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I chuckled. “That’s certainly not me. Guess I’ll just do my work from here. I just hate staying late.”
I went back to my office. I had no idea if Larry was watching what I searched. If he was, he hadn’t mentioned it.
What the hell? I got into the Colorado database and typed in Larry Wade, city attorney for Snow Creek.
Turned out Larry hadn’t been elected city attorney but had been appointed two years ago when the previous city attorney resigned in the middle of his term to take early retirement. So Larry got himself appointed, and he would be up for reelection in a year.
I chuckled to myself. Maybe I’d run against him. God knew I could do a better job than he was doing. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Jade. You’re still a first-year attorney.
Real name was Lawrence Kenneth Wade. Divorced, two grown children, two grandkids. His ex-wife’s name was Lena.
Nothing more about his family and certainly no mention of being related to anyone named Daphne.
I didn’t know where he was born, but I searched the Colorado database anyway. There he was—Lawrence Kenneth Wade, born to Jonathan Conrad Wade and Lisa Jeanette Baines.
Jonathan Conrad Wade… Where had I seen—
I grabbed the printout of Daphne Steel’s birth certificate. Daphne Kay Warren, born to Lucille Lynne Smith and…Jonathan Conrad Warren.
What were the chances that their fathers had the exact same first and second names?
My skin shrunk around me, my veins freezing. Search Jonathan Conrad Wade. A few hits, and I found the right one. Search Jonathan Conrad Warren…
Nothing. At least not in Colorado.
Jonathan Conrad Warren didn’t exist.
If what I suspected was true, and Jonathan Conrad Wade and Jonathan Conrad Warren were the same person…Daphne Steel and Larry Wade were half brother and sister.
And someone had gone to a lot of trouble to cover up that fact.
Chapter Thirty-One
Talon
“You left abruptly yesterday. Would you like to tell me why?”
I was back in the hunter-green chair at Dr. Carmichael’s office. She’d made room for me on her schedule right after my court appearance.
“I hardly ever sleep, but when I do, it’s plagued with nightmares.”
“Interesting answer to the question I asked.” Dr. Carmichael cleared her throat. “So I gather you don’t want to talk about why you left yesterday. That’s okay. We can talk about whatever you want to.”
“I want to tell you why I came in here.”
As difficult as it would be to talk about nearly choking Jade, it would be infinitely harder to talk about where we had left off the last time.
Luke’s small form—I could still see it on that bed.
But I couldn’t go there yet.
“All right,” Dr. Carmichael said. “Begin whenever you’re ready.”
“I’ve fallen in love.”
The words still seemed so foreign to me. But while the words were foreign, the feelings they evoked were not, almost as if they had been with me since the dawn of time. I just didn’t know them until now. It had taken Jade to release them.
Dr. Carmichael smiled. “That’s wonderful, Talon. The first time we talked, you said you didn’t have relationships.”
