“They’re not calling you to the stand tomorrow,” Nate replied.“You could probably skip it.”
She held herself very still.Maybe he’d known that would be her reaction and that was why he watched for it.Maybe for all hisanchorfeelings, he still had to see if he could cast her out.Float away.
When she met his gaze this time, there was a flash of temper there.“Only you’re allowed to be there for me.Not vice versa?”
Nate didn’t say anything.
“It goes both ways.And I don’t need you to babysit me, Nate.I’ve been getting by just fine on my own for a hell of a long time.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Guess we’re both having to get used to that not being the case anymore.”Something he’d been drilling into her head since summer.
He didn’t love it being turned around on him.
But it was fair.Fair enough he could admit this wasn’t about the trial or anything but this morning.
“Sam, he feels like a bad omen.”
She held his gaze, not needing clarification on thehe.“Yeah, he does.But what else is new?We’ve weathered the last few.We’ll keep doing it.”
Yeah, what other choices were there?
Living, you’re supposed to be living.And he was.He’d even started looking at buying a place in Marietta.Maybe that waspartiallymotivated by Sam’s aunt raising his rental price just about every month, clearly wanting him out without actually kicking him out.
It was still living.“Hey, I’ve got an appointment to see a house at four,” Nate told Sam.
“It’s not far from here.Maybe you could come with.I’ve neverboughta house before.At least not one in a town with plumbing and, you know, the idea of permanence.I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.I could use a hand.”
She didn’t speak right away.He wasn’t sure what that was.The way she looked at him sometimes and paused.Watching him with those dark eyes that always seemed to see more than he knew what to do with.
Then she nodded.“Sure.Meet me here at three thirty?”
“Yeah.Thanks.”
“Any time, Nate.”
*
Sam spent theafternoon in the office looking through the paper trail that was their new John Doe’s life.
He’d been given the name Bowman Lake by the family who had adopted him.He’d told her he preferred to go by Bo.He’d had sad eyes and a nervous way about him.Both things took turns earning her sympathy and her suspicion.She didn’tlovethat she couldn’t land on one or the other.
Bo had shared all the details of his appearance.He’d been a young boy wandering around the railroad tracks in a town called Burlington, Iowa.No one had claimed him.No one had been able to connect him with family.Eventually, he’d been adopted by a family who’d moved to Wisconsin when he’d been ten.
He’d had that DNA test years ago that had connected to far-flung matches in Montana, though not Marietta specifically, but the leads had all been dead ends.
His adoptive father had passed away last year and something about losing him had prompted Bo to want to try to figure out his past again.He’d taken a DNA test from one of those professional sites about a month ago, but at a cousin’s spurring had decided to start trying to follow the one lead he’d had from his appearance while he waited for the results.
Montana.
His adoptive mother was against it, so he’d asked Sam not to contact her.Which was going to put a bit of a crimp in her investigation—if shetookthe investigation—but it wasn’t insurmountable, not with the paper trial of Bo’s original John Doe case.
Sam could also see what she could get the police to do on the DNA front all these years later while they waited for the corporate one to come through.Either way, Sam knew of some genetic genealogists who might be able to help.DNA had come alongway in twenty years.
The Bennet brothers had submitted DNA samples to the police in the spring when a potential murder weapon had been found in their mother’s case.Would there be a match there?
She shook her head.Couldn’t get that far ahead of herself.
