“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” Not that she believed it for a second. “I suppose I’d better get back to work.”

“I’ll see what I can find out about the dredging.”

“Great.” Josie leaned back against the wall and propped one foot up on the frame protecting the artwork. She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to find out more about what Courtney had been doing during the past… what was it? Sixteen years. Sixteen years and seven months to be more exact.

Sixteen years and ten months since she had been in contact with her family. Well, to be more accurate, seventeen years and ten months since they had been in contact with her. Sixteen years and one month since she had gotten her courage together and sent them the short, perky letter announcing the birth of Tyler Clay. The short, perky letter that had not been answered. For a moment, she relived that pain.

Did she want to feel it again? Did she need to feel it again? Could she find out what Courtney had been doing during this time without evoking those feelings? Sam had once hired a private detective who could probably have done it all easily, but she couldn’t afford to pay for a detective and she didn’t want Sam involved. She had chosen to move beyond her past. If she was going to return to it, she sure wasn’t going to drag the man she loved along for the ride.

There was one other person she didn’t want following her into her past: Tyler. Her son had gone through periods when he was curious about his heritage. He’d asked more than a few questions about his father, who he was and where he was. But Josie had insisted on keeping her secret and Tyler had become interested in other things. His fifth-grade class project had been to make a family tree and so the question arose once again. With the insecurity of his teen years approaching rapidly, Josie had been about to panic when Risa had come to the rescue. “You are a lucky child. You choose your own family. You make a tree anyone would be proud of,” she had told him.

Tyler had done just that. From baseball players to presidents, he had collected relatives and hung them on his tree. The end result was the envy of his peers-and it amazed the adults in his life. While Albert Einstein might look like a great-grandfather to many people, only Tyler would have claimed him for his own.

When Noel Roberts died, Tyler had lost the closest thing he had to a father, but Josie’s relationship with Sam had provided him with a surprisingly good substitute at an age when he desperately needed a male role model. Josie really believed her son had come to terms with and accepted a life without a traditional family. She sure didn’t want her slightly abnormal relatives to enter the picture and screw everything up.

Why had she ever agreed to do this damn television show?

THIRTEEN

JOSIE KNEW WHAT she had to do. And she hoped she could count Risa as an ally. She was going to need one. She headed for her landlady’s apartment right after work. Risa was sitting on a lounge on her screened-in front porch, an exotic aperitif on the table by her side, and a pile of magazines sliding off her lap.

“This year I take a holiday,” Risa announced as Josie stopped in the doorway.

“When?” She didn’t ask where because she knew Risa would consider only Italy an appropriate destination.

“In the fall. After little Tyler goes back to that school you send him to.”

“Is Tyler home?” Josie asked, suddenly realizing her son might be bounding down the stairs at any minute.

“He is at video store. He is always at video store.” Risa begrudged every minute Tyler Clay spent in the company of others.

“He’s only been working there a few days. I’m glad he enjoys his job. We wouldn’t want him to be miserable, would we?”

“No, and he says he will get me some foreign movies I have been wanting to see, so that is good.”

“Foreign movies? I thought Family Video only rented family tapes.” Were there any family-oriented foreign movies? What did European children watch? she wondered.

“That is true. But my Tyler, he can order-special order- anything I want. Privately. Between friends. So I have my own private film festival this summer.”

That was okay then. “I need to talk to you. Before Tyler comes home,” Josie stated flatly.

“Sì. You have a problem? Not with little Tyler?”

“No, not with Tyler. With me. But I don’t want anyone to know about it.”

“Sit. Tell me.”

Josie knew that the less she told Risa, the better. Not because she couldn’t trust her to keep a secret but because Risa was a worrier. “I need to track down someone, someone I knew years and years ago. Before I came to the island.”

“Ah.” Risa nodded her head, a suitably serious expression on her face.

“I… I don’t want Tyler to know about this.”

The nodding became more vigorous and a hairpin fell onto the floor.

“I may have to leave messages and to have… uh, people… call me back. I wondered… I mean, I don’t want messages left on the phone at home because of Tyler…”

“Sì. Sì.” More nodding. More pins falling to the floor.

“And I don’t want anyone else to overhear, so I think that leaving my office number would be a mistake.”

“Definitivamente. Sì.” Risa had long and luxurious hair, but just how many pins could she lose before it fell to her shoulders? “You need to use my number. Of course. What about address?”

“What?”

“Do you need also to give out my address to these people you need to get in touch with?”

“I…” She hadn’t thought of that. “I may, in fact.”

“Then you just give out my apartment number instead of yours. Easy, no?”

“Yes…”

“But maybe too easy.” The nodding stopped and the frowning began. “Do you want this person to be able to find you just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

“I… You know, I never thought about it. Maybe not.” Josie thought for a moment. “I suppose I could rent a box at the post office. But this is an awfully small island and there aren’t a whole lot of people who live here all year long. If someone was to look for me, he or she would probably find me.”

Risa seemed to hesitate, which was unusual for her. “Is Pigeon your real name? Your family name?”

“Yes. Of course. Yes.” The question surprised her. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, we… I… There were people who thought maybe you had been married at one time when you first came to the island. I didn’t like to ask too many questions back then and now… well, now you are you. I no longer have questions. If you know what I mean.”

Josie thought she did. “Now no one questions who I am or where I came from. But I was born Josie Pigeon… well, Josephine Pigeon to be exact. Why?”

“Because I watch a show on television about computers searching out people. You can be found if you use your right name. So people not look for you. Or else they would have found you.”

“But I’m not connected to the Internet,” Josie protested.

“That does not matter. It searches phone books, address books, credit records.” Risa shrugged dramatically. “I not know how it does it, but it does.”

“Interesting. I guess that means no one has wanted to get in touch with me.” She had a moment of feeling hurt by this fact, right before she decided to appreciate it.

“It means you can find who you look for,” Risa reminded her.

“Oh, that won’t be a problem. I’ll just have to make a few phone calls. Maybe only one.”

“And you leave my phone number to call back to.” The nodding had started again.

Josie had another thought. “But how will you answer the phone? I mean, what excuse will you give that you’re answering the phone instead of me?”

“I leave on answering machine.”

“All the time? Even when you’re home?”

“Sì. All the time. Even when I am here. Why not?”

“No reason. And I really will try not to use your phone number.”