Page 39 of Save Me
“It does seem trivial when there’s…” He dropped off.
“Someone out to kill me?” she finished for him.
“Yeah.” He sighed, and she felt his arm tighten around her momentarily.
“Let’s talk about my birth certificate,” she said, suddenly sitting back up.
“Okay,” he said slowly. He sat up as well.
“How would we get to the bottom of this?” she asked. She’d been thinking about it all day.
He stood up suddenly and grabbed his computer. “Well, I did a little research today.” He set it down and turned it on. “There doesn’t appear to have been an Emeline Jane Reeves or Emmaline Jane Reeves that lived in the state of Florida and had a daughter. So, I had a friend in the FBI widen the search.”
“You have a friend in the FBI?”
He smiled. “A few.”
“Okay, what did you find?” She looked at his screen.
“There are three that fit roughly the age requirements. None of them registered having girls though.”
“Only three?” She frowned.
“One died when she was ten, long before you were born, and another died in a car accident a year before your birth. Which leaves us with…” He turned the screen around and showed her a picture of a black woman.
“This is the only one left?” she asked.
“Yup.” His eyes ran over her.
“Brock.” She shook her head. “I… this can’t be right.”
“It could be. Mixed race couples could have—”
“No, I get that, and it wouldn’t bother me if that were true but… you don’t understand. My father…” She felt her stomach roll. “My father is and always has been extremely racist. There is no way he would have been with this woman.”
Brock frowned then sighed. “Okay, but it’s worth a call, don’t you think?”
She thought about what she would say to a stranger. Any stranger. Hey, did you have a baby girl twenty-eight years ago and leave her with a racist asshat who abused her almost every day of her life?
“Can you call?” She turned to him. “You know, since you’re the police?”
He nodded and pulled out his phone and dialed the number. When he hung up without talking to anyone she asked, “What?”
“It’s an invalid number.” He tried once more. “Let me…” He typed and maneuvered to a different site, then dialed the phone again.
“Afternoon,” he said into the phone, “is this Emeline Jane Reeves?” When she responded, he put the phone on speaker so she could hear both sides of the conversation. “This is officer Brock Miller with Key West PD. I’m doing an investigation into a Crissy Talbot, and I’m trying to track down her biological parents. Your name appears on her birth certificate. You wouldn’t have happened to have a daughter on…”—he shrugged— “either January second or August eighteenth twenty-eight years ago, would you?”
“Wow, um, no. I’ve got two kids. I don’t want any more.” The woman chuckled. “What’s this… Crissy Talbot done?”
“Oh, nothing herself. It’s an ongoing case. She’s the victim,” he assured the woman.
“Hm, well…” There was a long pause. “I’m a circuit judge here in Miami-Dade County, which assures me, officer, that you used the official database to track down my private number.”
Brock winced. “Yes, ma’am,” he responded.
“The answer is no. I didn’t have a child twenty-eight years ago. Both my boys are in their teens.”
“Thank you, Judge.” He started to reach over to hang up the phone, but Crissy stopped him.
