The Lost Calico

As I stepped through the door, the voices stopped, and all eyes turned toward me. There was a tension in the air I normally didn’t feel when Claire was around. She was good at smoothing ruffled feathers. She gave me a tight smile and tilted her head toward the couple standing in the middle of the room.

I didn’t know the female. She was of average height with beautiful, ginger hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. She had a heart-shaped face with wide, bright-blue eyes. The color was so vivid I suspected colored lenses. Her face was lovely, and her makeup carefully applied. Curvy, with large breasts, she looked like she stepped out of the pages of a girlie magazine. I had no doubt it was a carefully cultivated image. She gave me a sweet smile and blinked innocently.

It didn’t fool me. It was the same look I had seen hundreds of times on my mother’s face when she was working a mark. My mother had been better at it. Of course, she had a lot more practice.

Elise Prescott had been spoiled as a child. Her parents had been in their forties when she was born, and they had been unprepared for the wild, willful girl who had been my mother. When she became pregnant with me at the age of seventeen, her wealthy, conservative parents had disowned her. Elise made her way through life by sleeping with or conning any man who could get her what she wanted. And what she wanted was drugs and alcohol.

My childhood had been…unpleasant. Elise had loved me in her own way, but I was mostly an afterthought. She never taught me how to act or deal with people. I learned how to blend in and successfully mimic those around me. It was the only way to survive, but my social skills suffered. As a result, I tended to be blunt and plain-spoken. Unconsciously, I think I was trying to be as different from my mother as possible, but I recognized a con artist when I saw one.

This girl was good, although she still had a long way to go to master the art. She looked about eighteen, but I was betting she was in her early twenties. One thing was evident. She had the man standing beside her completely fooled.

Like me, he was tall and lean, with a runner’s body. Not muscular but strong and athletic. And like me, he had auburn hair and dark emerald-green eyes. His name was Wyatt Bennett, and he’s my half-brother.

Growing up, I had never known my father. He was not listed on my birth certificate, and Elise had never mentioned him. After she died and I came to live with Nora, I wondered if I would meet him, but Nora had not known who he was either.

All that changed a few months ago when I came face-to-face with Nathaniel Bennett. He had recognized me immediately. Facially, I look just like my mother. Same bone structure, same high cheekbones and aristocratic nose, same smile. My eyes were the only facial feature I didn’t inherit from her.

Bennett had been shocked. He hadn’t known I existed. After doing a little research, it hadn’t taken him long to determine I was his daughter, and he wanted me in his life. His wife had been equally as welcoming. Their daughter, Natalie, was excited about having an older sister, but Wyatt was a different story.

We had only met twice. Both times at a family event. The first time was a Sunday dinner, and the second was an informal gathering where I was introduced to my father’s extended family. For me, both events had been an ordeal. I don’t like to make small talk. I never really had a family. For the first thirteen years of my life, it had just been my mother. After that, it had just been Nora. I didn’t know how to act, and more importantly, I didn’t know how to feel.

Everyone had been kind and friendly except for Wyatt. He was home from college for the summer and spent most of his time with friends, often staying out late or spending the night away from home, but his father had made his attendance at these events mandatory. His resentment and dislike of me had been evident from the beginning. I didn’t know why he was taking his anger out on me, but I understood him better than all the others. He and I quickly came to an understanding. We simply avoided each other, which was why I was so surprised to see him standing in my office.

He looked at me, banked down the dislike, and said, “We need your help.”