LITMIR.BIZ

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of the birth certificate and photographs. She was apparently finding it as hard to meet Liv’s eyes as it was for Liv to meet hers.

      “I don’t know any of them,” she said at length. “Well, other than your adoptive parents. I’ve always known who they were.”

      “I’m looking for Dr. Frank Navarone,” Liv added. “I believe he’s the man trying to grab the camera from the picture taker.”

      She sifted through the photos until she found the one Liv meant. Frowning down at the picture, she said without lifting her head, “I don’t know him.”

      “I was thinking he was maybe from around here. . . .”

      “I wish I could help you.” She handed the pictures back, then clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles showed white. After a moment, she said, “I didn’t want to give you up, y’know? Everett and I were so young, and we were penniless and didn’t know the first thing about building a life. We were kids!”

      Liv regarded her helplessly. “It’s fine. I didn’t mean to stir things up.” She wanted to add, It doesn’t matter, but since it clearly did to Patsy, she knew how insensitive that would sound. Even though Deborah had only been Liv’s mother for a few short years, she would be her mother forever. Patsy was a stranger.

      “Would you like something to drink?” she said. “I’ve got fresh lemonade.”

      “Thanks, but I don’t want to trouble you. . . .”

      She was already gone, and while they heard her open the refrigerator Liv looked to Auggie.

      In her ear, he said quietly, “I think we’ve hit a dead end. She’s on her own track.”

      “I can’t just up and leave,” Liv whispered back.

      “Okay. But I sense minefields ahead. . . .”

      Patsy returned with a tray holding three glasses of lemonade. Liv and Auggie each took a glass and thanked her. “Sit down,” she invited. “Please.”

      Liv took a chair across from the loveseat where Patsy sat after putting the empty tray on the coffee table. Auggie sat on the only other chair, a wooden rocker with a needlework cushion.

      “I had serious second thoughts about adoption. I told myself I was doing the right thing, but how do you ever know? After you were born, I went to the adoption agency to . . . I don’t know . . . change things, if I could. I wasn’t thinking straight, and I didn’t have money for a lawyer. There was a young woman at the agency who got the files confused and thought I was the adoptive mother, not the birth mother. She said Deborah Dugan’s name before she realized her error. I pretended not to notice. She hustled me out of there, was probably afraid she’d lose her job and all that, but I just left. I didn’t forget the name, and I . . . well . . . I followed Deborah for a while. I kept tabs on her and your father and you.” She half-smiled. “Everett and I split up soon afterwards, but I always thought I had the Dugans, y’know? Like they were my friends. I could see you from afar, and your little brother?”

      “Hague,” Liv said.

      “He was so cute. And you were so lively and outspoken. Fierce.” She smiled, remembering.

      Liv shifted uncomfortably. Oh, how things had changed.

      “Then Deborah . . . died . . . and Albert remarried, and I had to let it all go. It wasn’t healthy for me, either . . . so . . .” She drew a sharp breath. “Then I met Barkley and changed my life. I never really expected to meet you. It’s all so long ago now . . .”

      Liv drank the lemonade down. It was cool and tart and puckered her mouth a bit. When silence fell among them, she said, “This is really good,” and Patsy struggled up another smile.

      Auggie said, “Can I ask you some questions about that time?”

      Patsy didn’t seem to hear for a moment, then she nodded.

      “There was a serial killer, a strangler, in the area,” Auggie said.

      “Oh, yes. We all locked our doors and windows at night. It went on for a few years.” She drank from her lemonade, her gaze shifting from Auggie, to Liv, then down to her hands. “They were mostly prostitutes from the Portland area. He dumped their bodies in Rock Springs.”

      Auggie flicked Liv a look, then asked, “Were any of them from around Rock Springs?”

      “I don’t . . . recall . . . You could probably look it up.”

      Liv’s feeling of otherworldliness continued. It was hard for her to believe this woman gave birth to her. She’d always expected to feel something more when she met her birth mother, but she just felt off-kilter and eager to escape.

      A big, fat, yellow tabby cruised into the room and fixed Liv with its gold eyes. Her dream came back to her. And her conversation with Aaron. She reached a hand toward him and the tom sauntered forward and allowed her to slide a palm down his back.

      “He never does that,” Patsy said with mild surprise.

      “Fat cat,” Liv whispered to him affectionately and he started to purr.

      A few moments of awkward silence ensued, and then Auggie got to his feet and said, “It’s getting late. Thank you for your time.”

      “And the lemonade,” Liv said, standing as well. The cat slid back and forth between her legs. She’d never had a pet growing up, hadn’t really thought about them. Now she wanted to pick up the purring beast and bury her face in its fur.

      She felt Auggie’s hand at her elbow and amidst some last good-byes, he guided her out to the porch. Squinting up at the sun, she said, “My father always called the doctors who treated Hague and me fat cats. He hated them. I always thought it was a derogatory term until now.”

      “That was a nice fat cat,” Auggie observed. “They’re not all that way. I’m a dog guy.”

      “Auggie Doggy,” she said, almost by rote.

      “Dr. Augdogsen to you.”

      She tried to muster up a response, maybe even some of that fierceness Patsy had commented on, but she couldn’t do it. They got back in the Jeep and Liv looked back at the house, hoping to catch another glimpse of the tom, but he was inside, out of the heat, and they drove away from the neat house just as a blue Chevy Blazer pulled up and a middle-aged man climbed out and watched them leave. He was short and balding and a bit paunchy and he lifted his hand in good-bye, looking a bit perplexed. Barkley Owens.

      “I’m glad I didn’t have to meet him, too,” Liv said.

      “I hear you. You met your biological dad and mom today. That’s more than enough for a decade or two. Family . . .” He shook his head.

      “Are your parents still alive?” she asked.

      “My father is. Don’t ask me about him. My mother died in an automobile accident a lotta years ago.”

      “You have any sisters or brothers?”

      He made a face. “Not that I want to talk about.”

      Auggie drove through a Burgerville on the way back and Liv bought them each a hamburger and fries, a Coke for him, a Diet Coke for her.

      “I’m going to pay you back with interest,” he said as they headed up the freeway to the turnoff to Highway 26—called Sunset Highway at this stretch—and to the Sylvan exit and his home.

      “If you want to go to Bean There, Done That and ask about your wallet I can stay in the car,” she said, but the thought of being so close to her apartment sent shivers down her nerves. She wasn’t ready to turn herself in yet. She asked herself, honestly, if she ever would be and didn’t have an answer.

      “Nah, but I think we should go see Hague.”

      “Now? What about the burgers?”

      “We’ll stop at the house.

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