Birthright

screw up his life. We stood outside in the rain snarling at each other like a couple of morons. He actually accused me of being after her money.”
    “How long will he be hospitalized?”
    The comment made her feel marginally better. She lifted her head, and her eyes met his in the mirror. “You’ve got sibs, right? One of each. Do you fight over your parents like dogs over a bone?”
    “We just fight,” he said. “It’s the nature of the relationship. Rivalry, competition, petty grievances. It’s a tribal thing—just as the unity is against outsiders. I can kick my brother’s ass, but anybody else tries to, I kick theirs and twice as hard. And if anything happened to my kid sister, I guess I’d go crazy.”
    “I was his kid sister for three months. What kind of bond is that?”
    “Visceral, Cal. Instinctive. It’s blood and bone. Added to that, he’s the boy child, the older, and it was, most likely, verbalized that it was his job to look out for you.”
    He motioned to her for the water. “He would have known that, again instinctively, perhaps resented it, perhaps embraced it, but the verbalization from other relativeswould have confirmed his instincts. You were the defenseless, the weak, and he was to protect.” He paused, took a swig, handed the bottle back to her. “He failed. Now he’s a man, and as the only son, I’d imagine he’s transferred those duties to his mother. You’re both outsider and lost child. He’s in a hell of a primal fix.”
    “Sounds like you’re taking up for him.”
    “Merely outlining the basic theories. Now if you were to come over here, crawl all over me and ask me to go beat him up for you, I might consider it.”
    The knock on the door had her jerking her thumb toward it. “Out.”
    But when she went to answer, Jake simply linked his fingers behind his head and settled in.

Eight
    L ana shook out an umbrella as she nipped inside the motel room. It looked to Callie as if she hadn’t gotten a single drop on her. There was something strange about a woman who didn’t get wet in a rainstorm.
    “Miserable out there,” Lana began. “You can barely . . . Oh.” She angled her head when she spotted Jake stretched out on the bed. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
    “He’s not company, he’s an annoyance working his way up to millstone. Jacob Graystone, Lana Campbell.”
    “Yes, we met the other day when I dropped by the dig. Nice to see you again, Dr. Graystone.”
    “Jake,” he corrected. “How’s it going?”
    “Fine, thanks.” Millstone or Graystone, he looked very much at home. “Listen, Callie, if this is a bad time we can set up an appointment for tomorrow.”
    “This is as good a time as any. Except it’s a little crowded in here,” she added with a telling look at Jake.
    “Plenty of room.” He patted the bed beside him.
    “Actually, what I have to discuss with Callie comes under the area of privilege.”
    “It’s okay,” he told her. “We’re married.”
    “Divorced.” Callie slapped at his foot. “If you found something out, you can talk in front of the moron. He knows the setup.”
    “Which means, at this point, he knows more than I do. Well.” Lana glanced around, decided to risk the narrow chair beside the door. “I got some information on Marcus Carlyle. He did indeed practice law in Boston during the time period you gave me. Prior to that he practiced first in Chicago, fourteen years, then in Houston for thirteen. Subsequently to Boston, where he remained about ten years, he relocated to Seattle, where he practiced another seven years.”
    “Guy gets around,” Jake commented.
    “Yes. He closed his practice in 1986. That’s where I’ve lost him for now. I can keep looking, or I can hire an investigator who’s free, as I’m not, to travel to Seattle, to Boston, to Chicago, to Houston and gather more information at the source. It’ll cost you considerably more. Before you decide,” she continued before Callie could speak, “you need to know what else I found out.”
    “You work this fast, you’re not going to earn that five-hundred-dollar retainer.”
    “Oh, I think I will.” Lana opened her briefcase, took out Callie’s adoption papers. “I made a copy of this for my files. I also did a standard check. These papers were never filed.”
    “What do you mean they weren’t filed?”
    “I mean there was no adoption. No legal proceeding through any court in Boston, or Massachusetts for that