Finding Home (10 page)

After an extremely steamy and
satisfying shower together, Colt followed her back across town to her house to
drop her vehicle off and so she could change clothes.  She’d noticed while
they ate a light breakfast that he’d grown a bit subdued and was checking his
phone often.  She wasn’t quite sure what that was about, but she figured
since it was Monday, perhaps it was work-related.  He’d said he was
working on a new software program for the securities company he often did
contract work for.

He was sitting on her couch, forearms
braced on his thighs, holding a picture frame she recognized held a picture of
her with her parents.  She got the impression that something was weighing
on him, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

“Hey,” she said coming to sit beside
him.  “What’s wrong?”

He glanced up at her briefly, then
looked back down at the picture.

“How old were you here?” he asked,
his voice soft.

“Sixteen.  That was my birthday
dinner.  Mom asked the waitress to take our picture.”

“And how old were they here?”

“Dad was seventy-two.  Mom was
seventy.”

“And they were gone just two years
later?”

She nodded.  “Dad was already
having problems there.  See how thin his face is?”

He was quiet a bit longer, eyes still
on the picture.  Sarah began to really get worried about what was going on
with him.  Had he changed his mind about her now that they’d slept
together?  Had she made a mistake by giving in so soon?  Had she
confessed her feelings too soon?

“Colt?  What’s wrong?”

She heard him draw a deep breath and
then he sat back, meeting her gaze.

“Did your mother ever show you your
adoption certificate or your birth certificate?”

She felt a frisson of fear run through
her stomach.  Why was he so concerned with her adoption?  She stood
up and went into the kitchen, knowing he was following her.  To give her
something to do, she took two glasses down and opened her fridge, pulling out a
pitcher of iced tea she’d made the day before out.

“I never needed to see either. 
I’m sure they’re in that box she left me.”

“But, you haven’t seen them?” he
pressed.

She poured him a glass and handed it
to him then poured one for herself. 

“No.  Again, I never needed
them. I didn’t need to show them to get my job and I didn’t go to
college.  I’ve never needed a passport.  So, why would I need them?”

“Baby,” he began, then stopped, took
another deep breath and then started again.  “The other night, I did a web
search to find your adoption records.”

She looked sharply at him over her
shoulder.  “Why would you do that?”

“I just…I hate thinking of you here
in this tiny house by yourself all these years.  I hate that you haven’t
had any family in your life the last few years.”

She covered her face with her hands a
moment to compose herself, then looked up at him.

“Look, it’s really sweet that you
feel bad for me, but I’m fine.  Yeah, it sucked losing my parents but I’m
not the only person in this world to lose their parents at a young age. 
Some people don’t even get as long with their parents as I had.  I’m fine,
Colt, really.”

“I couldn’t find anything,” he said,
eyes locked on hers.

“What do you mean?”

“I looked at adoption records in 1987
for Texas and for Wyoming under your parents’ names.  I couldn’t find
anything.”

Sarah felt her heart accelerate and
her breath started coming in short gasps.  Why was he telling her
this?  She didn’t want to hear any of it.

“You must have missed it.”

“It’s possible,” he said,
nodding.  “So, I called my friend Tessa.  She used to be in the
FBI.  She couldn’t find anything, either.”

“Why would you do that?” she snapped.

“Sarah –“ he began but she cut
him off.

“No!  Did I ask you to do
that?!  I told you, Jesse and Linda Sauter are my parents.  They are
the only family I care about.”

“Baby…just, hear me out.”

She turned away, shaking her
head.  He was scaring her and she didn’t want those kinds of thoughts in
her head.

“No.  You need to stop.”

“Sarah –“

“NO!” she shouted, rounding on him,
finger pointed in accusation at him. “Stop this, right now.  Maybe I
wasn’t adopted in Texas or Wyoming.”

“Tessa looked in the entire United
States.”

“Enough!”

“She pulled your social security
number, the one on file with Sunday’s Gifts.  It’s not yours.  It
belonged to a woman named Sherry Alexander who was born in 1962,” he said,
rushing his words to get them all out.

“Your friend is mistaken.”

“No, baby, she’s not.”

“You need to go,” Sarah said, her
voice suddenly flat.  She was barely hanging on to her emotions; she
didn’t want to lose it in front of him.

“Sarah.”

“I don’t know why you can’t just
accept me for me, but it’s obvious you can’t, so you just need to go.”

“Hey, whoa!” he said, reaching out to
take her shoulders into his hands, turning her to face him.  “You are
reading way too much into this.  I’m just trying

to-“

“You don’t like me here in this
little rundown house, I get it.  But I got news for you, Colton Harris:
this house is who I am.  I didn’t come from money.  My parents gave
me all they could but they weren’t some high-flying military brass like your
family.  If you can’t accept me for who I am, then we need to end this now
and you need to go.”

She saw his eyes flash, knew she’d
ticked him off but she didn’t care. 

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just
say all that.”

“Why?  It’s the truth. 
This is me, Colt.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he
snapped, towering over her.  “But I also know that something is off about
your adoption, Sarah.  Why didn’t your parents allow you to participate in
school activities?  Why were you homeschooled until middle school and then
you weren’t allowed to have your picture in any yearbooks?  Why does your
social security number pull up information on a woman born in 1962?  What
were your parents trying to hide?”

“Get. Out!” she said, teeth gritted.

“Sarah.”

“GOOOO!!!!” she screamed, angry tears
spilling down her cheeks.

“Baby, don’t be upset,” he pleaded,
reaching out to her.

Not sure why she did it, Sarah
slapped him before he could touch her.  It hurt her hand but his head
didn’t even move, though he did step back.

“GET OUT!!” she cried.

Realizing defeat, he turned and
walked out of the kitchen.  She didn’t move until she heard the front door
open and close and heard his truck fire up and back out of her driveway. 
Then she collapsed in a heap on her kitchen floor, letting her sobs tear through
her entire body. 

Colt made it home on
auto-pilot.  Once safely inside his house, he headed straight for his home
gym, stripped his shirt off and then attacked his heavy bag with a vengeance,
letting all his emotions pour through his fists.  He hadn’t wanted to hurt
her.  Far from it.  He’d wanted to give her a family.  Maybe she
was right and he should have left well enough alone, but it had been impossible
for him to ignore once the information Tessa and Gib uncovered came to light. 

He stopped when he noticed the bag
becoming bloody and looked to see the knuckles of both hands were busted
open.  Numb, he went into the downstairs bathroom and ran water over his
hands, watching his blood run down the drain.  Meeting his own gaze in the
mirror, he knew he couldn’t afford to take what she’d done personally. 
She was scared and lashing out at the person closest to her, the
shoot-the-messenger mentality. 

Going upstairs to his own bathroom,
he bandaged his knuckles, purposefully ignoring the memories of her in this
very room, and then went down to his office.  He felt a jolt when he
walked in and looked at his desk, picturing her bent over it, but he fought
that back too and fired up his computer, determined to find more answers.

He picked up his phone and called
Tessa, wanting to see if she’d come across anything else.

“Hey, Colt,” she greeted on the first
ring.  “I was just in the process of texting you.  Did you get any
more information from her?”

“No.  She didn’t take too kindly
to the information I gave her this morning.  Tossed me out.”

“Ouch, sorry, dude.”

“She’ll be all right.  It’s just
been a lot to process.  Have you come across anything else?”

“Well, we’ve been tracking Sherry
Alexander.  Her parents’ names were Ken and Donna Alexander and they were
from Torrington, Wyoming.”

“Wyoming.  There’s our
connection,” he said.

“Yes.  All records for Ken,
Donna and Sherry Alexander stop in 1987.  And all records for Jesse, Linda
and Sarah Sauter begin in 1987, but nothing exists for Sherry Alexander after
1987, other than the continuance of her social security number.”

“OK.  So, Jesse and Linda Sauter
are really Ken and Donna Alexander.”

“I believe so,” Tessa confirmed.

“Then you could be right.  They
could be Sarah’s grandparents, not her adopted parents.”

“You have to admit, it’s a strong
possibility.”

He groaned, “Yeah, except, Sarah
looks nothing like them!”

“Well?  How much do you really
look like your grandparents?  Have you seen pictures of them when they
were younger?  Maybe she looks like one of them more than you realize.”

“Maybe.”

“But?” she prompted.

“But…she made a big deal today that
her parents didn’t have a lot of money.”

“OK.”

“Sarah’s teeth are straight. 
Like, really straight.”

“So, she had braces.”

“If money was an issue, they probably
couldn’t afford braces for her.  In the pictures I saw, both her parents
had crooked teeth.  Genetics play a big part in whether your teeth are
naturally straight, right?”

“In theory.”

“I just don’t buy that she is related
by blood to them.”

“All right, then consider this…if
money was an issue for them, could they really have afforded to adopt a
child?  Legal fees are insane for adoptions, which is why usually only
middle and upper class type people can afford to adopt.  And since we
can’t find any adoption records, maybe she was never legally adopted.”

“Which forces the question, where did
Sarah come from?” he concluded.

“Exactly.  Now, what I’m going
to say to you here goes against everything I believe in.  So listen up
because I’m only going to say it once,” she said.

“I’m listening.”

“You can do things with a computer
that I’ve never seen done before.”

“Yeah.”

“So, you can hack into records that
will take Gib and I days to try to get access to.  If you can’t get access
to whatever records she has, then it’s time to go about it another way. 
You get me?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. 
“Yeah.”

“I’m going to keep looking into the
Alexanders.  I’ll email you what I have so far, OK?”

“Yeah, OK.  Thanks, Tess.”

“Colt,” she said, her tone catching
his attention.

“Yeah?”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, but even to his
own ears that sounded hollow.

“Is she worth all of this?  Do
you really care about her?”

He took a deep breath, released it
slowly. 

“Yeah.  I do.  She’s
different from anyone I’ve ever known.”

“Then you fight for her.  Give
her a little bit of time to process all of this and then go see her and
convince her that you’re trying to help her.”

“Yeah.  Hopefully, she’ll
listen.”

They ended their call and then Colt
sat for a long time staring at his computer.  He and Claire spent many of
their high school years at the computer, hacking into whatever they could get
away with, which was a lot.  For Claire, it was just a hobby and a way to
pass the time with her twin.  For him, well, he could have easily seen how
his life could have taken an entirely different direction.  Had his
parents not instilled such a strong sense of morality and ethics in him, he
could have easily used the skills he learned for more nefarious means.

He’d ended up using those skills to
help in tactical planning for his unit and now to design software and security
systems for Orion Securities, the company he and Tessa and some of their other
friends worked for, some full-time, some, like him, on contract basis.  It
paid well and left him free to follow other interests as well.