I angled the tablet so he could see the photos side-by-side. First, the girl from the parade. Next to her, our mother from the eighties. "Tell me I'm nuts."
Damon squinted, peering. I thought he wasn't convinced. Then his eyes narrowed, and he leaned in so close his nose nearly pressed the glass.
He whistled. "Shit, Chance. That's… damn."
"Right?" I couldn't keep the manic energy out of my voice. "Look at her. That's Mom's face, period."
He didn't argue. He stared for another few seconds, then let out a thoughtful breath. "That'ssomething. Apparently, dragons can have kids with humans after all? Huh. Have you talked to Mom?"
I exhaled, fighting a surge of anger. "Seventeen-ish years ago, Tash figured out who I was. We hadn’t exchanged last names, but it’s a small town. She went to the house. Told my mother she was pregnant. Our mother told her it couldn't possibly be mine and paid her off." That last bit still burned. "And didn't even bother to check with me." The thought of her standing there alone, carrying something that belonged to both of us, ate at me. The idea she'd gone through all of it without me cut deeper than I expected, and the ache left behind had nothing to do with anger.
I expected Damon to crack wise about that, but he just grunted, jaw tightening. "What a fucking mess. You okay?"
"Not even remotely." I looked down at the photo again, then at the cat, whose ears twitched like she was following the whole mess. "I need to find them, Tash and the girls, but I don't even know where to start."
He straightened up, all business now. "Well, what do you know?"
I rattled off what I knew and what Maeve had told me while I paced around the house. One daughter was named Meredith. The name on the credit card receipt was N. Winters, so I was pretty sure Tash's full firstname was Natasha. They'd just moved to Laurel Gap. As I spoke, a text came in from my mother with the address she'd had when Tash was pregnant.
With my children. I still couldn't believe it.
"From what she's told Maeve during her bakery shopping, Tash is in town for hellbender conservation, and works for some government thing." I'd already dug through social media and gotten nowhere. No personal phone, no address, zip.
Damon made a face. "It could also be the NRCS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Both are federal, so there's going to be a federal record. They don't exactly broadcast staff info, but there's gotta be something."
He was already typing, fingers a blur. I pulled up my own browser, tossing Lola a cat treat to keep her from attacking my feet.
For a solid ten minutes, it was just us and the sound of furious typing. Once in a while, Damon would mutter something under his breath. I scrolled every link with "Natasha Winters." LinkedIn, university alumni pages, even some sketchy directory sites with pop-up ads that tried to sell me miracle weight loss juice.
Most of it was old. University of Tennessee, full-ride, major in herpetology. Past work at the Knoxvillezoo. I found a couple of articles with her name listed in tiny, footnote-sized print, stuff about salamanders and hellbenders and conservation projects that sounded like actual science. Nothing personal. No mailing address, no field office, not even a department directory.
"She's good at this," I grumbled. "Like she's been hiding from the feds or something."
Damon snorted. "Maybe she's hiding from you."
He wasn't wrong. "If I could just talk to her, just for a minute. I don't even want to scare her, you know? I just—" I broke off, unwilling to say I was desperate.
Damon filled the gap. "You want to know those girls."
More than anything. But the longer we searched, the more hopeless it started to feel. Tash left less of a footprint than most criminals. Hell, better than most dragons. Either she was careful, or she just didn't feel the need to show off her life online.
I scrolled past another NRCS press release. Same stock photo, same boring boilerplate about Tash. But there, six paragraphs down, was her name. "Winters, Natasha, Wildlife Biologist, Hellbender Project Lead."
I read it out loud. Damon let out a low whistle. "Project Lead? That's heavy duty."
"I'm not even sure what a hellbender is," I admitted, squinting at the laptop.
Damon sat back, rubbing at his jaw. "Giant salamander. Native to these mountains. Some of them get as long as your arm." He grinned. "Fitting, really."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, hilarious."
He grinned. "Just saying. Maybe you could offer to show her some reptile biology."
Lola, tired of being ignored, shoved her furry head under my chin and let out a yowl. I scooped her up, set her on the back of the chair, and kept scrolling.
Every link led to another dead end. The NRCS office number just rang through to a voicemail for "general inquiries." The university wasn't allowed to share alumni info. Even the damn zoo had taken down any mention of her from their staff list.
"I'm going to lose my mind," I said. "How do people find anyone nowadays?"
