.

She looked over his shoulder.

“There’s one in Palm Springs, Phoenix, and another in Dallas.”

They looked each other in the eye.

“We need a phone.”

A lazy Saturday by the pool ended up being a late flight to Phoenix with a morning appointment with the owner of Freedman Galleries.

The three of them rolled into a two-bedroom suite just after nine in the evening. Their phone calls had determined that Aaron Stone had purchased the artwork, this time bronze sculptures, from the Phoenix branch of the gallery. But since Lisa Davis was no longer employed by the gallery, a letdown for all of them, they requested an appointment with the owner.

It paid off to have the Stone name.

The three of them sat around the living room of the suite, going over the plan for the next day.

“I say we lie to the man, tell him your father left her something in the will,” Piper suggested.

“Why would all three of us be there and not an attorney?” Alex asked.

That gave Piper pause. “The owner of the gallery doesn’t know an attorney is the executor and not the two of you.”

“True.”

“The DNA test did say L. Davis,” Chase pointed out.

“And maybe your ever-generous father left L. Davis one of the sculptures she sold to him all those years ago?” Piper suggested.

Alex pointed at her. “I like that idea.”

“What better way to get as much personal information as we can out of the man?”

Chase smiled. “This can work.” He placed a hand on Piper’s thigh and gave it a soft squeeze.

“Should we tell Stuart we’re here?” Alex asked.

Chase shook his head. “No. He knows that will better than we do, he should have picked up on L. Davis before we did once I gave him her name.”

“I have to agree with that,” Piper mused.

“You think he knows more than he’s letting on?” Alex asked.

Chase let out a long-suffering sigh. “I think he’s following whatever instructions our father gave him. Which may or may not be helping us find our brother.”

“I suppose as executor, he sees all of the will, and we only see the parts that pertain to us.” Alex stifled a yawn.

“We should get some sleep. Tomorrow could be a full day.”

“It’s strange to think we might meet our brother tomorrow.” Alex’s voice sounded distant. “I wonder what he’s like?”

Piper hadn’t even given the mystery man much thought. At least not about his personality or way of life.

“Just because he’s blood doesn’t make him family,” Chase said.

“The gene pool would argue,” Alex told her brother.

“That gene pool needs to be confirmed,” Piper added.

Alex stretched her arms over her head and moaned. “We’re getting closer. I feel it.”

Chase stood and offered his hand to Piper. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

Walter Freedman was a tall, wiry man in his late sixties. From the first weak handshake to the paleness of his skin, Chase couldn’t help but think the man spent way too much time looking at art and not being outside.

“Thank you for meeting us on such short notice,” Alex said as they all sat in the man’s office.

“When loyal clients ask for special attention, we do try and accommodate.”

“Our father earned that title, not us, but we appreciate you seeing us regardless.”

“I was sorry to hear of his passing,” Walter said.

“That’s why we’re here, Mr. Freedman. We’re hoping you can help us . . . with a couple of things.”

He folded his hands together and placed them on his desk. “Anything I can assist you with, I will.”

“Are you familiar with the Ziegler sculptures?” Chase asked.

“Of course. Ziegler has been one of our most requested artists through the years. And one your father collected. Such soulful pieces.”

“I especially liked Fire and Ice,” Piper said.

Walter’s smile widened; his eyes lit like someone was speaking to him in a language only a few understood. “Some of his best work.”

“Is that part of Dad’s collection?” Alex asked.

“Oh, no. It belongs to a private collector . . .” Piper had read up on the artist during breakfast.

“Bauer,” Freedman finished Piper’s sentence.

Chase watched as Piper did her best to act like she was interested in the arts enough to motivate Freedman to keep them happy so they would return to buy more.

“Are you looking to add to your late father’s collection?” Freedman asked.

“We haven’t ruled that out,” Alex said.

“Before we spend more money . . .” Chase looked at his sister and put a hand in the air, as if telling her to hold her purse closed. “We’re here on a different mission. One you’re in a unique position to help us with.”

“I’m listening.”

Chase sat forward. “Our father left an interesting request in his will.”

“It was a bit cryptic,” Piper offered.

“Took us a while to figure it out,” Alex agreed.

“Ladies, we don’t want to take up all of Mr. Freedman’s time. Let me finish,” Chase said.

“Fine,” Alex said.

“Anyway, as I was saying. In the will, he bequeathed one of his Zieglers to Lisa Davis.”

“L. Davis,” Piper corrected him. “He wrote L. Davis in the will.”

Chase placed a hand over Piper’s. “It took us a while, but we determined that L., or Lisa, was the woman who sold this piece in question to our father many years ago. And we need to find her.”

Freedman sat back. “I’d love to help you, but I don’t know where Lisa is. She hasn’t worked here in twenty . . . twenty-five years, maybe longer.”

“But maybe you can tell us where she worked after here? Or maybe an address we can search out? Anything . . . did she have family here?”

Freedman rubbed his bare chin in thought. “I don’t remember any family. Outside of her son.”

Chase glanced at his sister and then Piper.

“Did she have a husband?” Piper asked.

“No. I remember that. She had her son while she was working here . . . actually went into labor in the middle of a show.” The man nodded a few times. “That’s right. It’s coming back to me. No husband. But after the baby was born, she came into some money.”

“Child support?” Piper asked.

“Maybe.” Freedman pushed his chair closer to his computer. “Let me see if I still have anything on her. I won’t have anything about the job after us. We don’t keep reference information.” He started typing and moving his computer mouse around . . . and typed some more.

Chase, Piper, and Alex sat in silence.

“Okay . . . yeah. I have her original résumé here.” Freedman scooted a notepad in front of him and started writing down an address.

Chase felt his pulse rise and excitement follow.

“This is all I have. An address and two phone numbers. A landline and a cell phone. All the other hiring details, emergency contact, Social Security . . . all that is purged annually to help with identification fraud.” He handed the paper to Chase.

“This is very helpful. Thank you.”

“My pleasure. I’m sure Lisa won’t mind me giving that information away when it means she’ll acquire a Ziegler. Of course, I doubt she still lives at that address.”

Chase removed one of his cards from his wallet and handed it to Freedman as they stood to leave. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful in finding Miss Davis, please contact me.”

“Absolutely. And if you’re ever interested in purchasing more . . . or considering selling your collection . . . they have gone up in value.”

“We’ll do that.”

The three of them left the air-conditioned art studio and walked into the furnace that was Phoenix in the summer.

They sweltered inside the car until the air conditioner caught up.

“Should we just call?” Alex asked once they were in the car.

“Beats me,” Chase said.

Piper shrugged.

Alex pulled her cell phone from her purse, dialed the number, and put the call on speaker.

The landline was disconnected. No shock there.

A male voice picked up when she called the cell number. “Hello?”

“Hi, uhm . . . I’m looking for Lisa Davis.”

“You have the wrong number.”

Disappointment crossed Alex’s face. “Wait. Don’t hang up. Is this . . .” Alex repeated the phone number.

“Yeah, but I’m not . . . whoever you’re looking for.”

“How long have you had this number?” Piper blurted out.

“Fifteen years . . . give or take.”

Chase looked at his sister and Piper and shrugged.

“Okay, thank you.” Alex disconnected the call. “Dammit.”

“Who changes their cell phone number?” Chase asked.

“I’ve had mine since my first phone,” Piper said.

“Me too.” Alex sighed.

“Cell phones were new-ish back then,” Chase said.

“I didn’t think about that.”

Piper pulled out her laptop. “You drive, I’ll see if I can get any hits with the phone number and her name search.”

Chase put the address they had into his navigation app and put the rental car in drive.

“You know she’s not going to be there,” Alex said from the back seat.

“I doubt it, but maybe someone knew her.”

Chase pulled into traffic.

“I found more information,” Piper said.

He glanced at her computer screen and saw a half a page listed under the name Lisa Davis. “We’re bound to find something in all that.”

Piper shrugged. “Only about a third of it will be accurate.”

“What? How?”

“You’ve never googled your name?” she asked.

“No, he hasn’t,” Alex told her, laughing.

“I know who I am,” Chase defended his lack of googling habits.

Piper smiled. “Let me show you. I’d type in yours, but there is too much information on you. We’ll do me.”

“You’ve googled me?”

Piper shook her head no but then said, “Yes.”

“Ha. Told you,” Alex exclaimed.

Chase looked at her through the rearview mirror. “Point taken.”

“To be fair, I googled you before we met . . . and after.”

“Women can’t be too careful.”

Piper turned her computer screen so he could see it. “This is me. I know it’s me because this is my parents’ address in Ohio. I got this by typing in my phone number and following the links. This shows possible relatives. This is my dad, but this guy . . . Ted Russo? Never heard of him.” She pointed to another address. “No idea where this is. I don’t know who this phone number is attached to, or this lady.”

“I get the picture.”

“But we have something to work from,” Alex said.

“More than when we got here.”

Piper jotted down notes and kept typing.

Chase pulled into an older neighborhood with mature trees and neglected yards and wound his way around until they found the house where Lisa Davis once lived. “It says 1536 B.”

“That’s a good thing,” Piper said, opening her door. “I live in a B unit, and my landlord has been in the main house for forty years.”

“What are we waiting for?” Alex pushed out of the car.

Chase opened the small chain-link gate and ignored the overgrown weeds. He noticed a back house more unkept than the front one.

Alex was already up the steps and knocking on the door before Chase could catch up.

He saw movement from the curtains framing a large window, only no one answered the door.

“Ring the bell,” he told Alex.

She did . . . twice.

Nothing.

“Someone is home. I saw movement in the window.”

Alex rang again.

Nothing.

“They probably think we’re trying to sell them something,” Piper whispered.

Alex rapped on the door again. “Hello?”

The door didn’t open, but a voice from inside yelled out, “I don’t need your Jesus. I have my own.”

Alex smiled over her shoulder at Chase and Piper. “We’re not here for that. We’re looking for Lisa Davis. We think she was a tenant of yours.”

A pause . . . and then the sound of a lock and a chain before the door opened.

An older, heavyset African American woman, salt-and-pepper hair, poked her head out the door and looked around. “You’re looking for who?”

“Lisa Davis. She used to live in the back house.”

The woman opened the door wide and stood in the threshold. Her eyes traveled to each of them as if measuring them up one at a time. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

“You know her?” Piper asked.

“Knew. She hasn’t been here for years.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Alex said.

“Not sure what you’re thankful for. She’s not here.”

“We really need to find her and haven’t been very lucky in getting any information about where she might be or where to even start looking. Maybe you can help,” Piper said. “Tell us what you know, what you remember about her.”

The landlord peered between them. “She in some kind of trouble?”

“No,” Chase told her. “I know this sounds like a spam call, only in person, but . . . our father recently passed away, and Lisa Davis was mentioned in his will.”

“That woman always did seem to find money.”

Piper leaned against the railing of the stairway, and the rotted wood squeaked against her weight. Chase caught her arm to keep her from losing her balance.

She thanked him and placed a hand on her stomach.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Just hot.”

The landlord stepped out a little more. “Are you pregnant?”

Piper nodded with a faint smile. “I am. I’m not used to your Arizona heat.”

“I’ll get you a water from the car.” Chase turned around.

“C’mon in. I have cool air and ice water.”

Alex exchanged glances, her eyes wide with hope.

Piper and Chase walked up behind his sister.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked in a soft whisper.

“I’m just hot.”

Chase closed the door behind him.

“My name is Abigale.”

“Thank you, Abigale. We really appreciate your time. I’m Alex, and this is my brother, Chase, and our friend Piper.”

She led them into a well-loved living room. A mismatch of furniture with quilted blankets tossed over the backs of chairs and a sofa. Old, spindled end tables and a TV that sat on a credenza that might have been as old as the owner. It was what Chase envisioned a widowed grandmother’s house to look like. The outside showed neglect, but this space was cluttered and loved.

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll get some water.”

Piper’s hand ran along a quilt on the sofa before she sat down. “This is like stepping into my grandmother’s house,” she told them.

“I was just thinking that.”

“Our grandmother’s is nothing like this,” Alex countered.

Chase took a seat beside Piper. “Our mother’s mom lives in Florida. Single story, open floor plan, everything in its place. But this . . . this is what you think of when you hear grandmother. All it’s missing is cookies.”

Piper moaned a little. “We need to get lunch after this.”

Footsteps stopped their chatter as Abigale entered the room, carrying a tray.

Alex popped up to help her by clearing a space on the coffee table.

Four ice waters and a plate of cookies stared back at them.

“Miss Abigale, you read my mind.” Piper wasted no time in picking up a water and a cookie from the tray.

“You looked a little pale out there.”

“Thank you,” Chase said for all of them.

“Did you make these?” Piper asked as she lifted the corner of one of the quilts.

“I did.”

“The hand stitching is beautiful.”

Abigale eased her weight into a high-back chair. “I’m surprised someone as young as you noticed.”

Piper took a sip of water and put down the glass. “I grew up in Ohio. My mother and grandmother are both quilters.”

“Then you know how long it takes.”

“I do. Never had the patience for it myself.”

Chase saw their host visibly relax in her chair; a smile spread over her face. “Well . . . what can I help you with?”

“Honestly, anything you can tell us about Lisa Davis,” Alex started.

“Let’s see . . . she lived here for about five years. At first, I didn’t think she’d stick around. She had a fancy job at some art gallery. This neighborhood isn’t for that kind. It was better back then, but you know . . . people get old. Hard to push a mower around the yard with arthritis.”

“You have a lovely home, Miss Abigale,” Piper chimed in.

“You’re sweet. Anyway, Lisa seemed to think she was too good for this place. She wasn’t around much. Didn’t have people over. Which was fine by me. What she saved on her cheap rent, she spent on a fancy car. She said it was a gift, but who does that?”

“No one I know,” Piper said.

“Then she got pregnant. Didn’t know of any boyfriend. Like I said, no one came over.”

So far, everything was adding up in Chase’s head.

“Then what happened?” Alex asked.

“She started engaging with me a little more. Asked me if I needed anything from the grocery store if she was going, brought in the mail from the street from time to time. I thought maybe becoming a mama was helping her grow up a little. She still had the fancy job, but she wasn’t gone as much. Then Max came.”

Hearing Max’s name brushed away any doubt that they’d come to the right place.

“Her son,” Alex said.

“Yeah. Cute as a button, that one.” Abigale shook her head and lost her smile almost as quickly as she put it on when she mentioned Max’s name. “Sad.”

“What’s sad?” Piper asked.

Chase’s mind went immediately to the worst-case scenario. “He didn’t get sick or anything, did he?”

“No. No . . . nothing like that. He just had a fatal case of a lousy mama.”

It was Alex’s and Piper’s turn to physically relax in their seats.

“I became the babysitter. I was newly retired . . . was happy to do it. Lisa seemed to have more money coming in. She said she was selling a lot of that fancy art, so she paid me well. But . . .”

Piper moved to the edge of her seat; the uneaten cookie dangled from her fingertips.

Chase placed a hand on her knee.

“But what?” Alex asked.

“She worked . . . or so she said. Never home. Max would cry for his mama, but she was never around. And when she was, she didn’t know how to care for her boy. I did what I could.”

“I’m sure Max was grateful to have you.”

Abigale had stopped smiling, and a mix of worry and regret crossed her face. “I couldn’t keep him. He wasn’t mine. I have real bad arthritis. Keeping up with a toddler was impossible.”

Chase focused on the first part of her last sentence. “What do you mean you couldn’t keep him? Did she ask you to take him . . . permanently?”

“Oh, she didn’t ask.” Abigale shook her head. “She just left.”

Piper dropped her cookie on the floor. “What do you mean, left?”

“She brought Max over one morning before she went to work. Like normal . . . even though I’d been telling her he needed someone younger taking care of him . . . brought him over and went to work. Only she didn’t come home. She was late a lot, and at first, I didn’t think anything of it. I always let Max fall asleep in his own bed. I waited for Lisa . . . and waited. I left messages. I was about to call the police and hospitals. In the morning, I called her work. They said she hadn’t been there in over a month. Then I went in her bedroom, and that’s when I knew. Her closet was empty, and her flip phone was sitting in the bottom of the toilet.”

Piper’s hand crushed Chase’s.

Alex’s jaw dropped.

“She abandoned him,” Chase whispered.

“That’s why she hasn’t come forward,” Alex said.

“What happened to Max?” Piper asked.

There was visible pain in Abigale’s eyes. “I waited through the weekend. Hoping she would come to her senses. When she didn’t show up, I called the police. They asked me to keep Max for a few more days until they could find a foster family that would take him. Which I did. They tore that poor child away. He didn’t want to go. I cried and I cried. I couldn’t keep him. I knew the longer he was with me, the harder it would be for me to let him go.”

“Of course not. That’s understandable,” Alex consoled the woman.

Piper wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Chase put an arm around her and pulled her close.

“Miss Abigale, do you know where Max ended up?”

“Not really. I wanted to keep in touch, but I knew it would be harder on the boy. And me.”

“And he never tried to get ahold of you?” Chase asked.

“No. God willing, he forgot all about his mama and this place. He was young enough, barely two. Maybe someone adopted him.”

Chase heard Piper gasp and stand up. “Can I use your restroom?”

“Of course, dear. It’s right around the corner.”

Chase had a strong desire to follow her but knew she needed a moment alone. He retrieved the forgotten cookie from the floor and placed it on the tray.

Alex fixed her gaze on something out the living room window.

“If your father left something to Lisa and it’s worth anything, I hope you do the right thing and find her son and give it to him. That woman doesn’t deserve anything but pain, as far as I’m concerned.”

Alex stared directly in Chase’s eyes and said, “Don’t worry, Miss Abigale. That’s exactly what we intend to do.”