Birthright

We don’t fight with pussies and girls.”
    “Suit yourself.” Jake waved a hand at the waitress. “Can we get another round here?” He lifted his burger, bit in with every appearance of enjoyment as the men, muttering insults, stalked to the door. “Told you it was like that place in Spain.”
    “They don’t mean anything.” The waitress set fresh beers on the table, scooped up the empties. “Austin and Jimmy, they’re just stupid is all, but they don’t mean anything.”
    “No problem,” Jake told her.
    “Mostly, people are real excited about the doings out there by Simon’s Hole. But there’s some’s got a problem with it. Dolan hired extra crew, and they got laid off when the work stopped. It can make you mean when it pinches your pocketbook. Those burgers all right for you?”
    “They’re great. Thanks,” Callie said.
    “Y’all just let me know if you need anything. And don’t you worry about Austin and Jimmy. It was mostly the beer talking.”
    “Beer talks loud enough,” Jake said when the waitress left them alone, “it can be a problem. Digger’s campedout on the site, but we may want to think about adding a little more security.”
    “We need more hands as it is. I’ll talk to Leo. I was going to swing by the site after . . . I was going to swing by and see what you did today.”
    “We’ve got the field plotted, and the segments are logged into the computer. We started removing the overburden.”
    She winced at that. She’d wanted to be there when the team removed the topsoil. “You got the college kids doing the sieving?”
    “Yeah. I sent today’s report to your computer. We can go over it all now, but you’re just going to read it anyway. Callie, tell me what’s wrong. Tell me why instead of being in the field you were in a library reading about a kidnapping that happened in 1974. The same year you were born.”
    “I didn’t come here to talk about it. I came to have a beer.”
    “Fine, I’ll talk about it. I come by your room last night and there are photographs on your bed. You’re upset. You say they’re not family photos, but there’s a strong resemblance. Today, you’re gone, and I find you searching through the archives of the local paper covering the kidnapping of a baby girl same age as you. What makes you think you might have been that baby?”
    She didn’t speak, merely put her elbows on the table and lowered her head to her hands. She’d known he would put it together. Give the man a hatful of jumbled details and he’d make them into a cohesive picture in less time than most people could solve the daily crossword puzzle.
    And she’d known she’d tell him. The minute he’d found her in the library she’d known he was the one person she would tell.
    She just wasn’t ready to analyze why.
    “Suzanne Cullen came to my room,” Callie began. And told him everything.
    He didn’t interrupt, nor did he take his eyes off her face.
    He knew the moods of it so well. He couldn’t always decipher the cause of them, but he knew the moods. Shewas still dealing with shock, and along with the shock was guilt.
    “So . . . there will have to be tests,” she finished. “To verify identity. But, well, science is full of suppositions. Especially our field. And given the current data and events, it’s reasonable to make the supposition that Suzanne Cullen is correct.”
    “You’ll need to track down the lawyer, the doctor, anyone else involved in the adoption and placement.”
    She looked at him then. This, she realized, was one solid reason she could tell him. He’d never burden her with the weight of sympathy or outrage on her behalf. He’d understand that to get through it, she’d need to pursue the practical.
    “I’ve started that. My father’s tracking down the OB. I ran into a block on the lawyer, so I hired one of my own to dig there. Lana Campbell, she’s the one representing the preservation people. I met her the other day. She strikes me as smart and thorough, and like someone who doesn’t give up easily. I guess you could say I need to start removing the overburden so I can find out what’s underneath all this.”
    “The lawyer had to know.”
    “Yeah.” Callie’s lips tightened. “He had to know.”
    “So he’s your datum point. Everything spreads out from him. I want to help you.”
    “Why?”
    “We’re both good at puzzles, babe. But together, we’re the best out there.”
    “That doesn’t answer the