Jennifer had smiled and said yes, she was sure she would. It had been simpler than telling the woman the truth, which was that the last thing she expected of the five days she could afford to spend in Puerto Rico was a lovely time.
She was here to find L.R. Campbell, and she only had a business address and a fuzzy photo to go on. All she could really tell from the photo was that Campbell was middle-aged, with wire-rimmed glasses and thinning hair. He looked as she expected he would: like a respectable, responsible example of fatherhood.
She had no photo of his wife, nor did she have his home address. The man guarded his privacy zealously; as it was, it had taken the private investigator she’d hired three days—three incredibly expensive days—to learn the little he had about L.R. Campbell.
The cost had taken an alarmingly large bite out of Jennifer’s inheritance. Her mother’s medical bills had been staggering, the funeral costs high despite the simplicity of the casket. Settling those accounts had put an enormous dent in what little money she’d got from the life insurance policy and sale of the ramshackle house in which she’d grown up.
And now she was here, in San Juan, with the situation still unresolved. Jennifer sighed as she shifted her suitcase from one hand to the other. The private investigator had been more than willing to get all the answers for her.
“Listen, Miss Winters, you need to know where this guy lives? It’s no problem. I can be in San Juan Friday, bright and early, and be back in Chicago Sunday with the info.”
“You mean, you have to go there yourself? Don’t you have friends? Contacts?”
The man had grinned at her through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “I think maybe you’ve seen too many movies, Miss Winters. Who would I know in the Caribbean? Besides, you’d only end up paying the guy down there and maybe he’d string it out and give you nothin’. Believe me, it’s cheaper if I fly down myself. I’ll have everything you need in two, three days at the most. Okay?”
Jennifer had done some rapid figuring. The trip would cost a small fortune, when you added up the cost of the investigator’s air fare, hotel, and meals. He’d probably need a rental car, too, and, of course, she’d still be paying his per diem. When he finally flew back with Campbell’s home address, she’d have to set out on the very same journey herself, with all the same costs, air fare and hotel and all the rest.
“Thank you,” she’d said, “but I’ll handle it myself.”
“Get the guy’s address?” The detective had laughed. “Sure. You go ahead. Do that, lady.”
The airport bus pulled to the curb and the doors hissed open. Jennifer climbed the steps, found a seat, and hoisted her suitcase onto the rack. The man’s words had been condescending, but they hadn’t put her off. She knew where Campbell Enterprises was located, she knew what Campbell looked like. How hard would it be to seek out his office, wait until he left at the end of the day, and follow him home?
She stared blindly out of the window as the bus belched a cloud of black exhaust fumes and shouldered its way into traffic.
With a little luck her journey would come to its end soon. She would see, with her own eyes, the man and woman who had adopted her baby, she would see the house they lived in, and assure herself that Dr. Ronald’s promises that her daughter would be well-cared for and grow up loved and wanted were true.
She wanted to believe it. But, deep in her heart, she never really had. That was why she was here now, to cast out the doubts that haunted her dreams, to see for herself that she had made the right choice.
And if, by some small miracle, she caught a glimpse of her child along the way, she would cherish the moment for the rest of her life.
* * *
By the following day, Jennifer was desperate. She had misjudged everything, and the hands of the clock were racing away.
She had envisaged Campbell’s company as housed in a narrow, pastel-colored building on a winding, palm-lined street. There would be a burnished brass plaque on the door and a long black limousine at the curb and, at the end of the day, L.R. Campbell, with his thinning hair and wire-rimmed spectacles, would step inside the car and be whisked away, with Jennifer following discreetly in a taxi.
Reality shattered that illusion. There were sleepy little streets in San Juan, but not in Hato Rey, its modern commercial heart—and that was where she found the glass and concrete high-rise building with the address the investigator had given her. The only thing that bore any resemblance to what she’d imagined was the brass plaque on the door. Campbell’s, it said, in raised letters, and with a sinking heart Jennifer realized that the whole building—all fifteen stories of it—belonged to the one company.
She took a deep breath. It would make finding one office—that of L.R. Campbell himself—more difficult, but hardly impossible. A glimpse of the man, just enough to imprint his face on her memory, and then she’d hurry back to the street and wait for closing time.
Electronic doors hissed open automatically and she stepped into a pink marble lobby. There was an information desk opposite the elevator bank, and a polite but implacable security guard. You couldn’t get past the lobby floor unless you had an appointment, he told her. There were no exceptions.
Jennifer said the first thing that came into her head. “Well, then, how do you apply for a job?”
The guard smiled. “Ah, that is different, señorita. In that case, you must fill out this form.”
“And then?”
“And then you take it to the fourth floor, and hand it to the woman at the desk.”
Jennifer scratched in quick answers to the employment questionnaire, then waved it in the air.
“All done,” she said.
The guard’s brows rose, but he shrugged and pointed to the elevator. Her heart pounded as she stepped inside and stared at the numbers on the control panel. Which one? she thought. Which one?
The guard leaned toward her. “El cuarto piso,” he called. “The fourth floor, sí?”