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Located at the far end of downtown Mustang Valley on its own well-manicured five-acre plot, the hospital was on the tail end of a winding road down which Callum was currently driving himself and Marlowe. He pulled his car up as close as he could to the front entrance of the building. Because of its large parking lot, finding a spot wasn’t an issue.
“Why do I get the feeling that we’re about to embark on a wild-goose chase?” Callum said to his twin as he got out from behind the wheel.
“Could be because behind that handsome, rugged exterior, you’re a born pessimist,” Marlowe answered. “Do what I do. View this in a positive light.” She closed the passenger door. “Just think of it as unraveling a mystery for Ace.”
“Except that he’s not Ace anymore,” Callum said as they crossed the parking lot and made their way to the hospital’s front entrance.
Almost a foot shorter than her twin, Marlowe hurried to keep up. There was no way she was about to ask him to slow down. “Well, that’s the name that he’s responded to for the last forty years, and as far as I’m concerned, he’ll always be Ace to me.”
“Yeah,” Callum agreed. “M
e, too. But Dad doesn’t see it that way,” he pointed out as they came up to the entrance.
The hospital’s electronic doors drew apart and they walked in.
“So we’ll work on Dad until we convince him,” Marlowe said. “After all, there’s two of us. We outnumber him.”
It had been a while since either of them had been here, but the layout was still the same. There was an admission’s desk on the left and a desk for outpatients to register on the right. Comfortable love seats were scattered for people to use throughout the lobby.
“Not the last time I checked,” Callum answered. “One Payne Colton outnumbers six offspring, especially when one of the biological ones turns out not to be the real deal.”
“You’re impossible,” Marlowe complained. Zeroing in on the woman sitting at the admission’s desk, she physically pointed her brother in that direction. “C’mon, put that gorgeous face of yours to use,” she told him in a lowered voice. “Charm the lady behind the desk into giving us the information we need,” Marlowe instructed, all but giving him a push in the right direction.
Walking up to the woman’s desk, he cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” Callum said, speaking up.
“Be with you in a moment,” the woman behind the admissions desk, whose name tag read Irene Ryan, said curtly. She continued typing data into the computer that was on her desk, keeping her eyes on the monitor.
Finished, she looked up. The moment she did and saw the man who was looming over her, her features instantly softened. Irene’s voice almost sounded melodious as she asked the man, “What can I do for you, sir?”
“This is going to sound a little strange,” Callum said, prefacing what he was about to ask. “But we’re—” he glanced back at his sister as if for backup “—looking for information about births that took place at the hospital forty years ago. Specifically, births on Christmas morning.”
The young admission clerk’s smile faded, replaced by a look of confusion. “Is this some kind of joke, or a prank?” she asked Callum. It was obvious that she was growing defensive.
“No, ma’am,” Callum politely assured her, “it’s not a joke.”
Marlowe spoke up, moving closer to her brother. “We’re really trying to find any information we can about those births.”
Irene paused to think for a moment, then shook her head. “That’s way before the hospital began digitizing its data. My guess is that those records, if they’re still around, would have been placed in the batched files stored in the basement. I’m really sorry,” the young woman said, addressing her words to Callum rather than to the both of them, “but we don’t have the resources or the time to just drop everything and go digging through files that are more than a quarter of a century old.” She sat up a little straighter in an attempt to sound more official. “I’m afraid that you’re out of luck,” she told Callum.
“Are you sure you can’t just—” Marlowe began but got no further before the admissions clerk cut her off.
“Yes, I’m sure I can’t,” Irene said curtly, sparing Marlowe a quick, dismissive look and acting like this was her kingdom and she was the first line of defense.
“Ms.—” Pausing, Callum glanced down at the nameplate sitting on the desk in front of the woman. “—Ryan,” he said, attempting to create a bond between them by using her name. “In the heat of the moment, I completely forgot to introduce my sister and myself. I’m Callum Colton and this is my sister, Marlowe Colton.”
The woman looked as if she had suddenly been fed a rock and was desperately trying to get it to go down. “Colton?” she repeated uneasily.
“Yes,” Marlowe confirmed, abandoning all pretense of attempting to be nice to the woman. “You might have seen it written on some of the dedication plaques scattered around here in the hospital.”
It was easy to see that Irene was a mouse, easily intimidated by authority. Placing her palms on her desk, she pushed herself up to her feet. Marlowe noticed that her hands were shaking.
“Um, yes,” Irene answered nervously, her eyes now as large as saucers. “Wait right here...let me go get Anne Sewall. She’s the hospital’s administrator,” the young woman told them, stumbling backward as she tried to make a graceful exit—and failed. “I’ll be right back,” she mumbled under her breath.
Marlowe turned toward her brother, putting a look of satisfaction on her face. “I knew that pretty face of yours would get us results,” she told Callum.
“I tend to think that it was hearing our last name that got Miss Would-Be Efficiency moving as if there was a fire lit directly under her,” Callum contradicted. Marlowe knew he wasn’t the type who needed or wanted to have his ego stroked.
“Hey, I’ll settle for whatever works,” Marlowe replied with a laugh.
