Hey, I talked to a breeder this morning, and she has a litter of golden retriever pups that are weaned and ready for new homes. Would you like to see them this weekend? I’ll arrange everything.

  Gracie’s heart was pounding. She and the detective had already set aside Saturday to go to Atlanta. The timing was perfect. But thus far, Mayleah had handled all communication. The question seemed straightforward. Before allowing herself to analyze the situation any further, Gracie entered a reply:

  Just saw your message. Sounds great. How much $ are the pups?

  A quick response appeared:

  Not sure. It depends on male or female. But all are AKC registered and adorable! Where do you live and what time would you get here?

  Gracie froze. Now she regretted entering into an online dialogue. Her profile described her as a “Georgia Girl” without revealing specifically where she lived. She didn’t know what to do. Nichols knew she was online. If Gracie didn’t respond, it might make her suspicious.

  “Are you okay?” Brenda’s voice and question caused Gracie to jerk.

  “Uh, sure.”

  “You look worried. I have a question about a filing in a condemnation action.”

  Gracie quickly typed a reply to Nichols:

  At work. Gotta go.

  “Let me see what you have,” she said to Brenda.

  Five minutes later Brenda left. Holding her phone beneath the top of her desk, Gracie checked on Pixie Carpenter. There was no reply from Nichols. Gracie sent Mayleah a text telling her what happened. The message showed delivery, but the detective didn’t respond.

  “Madam Clerk!” a male voice called out from the counter. “May I have a word with you?”

  Gracie left her desk and approached Judge Williams. The judge was wearing a blue suit, white shirt, and red tie.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In private.”

  “We could use the conference room.”

  “Lead the way.”

  * * *

  Walking side by side, Buddy and Mayleah climbed two concrete steps to the front door. The plastic doorbell button was cracked. Buddy pushed it and heard a faint chime inside. He glanced at Mayleah, who faced the door impassively. The knob turned and the door opened, revealing an older man wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and white socks with no shoes on his feet. Vick Melrose looked a lot like Amber’s father, only much older. Buddy guessed he was in his eighties. He eyed Mayleah.

  “I’m Mayleah Harkness,” the detective said. “And this is Blair Smith. Are you Mr. Melrose?”

  “Yeah. What do you want? They don’t allow no solicitation in this neighborhood.”

  “We’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about Amber, your great-niece. She and Blair went to high school together, and he wants to get in touch with her.”

  While Mayleah talked, the older man’s attention shifted to Buddy, who tried to look calm and nonthreatening. Mr. Melrose sniffed, then pulled a well-used white handkerchief from the rear pocket of his jeans and blew his nose.

  “Come on in,” he said, moving to the side. “If this door stays open much longer, I’ll lose the cool air I’ve stored up all morning.”

  Buddy held the door for Mayleah. They entered the living room of a small, cluttered house. There was a woodstove on one side of the room near the window. An aged air-conditioning unit was running at maximum capacity. A brown vinyl sofa covered with a faded yellow afghan was positioned next to a reddish-colored recliner. Three dirty coffee cups were on a low table. The wall opposite the recliner featured a mounted large flat-screen TV tuned to a news channel. Mr. Melrose picked up the controller and turned it off.

  What immediately caught Buddy’s attention was a black metal bookcase filled with photos in frames. There had to be at least thirty pictures. At first glance it was a blur of images. Buddy wanted to walk directly over to it but resisted. Mr. Melrose sat in the recliner and motioned to the sofa.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “Sorry about the mess. I haven’t been keeping things neat since my wife passed.”

  “How long ago was that?” Mayleah asked.

  “Six months ago tomorrow,” the older man replied. “After fifty-six years of marriage.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mayleah replied.

  “She’d been bad sick for a while so I’m glad her suffering is over, but it’s tough being here all alone. I was sitting wondering when someone would come by to see me and the doorbell rang. It startled me.”

  As the older man talked, Buddy’s concern that he might be a clone of John Melrose diminished.

  “We didn’t want to do that,” Mayleah said.

  “No, I’m glad for a bit of company. Why are you looking for Amber?”

  Buddy spoke: “She was my girlfriend in high school, and we had a little girl together.”

  “What now?” Mr. Melrose asked with a confused expression on his face.

  “Amber got pregnant our senior year,” Buddy said plainly. “The baby was born about this time of the year. A week later they left town, and I haven’t seen Amber or the child since. I was hoping you could help me make contact. The baby would be seventeen years old by now.”

  Mr. Melrose got up and went over to the bookcase. Buddy watched as the older man scanned the different levels.

  “Here it is,” he said, picking up a smaller frame from one of the lower shelves. “It’s not the best picture.”

  He handed it to Buddy, whose heart was pounding. In the picture a young woman was standing beside a picnic table where two very young girls were sitting. The young woman didn’t look like Amber.

  “Is this Amber?” he asked.

  “No, that’s one of my other great-nieces who lives over in East Ridge. She’s the one who gave me the picture. I’m not sure where it was taken, but the bigger girl is Amber’s kid. I know that for a fact.”

  Buddy focused on the child, who looked a bit like his sister Maddie. She was around four or five years old and was wearing a one-piece swimsuit with a dolphin printed on the front. He continued to stare at the photo so he could absorb every detail.

  “Does Amber have other children?” Mayleah asked.

  “It’s hard for me to keep up with my own grandkids,” Mr. Melrose replied. “And now there are great-grandkids. Are you the woman who called me the other day asking about Amber?”

  “No, that was someone with the Chattanooga Police Department,” Mayleah answered. “And Amber isn’t in trouble. It’s like Blair said—we’re just trying to find her and the child. He hasn’t seen his little girl since she was an infant and would like to meet her.”

  Buddy looked up from the photo. “If you could help in any way, I would really appreciate it,” he said.

  The old man didn’t respond. Instead, he blew his nose again, got up from his chair, and left the room. Buddy gave Mayleah a questioning look. She shrugged. As the wait dragged on, Buddy began to get nervous. He inspected the room more closely. There were old yellowed copies of the Chattanooga newspaper stacked beside the woodstove. On a small end table next to the recliner was a glass of water. A rack for keys hung on the wall near the front door. Mr. Melrose returned with a large black book in his hands. Written on the side of the volume in faded gold print were the words “Holy Bible.”

  “My wife is the one who kept this up,” he said, opening the thick cover of the book. “I was too busy at work to pay it much mind.”

  Mr. Melrose squinted at one page before him, then turned to another one. “I can’t find anything,” he muttered. “I sure do miss Sally.”

  “May I help?” Mayleah asked.

  The older man held the Bible out to her. “She was good about writing down whenever anyone in the family got married or had a child or died.”

  Mayleah held the volume so Buddy could see it too. Sally Melrose had recorded names, dates of births, marriages, divorces, and deaths in tiny handwriting on the preprinted family tree. The number of entries soon extended beyond the black-lined limbs into the margins and onto subsequent pages intended for other purposes. They turned the book so they could try to follow the connections.

  “That’s Amber’s family,” Buddy said as he pointed to her parents’ names with the names and dates of birth for their children underneath.

  “And that must be Elise,” Mayleah said.

  Written in small print beside Amber’s name was Elise’s date of birth.

  “Mary Elise,” Buddy said. “We never settled on her full name.”

  “That’s right.” Mr. Melrose nodded as he remembered.

  “Did they call her Mary, Elise, or Mary Elise?” Buddy asked.

  Mr. Melrose shook his head before saying, “That’s out of my league. But she was a curly-headed thing when she was a young’un.”

  “What’s this name beside Elise’s?” Buddy asked.

  “It looks like Charlie,” Mayleah suggested, then looked up at Mr. Melrose.

  “Did Amber have a son named Charlie?”

  “Could be. But I recollect that’s the man she married. He’s a real smart guy who works for the government, so he and Amber moved all over the place with his work.”

  “Do you know Charlie’s last name?” Buddy asked.

  “No. I’m not good with names. It’s been awhile since I saw that part of the family. John wasn’t too sociable.”

  “That’s Amber’s father,” Buddy said to Mayleah.

  “Right,” Mr. Melrose said. “He died some time back, not sure when.”

  There was no date of death for John Melrose recorded in the Bible. The name Patty Melrose was crossed out.

  “Patty Melrose’s name has a line through it,” Mayleah said to Mr. Melrose. “What does that mean?”

  “That means there was a divorce.”

  Buddy spoke: “I believe Amber was in the area about five years ago. Do you remember that?”

  Mr. Melrose thought for a moment. “Do you know what time of year it was? We have a family reunion every five years in June.”

  Buddy took the canceled checks out of his pocket. There was one that Amber had presented to the bank for payment on June 5.

  “Around June 5?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Mr. Melrose replied. “We always have the reunion the first week of June.”

  “Would you have any photos from the reunion?” Mayleah asked.

  Mr. Melrose perked up. “That’s a good question. Sally kept pictures in shoe boxes with the year written on the outside.” He rose from his chair and left the room again.

  “If we stay here long enough, we’re going to get something good,” Mayleah said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because of Sally.”

  * * *

  Judge Williams held the door open for Gracie as she entered the conference room. He didn’t say anything until they were both seated.

  “Tell me the real reason why you and Beatrice’s son came to dinner the other night.”

  Gracie froze.

  “And don’t try to come up with a story,” the judge continued. “I can spot that a mile away.”

  “That’s not the kind of person I am.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Gracie rested her hands on the table in front of her. “Beatrice wanted Buddy to be around you in a social setting. After she brought it up, he asked me to come and offer an opinion if I had one.”

  “What did you say to Beatrice about me?”

  “I haven’t talked to her. The conversation at the dinner table led to a time of prayer for Buddy and me on the front porch. That’s where my focus has been.”

  “On you and Buddy?”

  “No.” Gracie paused. “Well, yes, but mostly on what God is doing in his life. I’m usually not so bold about matters of faith, but for some reason that night I was.”

  “It irritated me,” the judge said. “But later I appreciated it. Thanks for being ‘bold,’ as you describe it. People say all kinds of things behind a judge’s back but not so much to his face. And as to the reason for you being there for dinner, I’m going to make it clear to Beatrice that I’ve enjoyed her company but don’t want to give her the impression that I’m pursuing anything beyond companionship.”

  “Repeatedly taking a woman out to dinner sends a different message.”

  The judge held up his hands with his palms out. “I hear you. And I’ll make it right.”

  Twenty-Four

  Mr. Melrose returned with a shoe box. There was a piece of masking tape on the side with a year written on it in black marker. He handed the box to Buddy without taking off the lid.

  “I don’t want to look at the pictures because it will make me sad.”

  The cardboard box was half full of photos thrown in without being organized. Buddy handed a bunch to Mayleah.

  “No, let’s do it together,” the detective replied.

  The first group included Christmastime. They sorted the pictures until they reached warm-weather scenes. Buddy stopped at a group photo taken with a lake in the background. The images of the people were very small, but he recognized Mr. Melrose standing in the middle.

  Buddy showed the older man the picture. “Is this from the reunion?”

  “Yeah, I can tell that even without my glasses. Sally is next to me.”

  A short, overweight woman with a broad smile on her face stood to the right of her husband. Buddy looked over the rest of the crowd. There were at least forty people of all ages. He couldn’t identify Amber.

  “Where’s Amber or Elise?” he asked.

  “I’m going to need my glasses for that,” the older man said.

  Mr. Melrose put on his glasses and held the photo in front of him. He touched the images with his right index finger.

  “There’s Bruce, J.F., Tim, Charlene, Vick Jr. He’s my oldest boy and his family. There she is!” he exclaimed. “That’s Amber.”

  Buddy leaned in closer. His former girlfriend had dyed her hair blond. Beside her was a man wearing a ball cap, T-shirt, and jeans. In his arms was a little boy who looked to be two or three years old. To the side of the man, with nothing visible except her neck and head, was a petite girl. Now that he could concentrate on one face, Buddy saw the similarity between the youngster in the photo on display in the living room and the preteen girl in the group shot.

  “That’s Elise?” he asked, showing the photo to Mr. Melrose.

  “I reckon. And that’s her mama, daddy, and little brother. Only you say you’re the daddy.”

  Elise’s hair was short, dark, and curly. She was smiling broadly.

  “Now that we know they were here for the reunion, let’s keep looking,” Mayleah said.

  Seconds later Mayleah discovered a photo of Elise standing at the plate with a softball bat in her hands.

  “There she is playing softball,” she said to Buddy.

  “Yeah, we always do that,” Mr. Melrose said. “It’s all in fun. No strikeouts. The little ones run the bases.”

  “Buddy, she has your build,” Mayleah continued. “See how long her legs are for her torso?”

  Buddy was mesmerized. He turned the photo over. On the back, Sally Melrose had written “Mary Elise Fleming—age twelve.” He and Mayleah glanced at each other.

  “Amber Fleming,” Buddy said to Mr. Melrose. “Does that sound right?”

  “Maybe,” the older man replied with a shrug. “Like I said, I couldn’t keep all that stuff straight in my head.”

  In total they found five images of Amber and Elise. Buddy’s focus was on Elise. There was a photo of his daughter talking to a group of girls about the same age. The camera caught Elise in the middle of a laugh with her mouth open. In another shot, she was holding her little brother while they watched some older boys fly a kite. Her face seemed full of life.

  “I can’t tell you what this means to me,” he said to Mr. Melrose.

  “Is there anything else you can remember about Amber, Elise, or Amber’s husband?” Mayleah asked. “Where they live? You mentioned her husband working for the government. What about Amber?”

  “No,” Mr. Melrose said and motioned with his hand in a semicircle. “There might be something here, but I don’t know where it is or what it might be. Sally always sent out a bunch of Christmas cards.”

  “Do you have her address book?” Mayleah asked.

  “No, I haven’t seen it. She didn’t send out any cards the last couple of years because she’d already gotten sick.” Mr. Melrose paused. “But you know what? You can have those pictures. I can see they mean a lot to you, much more than to me.”

  “Thanks,” Buddy said gratefully. “And if you come across something that might help me find Elise and Amber, would you let me know?”

  “Yeah. Write down your name and phone number.”

  Buddy started to reach for one of his business cards, but decided it might be best not to reveal that he was a lawyer. “Do you have a sheet of paper?” he asked.

  “Uh, you could use a scrap of newspaper.”

  Buddy tore off a piece of paper and carefully wrote down his name and cell phone number.

  “Where would be a good place to put this?” he asked. “I don’t want you to burn it in your stove.”

  “It’s been so hot that it’s hard to imagine I’ll ever need to crank it up,” Mr. Melrose said. “But it can get right chilly here in January and February.”

  The older man slid the piece of paper into the corner of the frame holding the picture of Elise taken at the lake. “I’m not likely to lose it if I put it in there,” he said.

  Buddy put the precious photos in the front pocket of his shirt. “Thanks again,” he said, shaking Mr. Melrose’s hand.

  “It felt good talking to you,” the older man said. “I reckon it’s the right thing that you’re doing. Every young’un ought to have the right to know their daddy.”