A Secret Uncovered Read online

  “As long as he doesn’t charge thousands of dollars.” Theo smiled dryly. “I doubt Mom will know that I took the certificate from the file since she has no reason to look for it.”

  “All right. Now down to the basics of what I need from you.” Ethan took some papers from a folder he kept in a desk drawer, handing them to Theo. “This is the contract, with the fees listed on the back. If you decide to hire me, signing it will mean you agree to pay those of them that will apply. The second two sheets are for all your personal information and that of your parents. Make a note of what you don’t know for certain and if you can find out without alerting your mother, tell me when you come back with the original adoption certificate.”

  Theo nodded. He looked at how much Ethan charged without flinching. If I have to, I’ll dip into my savings. It’ll be worth it if he can find my birth mother. He took the pen Ethan handed him and began filling out the information forms. He was surprised to realize he knew most of the data that was needed on both of his parents. What he didn’t, he could find out when he returned to his mother’s house. When he finished, he read it over and signed the contract, giving Ethan his credit card to pay the retainer.

  “I should be able to bring the certificate later this afternoon, if that’s all right with you,” he said after Ethan added his signature to the contract.

  “That would be fine. I didn’t ask, but were there any more papers relating to your adoption other than the certificate?”

  “No.” Theo frowned. “Do you think there should be more?”

  “There probably were at some point, such as papers that were filed with the court by whatever attorney your parents used at the time. The Certificate of Adoption,” Ethan said as he put the copy in a file along with the forms and contract, “is all that they’d have needed to prove they were your adoptive parents if anyone should ask.”

  “Like who would?” Theo replied sourly. “If they didn’t tell me, they sure wouldn’t have let anyone else know.”

  “Given the circumstances, I’d say you’re right.” Ethan stood, so Theo did as well. “I’ll see you sometime before six, which is when we close. Otherwise, tomorrow.”

  Theo agreed, thanked him for taking his case, and left to return to his mother’s house.

  * * * *

  As soon as Theo left, Ethan picked up the folder and went to the office of his one and only employee, if he didn’t count Ms. Lane.

  “We have an interesting case,” he said to Rico Baron—or Ric as he preferred to be called.

  Ric turned away from his computer, one dark eyebrow raised in question. Ethan handed him the folder and then gave him the gist of his conversation with Theo. “He’s going to bring by the original document later this afternoon,” Ethan said in conclusion.

  Ric took the copy of the certificate from the folder, rolling his eyes as he scanned it. “Damned all to go on, which will probably hold true with the original unless Foster can discover what’s hidden under the blacked-out areas.”

  “Which is problematic at best, but I’ll let him try,” Ethan said.

  “Do you want me to do a search for Mr. Speer’s adoptive parents starting around the date of his birth?” Ric asked.

  “Yes. If we can find out where they were living it’ll give us a start. Of course there’s always a chance it was a closed adoption, especially if the mother didn’t want someone to know what happened to Theo.”

  “Or that he existed to start with, if he was the result of rape or she didn’t want her family or the father to know. Although,” Ric said as an afterthought, “keeping a pregnancy secret would be difficult.”

  “She might have been pressured to give him up by her family if she wasn’t married.”

  “True, but why would the Speers want to keep her identity a secret from Theo?”

  “It may have been one of the terms of the adoption,” Ethan replied. “We won’t know one way or the other until we find out who she was, so get busy.”

  “Yes, bossman,” Ric said, giving him a mocking salute.

  Ethan chuckled. “Why I keep you around…”

  “Because I’m almost as good at what we do as you.”

  “Almost.”

  They both laughed and then Ethan returned to his office, leaving Ric to start searching for the information they needed on Theo’s parents.

  Ten minutes later, Ric used the connecting door to enter Ethan’s office.

  “Something occurred to me,” he said when Ethan looked up. “Since they didn’t tell Theo he was adopted, they had to make it seem as if Mrs. Speer had been pregnant around the time of his adoption, and gave birth, which means he must have a birth certificate.”

  “True. Let me give him a call.” Ethan did, asking Theo if he did have a birth certificate.

  “Oh, yeah,” Theo replied tightly. “Obviously a phony, but I’ve got one.”

  “Please bring it with you when you drop off the adoption certificate.”

  “I will, although I don’t see what good it will do you.”

  “It might tell us where they were when she supposedly gave birth.”

  “Or not, since it’s a fake. I just got home from Mom’s place. If you hold on, I can take a look at what it says since I’ve got it on file.” There was a pause, during which Ethan could hear papers rustling. Then Theo said, “Cleveland,” and gave him the name of the hospital as well as their home address listed on the birth certificate. “The address isn’t the same as on the Certificate of Adoption.”

  “No, it’s not,” Ethan agreed after checking. “Is it the original, or a photocopy?”

  “It’s the original. I used it when I applied for my passport. Okay, a damned good…counterfeit, I guess.”

  “It would have to be, if the passport authorities accepted it. It makes me wonder who your father knew who could make it, and why he knew them.”

  “What if,” Ric said, as he’d been listening to Ethan’s end of the conversation, “it wasn’t his father who was responsible, but the person the birth mother used to facilitate the adoption that came up with the forged birth certificate?”

  Ethan nodded. “Possible.” He returned to Theo, saying, “We need your original copy. I want my document expert to look at it, as well as the Certificate of Adoption.”

  “All right. I should be there in twenty, give or take.”

  After hanging up, Ethan said, “If you’re right, then there’s definitely more to Theo’s adoption than meets the eye, so there is a chance it wasn’t his father who obliterated the information that could lead to the birth mother.”

  “In which case, it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to find out who she was.”

  “That won’t happen if you don’t get back to work on it.”

  With a nod, Ric returned to his office.

  * * * *

  “Have you found out anything?” Theo asked the moment he came into Ethan’s office.

  “In an hour?”

  “Okay, I guess I’m being precipitous, but…” Theo replied, handing Ethan a manila folder.

  “Just a bit,” Ethan agreed with a smile. “Come meet the man who’s going to be doing all the work.”

  Theo frowned. “You’re not? I thought…”

  “Ric is, well, as he put it a few minutes ago, almost as good as I am. I’d say he’d definitely as good, or he wouldn’t be working for me,” Ethan replied as he escorted Theo to Ric’s office.

  When they got there, Theo saw a dark-haired man seated at a computer. When he turned to look at them, Theo resisted sucking in a breath. He reminded Theo of an Italian actor he’d seen in a movie he’d streamed a few weeks ago. A damned good-looking guy I had a couple of wet dreams about. He could feel his face heat up, which brought an amused smile to the man’s lips.

  “Theo, this is Ric Baron,” Ethan said by way of introduction. “Ric, Theo Speer.”

  “It’s nice to meet the man who’s going to keep me in champagne and caviar,” Ric said. “I’m kidding, but I should warn y
ou, if Ethan hasn’t, this isn’t going to be an easy job.”

  “I figured as much,” Theo replied.

  “Let’s take a look at what you brought me,” Ric said, opening the folder when Ethan gave it to him. He read the information on the birth certificate, copying it into a file on his computer. “You realize none of this, other than your and your parents’ names, may be the truth.”

  “Figured that, too,” Theo admitted. “My whole damned life has been based on a lie.”

  * * * *

  “We’re going to find out if it was,” Ric told him. He felt sorry for Theo—and was more than a bit interested in him even though they’d just met. It wasn’t that he was handsome, because he wasn’t. He was attractive in a way that said to Ric he wasn’t aware of the fact, with hair that could have been blond or brown, depending on the lighting. At the moment, it came off as brown—like his eyes. He looks like he needs someone to protect him. Wishful thinking? Probably, Ric decided. But he couldn’t help how he felt. It came with the territory. It was why he’d become an investigator.

  “How?” Theo asked in response to what Ric had said.

  “By employing my super sleuthing skills.” He grinned. “And Foster’s.”

  “Who?”

  “The document expert we use. If anyone can pull up what was blacked out it’ll be him. By the way, Ethan and I were discussing it and came to the conclusion it might not have been your father who did that. It’s possible that one of the terms of them adopting you was that the identity of your birth mother be kept a secret. The Certificate of Adoption is all the proof they’d have needed that it was legal. Covering some of the pertinent information wouldn’t negate that since the adoption had to have been filed with the courts. Make sense?”

  Theo nodded. “It would great if you find out my dad wasn’t responsible. It’s bad enough that they didn’t tell me I was adopted to begin with. Thinking he did that, on the off chance I found the certificate, makes it seem even worse.” He obviously picked up on the rest of what Ric had said, because he asked, “If it’s on file, it should be easy to find the record of it, right?”

  Ric waggled his hand. “Easy if we knew where it happened and the exact date. At this point we don’t, which is why we hope Foster can work his magic. There must be hundreds of adoptions in the country every day. The majority of them are open and above board, but some aren’t, which, if yours wasn’t, will make it hard to find.”

  “Where do you start?”

  “That’s what I was doing when you got here. Using the information you gave us on your parents to run searches on both of them. So far they seem to have been upstanding, law-abiding citizens with nothing on their records other than a few of parking tickets for your mother and two speeding tickets for your dad, back when he was our age.”

  “I’m not surprised when it comes to Mom. If she doesn’t have the right change for the meter, she figures she’ll be back to the car before a cop comes by. Usually, she’s right. Sometimes—” Theo smiled, “—she’s not. Dad used to take her to task for that. She’d promise it wouldn’t happen again, until the next time it did. Did they live where it says on my birth certificate?” he asked.

  Ric looked at what he’d entered on the computer. “I don’t recognize the address, but then I haven’t moved much beyond checking police records at this point. Don’t worry, that’s one of the first things we do with anyone.” Ric chuckled. “I’m not implying I thought they were wanted criminals.”

  “Whew. I hope not. Things are bad enough as it is.”

  “Understood. I’ll start tracing where they lived after they were married, but not until morning. It’s closing time and I have someplace I need to be.”

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you find anything, good or bad?”

  “Of course. That’s what you’re paying us for.”

  “Okay. Thanks for letting me bother you.”

  “You weren’t,” Ric told him. “Bothering is when a client wants to hang over my shoulder to watch everything I’m doing. Luckily, that happens once in a blue moon. Then I politely tell them I work faster and better on my own, which will save them money. That usually takes care of the problem.”

  Theo laughed. “If it doesn’t, you charge them double?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I would if Ethan would let me, which he doesn’t.”

  “One reason why the agency has such a good reputation, I suspect.”

  Ric nodded as he shut down the computer. “That and the fact we’re damned good at what we do, even if we are only small potatoes.”

  “It’s why I chose you. I didn’t want to be one of a hundred clients, getting the bare minimum of attention.”

  “You aren’t. Come on, I’ll see you out.”

  When they got to the front door, Theo asked, “What’s on the second floor.”

  “The interrogation rooms,” Ric replied, straight-faced. When Theo looked at him in shock, he laughed. “Not really. Ethan and his wife live up there.”

  “He’s married?” Theo paused. “Are you?”

  Deciding to be honest with him, instead of avoiding the question, Ric said, “Nope. I haven’t found a man I’m interested in enough to consider it.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Theo replied without blinking an eye. “Good men are hard to find, or so it seems.”

  “But, to quote something Mae West supposedly said, hard men are good to find.”

  Theo snorted. “Isn’t that the truth? Okay, I’d better get out of here before you come up with more bad jokes.”

  “Me?” Ric shot him an innocent look. “Never.”

  “Why do I have the feeling that’s not quite true?”

  “Because it isn’t? I’ll call you as soon as I learn anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ric watched as Theo walked down the street to where he’d parked. If I didn’t know better than to mix work with pleasure, I’d see if he wanted to go out to dinner some evening. But I do, so I won’t. Still, when this is over…maybe? He shrugged as he went to fill Ethan in on what little he’d found so far and return the folder Theo had given them so that Ethan could pass it on to Foster.

  Chapter 3

  Theo’s thoughts—when he awoke, got dressed, and fixed breakfast Wednesday morning—vacillated between what he’d hired Moore Investigations to do, and the man who was handling his case.

  Am I that shallow, or that deprived, that spending twenty minutes with Ric has my libido going into overdrive? Yeah, he’s handsome and sexy, but get a grip.

  “Not that it matters one way or the other,” he said aloud. “As soon as he finds out who I am, I’ll never see him again. If he finds out, that is.” He chuckled. “I’m the missing heir to a fortune. My birth mother’s—okay, think of her as Lilliana to make it easier. Lilliana’s father made his money in, umm, stocks and bonds. She was an only child, and he wanted her to marry into a prestigious family and have a son to carry on the tradition. Instead she got knocked up and…and they were Catholic, so an abortion was out of the question. He father threatened to cut her off if she didn’t get rid of me. Yeah, right. Maybe I should take up writing soap operas.”

  He knew, if he tried, he could come up with a dozen scenarios about why he’d been put up for adoption—and why it had been kept a secret by his parents. He already had, when it came down to it. Finding out the truth was something else.

  “Which is why I went to Moore Investigations to begin with,” he said under his breath as he slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, snagged a jacket from the hall closet in case it rained again, and headed off to work.

  * * * *

  Ethan Moore delivered the folder with Theo’s adoption and birth certificates to Foster on his way to the agency Wednesday morning, explaining what he needed Foster to do.

  “Whoever defaced the Certificate of Adoption did a good job of it,” Foster said after looking it over. “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll do my best to bring up the missing information. As far as the birth c
ertificate goes, at first glance it looks like the real thing, meaning it’s an expert forgery.”

  “It must be, since Theo used it to get his passport,” Ethan replied.

  “Someone had very good connections.” Foster stated. “There aren’t all that many people who can create something like this and have it pass the kind of scrutiny it would have received for him to get a passport.”

  Ethan nodded. “I presume you know who most of them are.”

  “Of course. I also know their work so I should be able to narrow it down to one of them once I examine this in detail.”

  “Do it.”

  “Can Mr. Speer afford this?” Foster asked.

  “I already told him you weren’t cheap and he accepted it, so I think he can. He didn’t flinch when he found out what I charge.”

  “A secret millionaire?” Foster asked with a laugh.

  “Not as far as Ric’s found out at this point. Neither him, nor his parents. But then, he’s just started digging.”

  “Okay. I’ll call as soon as I come up with anything, or don’t, as the case may be.”

  Ethan took that as his cue to leave, and did.

  * * * *

  “Any luck so far?” Ethan asked when he went into Ric’s office an hour after arriving at the agency.

  “I found a copy of their marriage license which says they were wed in nineteen-eighty-seven, in Ashland, Ohio. It’s a small town about seventy miles south of Cleveland. They moved up to Cleveland soon after so he could go to college for business management. This comes from his obituary. Before you ask, I did check the school records and he was a student at the college.”

  “All right. And then?”

  “After graduation, in nineteen-ninety-one, he went to work for a local travel agency. Again, I confirmed that. Here’s where it gets interesting. In November of ninety-two, the year before Theo was born, his wife got pregnant. According to a woman I spoke with at the travel agency who remembers Gary Speer, it was a difficult pregnancy and because he traveled a lot, leading tours, his wife returned to Ashland to stay with her parents. Gary went out there three weeks before she was due to give birth. Again, this comes from the woman I spoke with, so yes, technically it’s hearsay. There’s only one hospital in Ashland, and the closest one from there is thirteen miles away. Neither one has a record of Mrs. Speer giving birth, or, conversely, her having a stillbirth.”