Nora responded to Britt’s jab exactly the way Britt had known she would, with a look of exaggerated offense. “My tea is the pinnacle of excellence, as you well know. Zander? Would you like to taste the pinnacle of excellence?”
“Thanks, but no. After this, Britt wants to go mountain climbing. If I have tea now, then Britt will blame the caffeine for giving me an unfair advantage when I beat her.”
“I admire your foresight,” Nora said to Zander. “No amount of caffeine could help me beat her. At anything. Ever.”
“Except perhaps Trivial Pursuit,” Britt said.
Smiling, Nora took a sip of tea. “So.” She set her mug on a coaster that read,If you walk a mile in my shoes, you’ll endup at a bookstore.“When you texted me earlier, you mentioned that you’d like to research Frank’s old accomplice.”
“Yes,” Britt said. “How should we go about finding more information?”
“You dare insult my tea when in need of assistance?” Nora teased.
“Pretty much,” Britt said brightly. “I know you well enough to know there’s only one thing you like better than tea—”
“John.”
“—assisting people with research,” Britt finished.
“Speaking of John, your wedding is coming up soon now,” Zander said.
“In less than a month,” Nora answered. “I can’t wait.”
Nora had been engaged once before, years ago. Her fiancé had fallen in love with someone else a few months before their scheduled wedding, breaking both their engagement and Nora’s heart.
In the end, though, Nora’s ruined engagement had been revealed for what it truly was—a blessing in disguise. John Lawson was far more perfect for Nora than her first fiancé had been.
At this point, Nora’s bridal showers, the bachelorette getaway weekend, and the wedding preparations were all complete. The only things left: their parents’ return from Africa and the wedding itself.
“You deserve every happiness,” Zander said to Nora.
Britt’s sister beamed. “And for that, I’ll take pity on you and lend you a hand with your research. Bring the chairs around.”
Britt situated her chair next to Nora, and Zander claimed Britt’s other side. The monitor remained centrally located, though Nora slid her wireless keyboard in front of herself.
“Do we have any idea how old Ricardo is?” Nora asked. “A birth date would really help.”
“He and Frank were in the same grade at school, so they had tohave been close in age,” Zander said. “Frank was born in early 1954. So Ricardo was likely either born that year or in the fall of 1953.”
“And we know that Ricardo was living in Chicago when?”
“Between around 1970 and 1983.”
“And that the gas station robbery occurred there,” Britt said.
Nora surfed to one of her genealogy sites and filled several fields with the information they’d provided. Her search returned numerous results. Three of the Ricardo Serras listed seemed like possible matches. They pored over the records, but there was no way to verify whether any of the profiles belonged totheirRicardo.
Nora scribbled the birth dates of the three men onto a notepad.
Ricardo James Serra, June 29, 1954
Ricardo Arthur Serra, February 1, 1954
Ricardo David Serra, October 14, 1953
“We might be able to find him in the Illinois Inmate Database,” Nora said, “if we can match an inmate named Ricardo Serra with one of these birth dates.”
Nora typedSerra, Ricardointo the Illinois Inmate Database.
