Page 119 of Help Wanted

“It’s not bad, but there’s no happy ending either.”

Did she want to know? All her life—despite her loving parents—she had wondered what had compelled someone to leave their child in a library. It had shaped her in some way, however minor. But now she might be able to finally know what had happened. If she was courageous enough.

“Tell me.”

She sat down in the other chair, just in case she wasn’t as ready as she thought. Scott shifted toward her and took her hands in his.

“It’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s not just one database for fingerprints and DNA that you put it in and it shoots out a match.” Hmm. That was exactly the way it worked on television.

“Okay.”

“First I looked back to articles and stories about missing persons the same time you turned up in Pennsylvania. I found something in New Mexico. A woman had filed a report that her daughter had taken her granddaughter away and when she returned the little girl was missing. The police questioned the mother of the toddler, but all she would say was that her daughter was safe. I spoke to one of the detectives who questioned her and they said they tried everything to get her to confess to doing something to her child, but she remained adamant that the little girl was safe.

“When the woman died a few months later from cancer, they suspected she had killed the little girl in a drastic attempt to keep them together in the afterlife or something.”

Kenley’s bare arms were covered in goose bumps.

“I read through the reports and contacted some of the woman’s friends. They were more forthcoming with the details now than they had been back then. Apparently this woman was afraid of her mother and did not want the grandmother to have custody of the little girl. They said the older woman was cruel and abusive, but was the next of kin.

“She also had enough money to fight for custody, so even if the woman, Martina, had left the child with someone else, there was no guarantee the grandmother wouldn’t have gotten custody at some point. According to Martina’s friends she wasn’t willing to risk it. No one seemed to know for sure where she went, but she was gone for two weeks.

“Once I had a scenario that matched, it was simply the matter of running your fingerprints against those of the missing toddler.” He swallowed. “It was a match.”

“Oh God.” She covered her face with her hand in shock. She was originally from New Mexico and her mother’s name was Martina. “What was my name?”

“You were born Amanda Marie Jennings. There is no father listed on your birth certificate.”

“And my grandmother?”

“Died two years ago. From the sounds of it, she only got crazier as she got older. You were lucky, Kenley.”

“My mother abandoned me to protect me, not because I was bad.”

“Is that what you thought?”

He leaned over and put his arms around her as she started to cry. Why, she wasn’t exactly sure. She must not have known how much this mattered to her.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you think they will.”

“What’s not working out?”

It was Zane’s voice. She hadn’t heard him come in. Scott released his hold on her and she stood, realizing how this might look if someone had just walked in.

* * *

Finding Kenley in Scott’s arms was a bit of a jolt, but he trusted his friend, as well as the woman with the tears dripping off her chin.

“Porter, why have you made my girlfriend cry?”

“It’s not his fault,” Kenley defended the other man. The ring box in Zane’s pocket felt heavy. He’d been planning this moment since that day she’d looked at him with forever in her eyes while he’d been holding his niece. He’d been practicing what he would say since he picked up the ring. He’d been sure he was ready. But now it would appear she wasn’t.

“Kenley, are you angry at me?” Scott asked, his face pale. “I completely overstepped and you have every reason to hate me or report me.”

“Report you? What the hell did you do?” Zane stepped closer. While he trusted Kenley, he was now having doubts about Scott. Kenley moved with him, staying between the two men.

“It’s not what you think. It has nothing to do with us,” Kenley said.

“I was hoping we would share everything,” he told her, his glare still on the policeman.