“Are they… Did they…” I didn’t know how to ask if my parents were the bad guys.
“From what we’ve learned, they were good, honest officers. We still have more questions than answers, but we believe they were investigating corrupt CIA officers when they went missing,” Austin answered.
They’re not criminals. My sign of relief was embarrassingly loud.
If two CIA officers had a kid, you’d think there’d be a paper trail a mile long. “Why isn’t there a record of my birth?”
“You weren’t born in the States.” He pointed at the photo of me with my parents. “This picture was taken in Germany; you were born there.”
“I’m not a US citizen?” My voice screeched. That was the least of my worries, but the shock was too big to ignore.
“You are,” John answered.
“But why isn’t there a record?”
“There is.” Austin dug around in a folder and handed me a dirty, rumpled piece of paper. “It’s your birth certificate.”
I couldn’t read it, but I recognized the word Deutschland.Germany.
“If you’d like, I can translate it,” Austin offered.
I pointed at what looked like a date, 13 Mai. “Is this,” I swallowed and caught my breath, “is this my birthday?”
“Yes, May thirteenth.” Austin’s hard, steel-blue eyes softened. “I’m sorry you never knew.”
So he can be human.
Wait?How does he know I didn’t know my actual birthday?
Stupid question, he probably ran my background.He obviously knows more about me than I do.
I was born in Germany. On May thirteenth. According to the birth certificate, I was already twenty-seven.
I’ve celebrated my birthday on July fifth for twenty-six years.
“Why don’t we take a break?” John suggested.
“No,” I practically shouted.
When John’s eyebrow lifted, I apologized, “Sorry, it’s just… I have so many questions.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have many answers.”
I ignored Austin and asked, “How’d you find me?”
“You ran into me.” His lips lifted in a soft smile, reminding me of the silver fox I met at Madi’s party.
“You know what I mean,” my voice had too much snark for someone at everyone else’s mercy.
“I ran aging software, using your parents’ CIA IDs and that picture of you.” He pointed at the baby picture. “Imagine my surprise when I realized the woman I was looking for had spilled her coffee on me in my aunt’s coffee shop.”
He’s known for days. My hurt was obvious in my quiet, shaking voice when I said, “But you didn’t say anything?”
Instead, he’d lied and pretended he didn’t know anything about me.
“Nina, please understand, I couldn’t come to you with an assumption. I had to verify my suspicions, so I ran your background. The timelines and circumstances line up, so short of a DNA test telling me I’m wrong, I’m confident in our findings.”
A DNA test? Could he do that? Would it matter?
