Make Me Forget - Page 152

Burt looked a little surly as he left her office, but at least he went without further argument. When he opened the door, she noticed Ruth leaning against a desk in the main newsroom, waiting for him. Harper had a distant, unpleasant thought that she was going to pounce on Burt in an effort to get him to tell her what he knew about Jacob.

She shut her eyes, trying to still a sudden dizziness.

West Virginia.

No. It couldn’t be.

But she’d been having all these weird, out-of-nowhere dreams and feelings of loss associated with her childhood . . . and now this?

It’s Mom and Dad being gone that’s bringing it all up the surface, one loss making me recall another so vividly.

But why now, when my parents have been dead for a year?

According to this document, Jacob had spent at least part of his youth in West Virginia. She recalled vividly being in the pool with him in San Francisco. She’d mentioned him knowing Clint Jefferies in South Carolina, and he hadn’t denied it or corrected her. Yet he’d clearly known Jefferies in West Virginia.

Cyril Atwater had told her that he was sure South Carolina had not been the state where Jacob had grown up. He had insisted Jacob had said he was from another state out east. She’d thought Cyril was mistaken at the time, but now . . .

There was no doubt about it. Jacob had deliberately been keeping where he grew up a secret from her—Harper.

8

make me

FOREVER

thirty-seven

That afternoon, Jacob received a surprise phone call from an old friend, Miranda Meyer. He’d known Miranda for a long time. She was one of less than a handful of people from his past that he accepted into his present. Miranda had been his caseworker in the Adopt a West Virginia Child program, and they’d managed to maintain a friendship ever since then.

They caught up for a minute or two. Miranda followed some of Lattice’s business news and commented on what she’d read, and Jacob filled her in on some of the unreported background details. He congratulated Miranda for being promoted yet again, this time becoming the current cabinet secretary of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services.

“That’s quite a climb up the ladder, from being a caseworker in the adoption program to the secretary of the whole department,” he told her.

“You’re not the only one who was destined for greatness,” Miranda joked. “Never fear, though. The adoption program is still under my supervision.”

“And so we get to the reason you’re calling?” Jacob said smoothly, leaning back in his desk chair. A call from Miranda of this kind wasn’t a common occurrence, by any means, but it did happen sporadically enough for him to be comfortable with it. Miranda’d had many jobs at the WVDHHS before becoming the department head, and she’d made it her business to

look out for Jacob while in each of those jobs . . . Jacob and Jake Tharp, that is.

Jacob had learned early on in his career that information was key to success. He’d cultivated a number of important contacts in both the government and private sector. Miranda was different, though. They’d kept in touch over the years, but he didn’t think of Miranda like an informant. He didn’t pay or exchange key information for her efforts. She did what she did because she was a friend.

“Yeah, you guessed it. Someone’s been calling about the Jacob Sinclair adoption again,” she said with a sigh. “A supervisor in the adoption department told me about it over lunch today—she’d gotten the information from one of her caseworkers.”

“You usually e-mail when someone is nosing around,” Jacob said, staring out the windows onto a sparkling Lake Tahoe. “Any reason this time warranted a phone call?”

“Aside from the fact that we haven’t talked since two Christmases ago? Not really, it’s just that the reporter calling and asking questions was from a paper right there in town with you. The Sierra Tahoe Gazette?” Jacob sat forward abruptly, his chair squeaking loudly. “You’ve told me Tahoe Shores is a pretty small town. I figured it might be someone you’re hobnobbing with there, and if so, that you’d want to know that they were digging for information on you behind your back.”

“Did you get the name of the reporter?”

“I did,” Miranda said and he heard some paper shuffling. “It was a Harper McFadden. She called this morning. Know her?”

“Yeah. I know her,” Jacob replied, his voice sounding even despite the icy sensation that suddenly poured through his veins.

After he’d hung up his phone, memories kept bombarding him. He recalled how sexy and fresh and uncontrived Harper had looked this morning following their hot, heavy, and hasty lovemaking, and her subsequent mad rush to get ready for work. She’d looked that innocent . . . that loving . . . just before walking into her office and digging around in a past that he’d told her again and again was dead?

She’s remembering.

He felt a little sick at confronting that unavoidable fact. He honestly didn’t know if he was supposed to be left angry, panicked, concerned, or grateful at that realization. It was bewildering, to view the world while standing at the still eye of a cyclone.

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