Free Out of the Dark by Sharon Sala Page B

block. He’d been told it was the old YMCA, which was another temporary shelter for flood victims. The only thing good about the day so far was that his suitcase had arrived sometime during the night, so he had been able to shave and put on clean clothes.
    But now this was the third shelter he’d been to since daybreak, and he was beginning to panic. According to the man he’d spoken to at the civil defense office, the city had set up only this one other shelter besides the ones that he’d already visited, and the people there were already being released to go back to their homes. He could only imagine what disasters they would go home to, and he empathized with them. However, there was an old injustice that he needed to solve, and the faster things changed, the more difficult his job became.
    He parked as close as he could get, then got out. His stride was long, his steps hurried, as he crossed the street and entered the front door. Immediately he was struck by the sea of moving bodies spread out before him. Some were still reclining on cots, while others were up eating the breakfast the Red Cross was providing. Some children were crying, while others were quietly devouring sweet rolls and oranges.
    “Sir, can I help you?”
    Luke turned around to find himself face-to-face with a weary, middle-aged woman.
    “I’m looking for someone,” he said. “Do you have a list of names?”
    “Somewhere,” she said, and then sidestepped a toddler with a dripping, half-peeled orange as she moved into a small office to their right.
    Luke glanced toward the sleeping area, then followed her into the office. The woman shuffled through the same stack of papers three times before she found it.
    “Ah, here it is,” she said. “What’s the name of the person you’re looking for?”
    “Jade Cochrane. She’s in her twenties. Very beautiful woman with long black hair. She might be with a—”
    The woman suddenly looked up. “A tall, dark-haired man who looks as if he could have posed for Michelangelo?”
    Luke’s pulse kicked. The man who’d been photographed with Jade could easily have been described in such a manner.
    “Is she here?”
    “She was, or at least she should be,” the woman said. “We haven’t checked anyone out, although the place is such a madhouse, I can’t swear to anything.”
    “It’s imperative that I find her.”
    The woman hesitated, then looked him square in the eye.
    “I need to see some identification.”
    Luke pulled out his wallet. “Yeah, sure. Name’s Luke Kelly, and among other things, I’m a private investigator. I was hired by a man named Sam Cochrane to find his daughter.”
    “Is she a runaway? Because if the woman I’m thinking of is the one you’re looking for, she’s already of age, which means she can’t be forced to go anywhere she doesn’t want to go.”
    “She’s not a runaway,” Luke said. “She was kidnapped by her mother when she was four. He hasn’t seen her since.”
    “Oh dear Lord!” the woman said. “Poor man, but how did you come to think she would be here?”
    “I’d already been hired to find her when I saw her…or at least I thought it was her…on the national news during some of the taped flood coverage.”
    “Oh, yes, that,” the woman said. “The media has been all over the place, taking up a whole lot of rooms that we could use for the flood victims, instead. However, that’s another story altogether. As for your search, feel free to go look. She’s not a child, and she’s not alone.”
    “I still don’t want to cause her concern. The less fuss, the better off we’ll be. If Jade Cochrane is here, then it’s doubtful she remembers much of anything about the first four years of her life.”
    “Of course,” she said, and then clasped her hands to her breast and tried not to cry. “This is just so…so moving.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Luke said, as he left her at the desk.
    His heart was pounding as he started down the aisles,