Twist of Fate by Kathi Daley

Author:Kathi Daley [Daley, Kathi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathi Daley Books
Published: 2022-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

As it turned out, I didn’t need to work all that hard to convince Jemma to help me locate the child. I’d simply told her that I had a good reason for doing so that I couldn’t really talk about at that point, and she’d responded by saying that an explanation wasn’t necessary. We decided to begin by looking at all twelve-year-old girls enrolled in the local middle school. I knew that the child and her mother had initially been put into witness protection in a location other than Gooseberry Bay. I also knew that the Russians had discovered their location and captured the mother but that the nanny had escaped with the child. Avery had admitted that she didn’t know where the nanny and child had gone after escaping but that it was possible they’d come to Gooseberry Bay. Of course, when I’d spoken to Avery, she’d admitted that she had no way of knowing if the intel Opal seemed to have stumbled across was even accurate. For all any of us really knew, the child had never come to Gooseberry Bay, and even if she had, there was a good chance she was no longer here. Still, looking at twelve-year-old girls who’d enrolled in the local school system between one and four years ago did give us a place to begin.

“There are eighteen twelve-year-old girls who were enrolled in the local school system between one and four years ago currently in Gooseberry Bay,” Jemma said. “Two are Asian, three are African American, one is Native American, and one is Hispanic. We know that your client is Caucasian, and based on the obituary we found for Jeremiah Fallon, he appears to have been Caucasian, so I think we can safely eliminate the seven non-Caucasian students,” she continued. “That leaves eleven students that we’ll need to take a closer look at. The redacted medical records we believe may belong to Opal and her child were dated November tenth, so I guess we can look for students with a November birthday.”

“We can.” I hesitated, struggling to come up with a way to let Jemma know that school information relating to the child might not be accurate. “But I have reason to believe that the child might have been enrolled in school using data that may have been manipulated.”

Jemma paused, leaning back in her chair. “Look, I get that something has changed, and I get that while you’d like my help, you aren’t currently in a position where you’re able to be completely honest with me. That’s fine. I don’t need to know everything, and I want to help, so if a search parameter I suggest doesn’t fit your new profile, just tell me how you’d like to change things. You really don’t need to struggle to come up with an explanation.”

“Okay, thanks. I appreciate that. This whole thing is really weird for me.”

She shrugged. “No need to feel weird. I want to help, and I believe I can do so while still allowing you to honor whatever sort of limitations you’ve been asked to deal with.

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