This stranger looked an awful lot like the Bennet brothers.
*
Nate Bennet lookedat the man who stepped through the door of Honor’s Edge Investigations and felt a bit like he had in the moments before a bomb had gone off and blown him to hell.Nearly two years ago now.
He still remembered the impact like it was yesterday.The ache in his leg was mostly healed, but sometimes cropped up like an incessant reminder his life was divided into befores and afters, all the way down the line.
This felt like one of those times.Before.
Soon to be after.
“Help you?”Sam asked.
Nate knew she saw it.Could tell from the way her intense gaze tracked over the guy.She was cataloguing all those similarities too.
“Hi.”The guy had a voice an octave or two higher than Nate or his brothers.Not that Nate needed to catalogue the ways they were different.Maybe theywererelated.He didn’t keep tabs on the extended branches of the Bennet family tree, and considering those roots dug deep in Crawford County, Montana, some fifth cousin twice removed wouldn’t be out of the question.
But that was a hell of a resemblance.
“I, uh, I’m new to town,” the man said, eyes darting from Nate to Sam.“I saw this flyer up at the grocery store.”
He shoved it at Sam.Nerves waved off the guy.He flicked a glance at Nate again, but if he saw any similarities, they didn’t seem to register in his gaze.
Sam took the paper.Looked at it.“You want to apply for the custodial job?”
The guy licked his lips nervously.“Yeah, maybe.Depends on a few things.”
Sam’s expression remained blank.On the surface.Underneath the surface Nate could see the little ripples of suspicion.He didn’t think anyone else could read those things in her.She had a hell of a poker face.It was more the way she held herself.The hip slightly cocked, the chin slightly raised.
He’d made a study of her face, her expressions, the way she held herself.He’d made a study of Sam Price, and he was still working out what to do about that.If anything.
Right now, he let her handle whateverthiswas.
“You’re going to have to fill me in on what it depends on,” she finally said when the stranger said nothing.
“Right.Uh.You see, I’ve got references.I’ve got a lot of things, but my background is, uh, unique.”
“That so?”
“Usually, I don’t go into the whole thing, but you’re… investigators.”
“Yeah.You got a criminal background or something?”
“No, ma’am.Not that.It’s just…” He shook his head, shoved his hands into his pockets.
Nate looked down at his own hands, shoved into his pockets.It was eerie, and he had to fight the urge to pull them out.To make himself different from this stranger.
“Kind of an odd story, so you have to bear with me.”He took a deep breath, settled himself.“I was found wandering when I was about five years old.Couldn’t tell anybody anything about myself.To this day, I don’t have any memory of what happened before that moment.No one ever… claimed me, so I never figured out who I was.”
The stranger paused.Nate could only stare at him.This was quite the far-fetched story.
“Anyhow, since no one claimed me and no one could figure out where I came from, I got given an identity, adopted, all that.But no one ever figured out where I came from.”
Sam’s gaze met Nate’s across the room.She wasn’t jumping straight to believing this guy, and neither was he.It was all too… weird.
Of course, he was starting to believe the weirder a story, the truer it tended to be.Especially here in Marietta.
“When I was first found, the police put my DNA into a database, I guess.They couldn’t find any close relatives, but they thought I might have ties to Montana.So, I came here hoping… to find some answers.I can’t afford to hire anyone to look into something, so when I saw your flyer, I thought… Well, I could do the work.Then instead of paying me, I thought maybe you could investigate for me.Who I am.Where I came from.I’ve got some leads.Some information.I just… want the whole story.”
