Jamie Quinn Cozy Mysteries Collection

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

It was surreal to be holding a photo of my father after I'd spent so many years imagining him. This is going to sound dumb but, when I was little, I used to look for him everywhere--in crowds, on TV, in school. He might've been anyone, and it was up to me to find him. It was a game I used to play: if I recognized him, then he would stay. Of course, I never did find him, and it made me feel incomplete somehow, unfinished, like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. Nobody could understand how I felt, not even my friends whose parents were divorced because they at least had two parents. Now the game was over and it turned out my father was the same person he'd always been, an ordinary guy who didn't want to be my dad. I mean, why hadn't he made an effort to find me in the last thirty-three years? It's not like I was hiding, I'd been living in Hollywood since the day I was born.

"Aren't you going to say something?" Duke asked. "I can't believe what I'm seeing--Jamie the lawyer's at a loss for words!"

I couldn't help it; I burst into tears and escaped to the bathroom, leaving Duke at the table with his mouth hanging open. As I stood over the sink crying my eyes out, part of me was still rational enough to wonder what I'd hoped to accomplish by looking for my dad. I'd pretended it was simply a mystery to solve, a way to satisfy my lifelong curiosity, but that wasn't true. I'd been searching because I needed to know who I was and where I came from. The problem was with that little girl. She was still playing the game, still trying to find her dad, even if he broke her heart in the end.

"You okay in there?" Duke was standing outside the bathroom door. Poor guy, he'd done so much for me and I'd totally freaked out on him.

"Sorry if I upset you," he went on. "You know, being half-Cuban's not so bad--I think Cuban girls are hot!"

That made me laugh. Leave it to Duke to get it all wrong. He only knew one way of looking at things, that was for sure. I washed my face and blew my nose before opening the door.

"I forgot to tell you that spicy food makes me cry," I said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Well, that seems like a pretty important piece of information, Jamie. If that's how it's going to be, then, damn it, I'm picking the restaurant next time." Duke gave me a wink. Maybe he didn't have it wrong after all.

It had been a very eventful day--and it was only half over. I paid the bill and we headed back to my office.