A Season for Grace

The waitress slid the steaming burger and fries onto the table. “There you go. A year’s worth of fat and cholesterol.”

“No wonder Chick keeps you around, Millie. You’re such a great salesman.”

“Saleslady, thank you.”

He took a giant bite of the burger and sighed. “Perfect. Just like you.”

Millie rolled her eyes and moved on. Collin turned his attention back to Mia. “You were saying?”

“Were you even listening?”

“To every word. The kid is special. Why?”

Mia experienced a twinge of pleasure. Collin Grace confused her, but there was something about him…

“Beneath Mitch’s hard layer is a gentleness. A sweet little boy who doesn’t know who to trust or where to turn.”

“Imagine that. The world screws him over from birth and he stops trusting it. What a concept.”

The man was cool to the point of frostbite and had a shell harder than any of the street kids she dealt with. If she could crack this tough nut perhaps other cops would follow suit. She was already pursuing the idea of mentor groups through her church, but cops-as-mentors could make an impact like no other.

She took a big sip of Coke and then said, “At least talk to Mitch.”

The pager at Collin’s waist went off. He slipped the device from his belt, glanced at the display, and pushed out of the booth, leaving a half-eaten burger and a nearly full basket of cheese fries.

Mia looked up at the tall and dark and distant cop. “Is that your job?”

He nodded curtly. “Gotta go. Thanks for the dinner.”

“Could I call you about this later?”

“No point. The answer will still be no.” He whipped around with the precision of a marine and strode out of the café before Mia could argue further.

Disappointment curled in her belly. When she could close her surprised mouth, she did so with a huff.

The basket of leftover fries beckoned. She crammed a handful in her mouth. No use wasting perfectly good cheese fries. Even if they did end up on her hips.

Sergeant Collin Grace may have said no, but no didn’t always mean absolutely no.

And Mia wasn’t quite ready to give up on Mitchell Perez…or Collin Grace.

Chapter Two

“Hey Grace, you spending the night here or something?”

Eyes glued to the computer screen, Collin lifted a finger to silence the other cop. “Gotta check one more thing.”

His shift was long over, and the sun drifted toward the west, but at least once a week he checked and re-checked, just in case he’d missed something the other five thousand times he’d searched.

Somewhere out there he had two brothers, and with the explosion of information on the Internet he would find them—eventually. After all this time, though, he wasn’t expecting a miracle.

His cell phone played the University of Oklahoma fight song and he glanced down at the caller ID. Her again. Mia Carano. She’d left no less than ten messages over the past three days. He had talked to her twice, told her no and then hadn’t bothered to return her other calls. Eventually she’d get the message.

The rollicking strains of “Boomer Sooner” faded away as his voice mail picked up. Collin kept his attention on the computer screen.

Over the years, he’d amassed quite a list of names and addresses. One by one, he’d checked them out and moved them to an inactive file. He typed several more names into the file on his computer and hit Save.

The welfare office suggested he should hire a private search agency, but Collin never planned to do that. The idea of letting someone else poke into his troubled background made him nervous. He’d done a good job of leaving that life behind and didn’t want the bones of his childhood dug up by some stranger.

Part of the frustration in this search, though, lay with his own limited memory. Given what he knew of his mother, he wasn’t even sure he and his brothers shared a last name. And even if they once had, either or both could have been changed through adoption.

Maurice Johnson, staying late to finish a report, bent over Collin’s desk. “Any luck?”

He kept his voice low, and Collin appreciated his discretion. It was one of the reasons he’d confided in his coworker and friend about the missing brothers. It was also one of the reasons the man was one of his few close friends. Maurice knew how to keep his mouth shut.

“Same old thing. I added a few more men with the last names of Grace and Stotz, my mother’s maiden name, to the list, but I’m convinced the boys were moved out of Oklahoma after we were separated.”

Their home state had been a dead end from the get-go.

“Any luck in the Texas system?”

“Not yet. But it’s huge. Finding the names is easy. Matching ages and plundering records isn’t quite as simple.”

“Even for a cop.”

A lot of the old files were not even computerized yet. And even if he could find them, there were plenty of records he couldn’t access.

“Yeah. If only most adoption records weren’t sealed. Or there was a centralized listing of some sort.”

“Twenty years ago record-keeping wasn’t the art it is today.”

“Tell me about it.”

He’d stuck his name and information on a number of legit sibling searches. He’d even placed a letter in his old welfare file in case one of the boys was also searching.

Apparently, his brothers weren’t all that eager to make contact. Either that or something had happened to them. His gut clenched. Better not travel that line of thinking.

“Did you ever consider that you might have other family out there? A grandma, an aunt. Somebody.”

He shook his head. “Hard as I’ve tried, I don’t remember anyone. If we ever had any family, Mama had long since alienated them.”

He’d had stepdads and “uncles” aplenty. He even remembered Ian’s dad as a pretty good guy, but the only name he’d ever called the man was Rob.

A few years back he’d tracked his mother down in Seminole County—in jail for public intoxication. His lips twisted at the memory. She’d been too toasted to give false information and for once one of her real names, anyway a name Collin remembered, appeared on the police bulletin.

Their subsequent visit had not been a joyous reunion of mother and son. And, to his great disappointment, she knew less about his brothers’ whereabouts than he did.

After that, she had disappeared off the radar screen again. Probably moved in with her latest party man and changed her name for the tenth or hundredth time. Not that Collin cared. It was his brothers he wanted to find. Karen Stotz-Grace-Whatever had given them birth, but if she’d ever been a mother he didn’t remember it.