Free Taken by Barbara Freethy Page A

ago.”
    His brow furrowed as he stared down at her page of ticket receipts. “You must have done a lot of traveling.”
    “Every other weekend for three years. I always went to the same place, San Diego. That’s where my father moved after my parents divorced when I was ten years old. They shared custody of me, so I went back and forth, and then it stopped,” she said with a sigh.
    “Why?”

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    “My dad remarried, had a baby with his second wife.
    He thought it would be easier if I just came in the summer, and then eventually it seemed easier if I didn’t come at all.” She’d been so hurt at the time. She’d kept the plane tickets, thinking that one day she’d throw them in her father’s face, and tell him how horrible it had been, and that he would actually care. But she’d grown up and realized that he’d never care the way she wanted him to.
    She tossed the tickets back into the box. “Are your parents still together?”
    “No. They divorced when I was thirteen. My father had an affair. Unfortunately, when he moved out he didn’t go far, just a few blocks away to his girlfriend’s apartment. I would have preferred he’d gone to the other side of the world. I wanted nothing more to do with him, but my sisters had a soft spot for him. They used to cry when he didn’t show up, which was a lot.” His mouth twisted into an angry grimace, and Kayla caught a glimpse of pain in his eyes, but before she could comment he looked away. “Let’s get back to work,” he said gruffly. “Stay focused.”
    “Okay, I’m on it.” She opened another box. It was filled with odds and ends that she vaguely remembered being in her grandmother’s curio closet; old teacups, ash-trays, and vases, nothing of any value.
    Nick opened the box next to hers. A moment later, he let out a low whistle. “I think I found something, Kayla.”
    He pulled out two old albums. “Somebody’s baby pictures.”
    He sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him. She scooted over next to him to take a look. “That’s my mother,” she said.
    “And my grandparents. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this TA K E N
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    album.” They flipped through the pages together. Most of the pictures were of her mother and her grandmother. Her grandfather had probably been the one taking the photos.
    “No watch,” Nick said, closing the book.
    She picked up the second album and leafed through the yellowed pages. “This must have been my grandmother’s album before she married Grandpa.” The photos were all black-and-white and showed her grandmother at various key moments in her life: first day of school, first Communion, cheerleading, going to the prom. Charlotte always had a sparkle in her eyes, even back then. “She looks so young,” she said. “So full of life.”
    “She looked full of life to me tonight,” Nick commented.
    That was certainly true, Kayla thought with a frown.
    Not that she didn’t want her grandmother to be happy, but poker, bourbon, cigarettes? Was she having some sort of midlife crisis a few years late?
    “Hey, what’s this?” Nick took a brown envelope from the back of the scrapbook. He pulled out several newspaper clippings, a couple of playbills, and an eight-by-ten photo of her grandmother in a fifties-style dance costume, short skirt, high heels, black mesh stockings.
    “Good heavens. Is that Grandma?” she asked, snatch-ing the photo from him. The sexy woman in the skimpy outfit did not look like the woman she knew.
    “She was a dancer,” Nick said, opening one of the theater programs. “She’s listed in the chorus.”
    “I can’t believe it. Give me that.” She was convinced he was wrong until she saw her grandmother’s maiden name in black and white — Charlotte Cunningham. “She never told me she danced onstage. She said she was a secretary.”

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    “Maybe a topless one,” he suggested, handing her an ad