“The St. Lawrence River. The lake starts farther down that way,” she said, swinging her arm across his line of vision to the west. “See the outline of those islands? The biggest one is Amherst and the lake officially starts there.”
“So where are the famous Thousand Islands then?”
She squinted at him. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Nope. First time in these parts, though I’ve been to Northern Ontario.”
Allie frowned. “Are you American?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“No. Usually I can pick out Americans right away because of their accent. But you don’t have one.”
“Maybe not, but you do.”
The grin took at least five years off him, Allie thought, which would put him in his midthirties. It also made him, as Beth might say, unforgettable in the looks department.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, just…uh…wondering why an American has something to tell me about my mother.”
He liked that she got straight to the point, dismissing any attempt at niceties. “Right. Let’s get to it, then.” He flipped the plastic tab on his coffee cup and took a long swallow before turning to look at her.
“As I said before, I’m a private investigator. Here,” he said, pulling a slim leather billfold from the inside pocket of his jacket. He flipped it open and withdrew a business card, which he handed to Allie.
“Not long after that article about you in People magazine came out, I was contacted by a man in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. His name was George Kostakis and he was acting on behalf of his great-uncle, Spiro Kostakis.” He paused, watching her face for any hint of recognition and, when none came, went on. “He told me that you looked just like his second cousin, Katrina Kostakis.” Joel took another sip of coffee and studied Allie’s face in profile.
She was listening attentively, frowning slightly in concentration but giving no suggestion that the names meant anything at all to her. But Joel noticed her tapping his business card against her other hand until she tucked it into the pocket of the windbreaker she was wearing. Anxiety level increasing? he wondered.
“Katrina was the only child of Spiro Kostakis, George’s great-uncle and patriarch of the Kostakis clan in Grosse Pointe. George said that there’d been a granddaughter— Elena—who’d disappeared from the family home when she was only three. Spirited away, apparently,” Joel added, wanting to give some benefit of doubt for Allie’s sake, “by her father, one Eddie Hughes—Katrina’s husband and Elena’s father.”
At that, Allie’s head turned his way, her expression almost challenging him. “So far I get no connection to me, other than the fact that I coincidentally resemble this woman—what was her name again?”
“Katrina Kostakis. Or Trina, as she was sometimes called.”
“Was?”
“She’s dead. Killed in a car crash twenty-six years ago.”
“And she is—was—supposed to be…”
“Your mother,” Joel said softly, keeping his gaze on her face.
Allie broke eye contact first, turning her gaze toward the water. But not before Joel caught the devastation in her face. He stared bleakly at the water, too, hating himself for what he’d said. What he still had to say.
“My father’s name was Rob Newman,” she said, her voice low and hoarse. “Rob Newman.”
Joel sighed. He rose from the bench, strode over to a garbage can and chucked his empty coffee cup into it. She watched him as he leaned over, picked up his pack from the grass and unzipped an outer pocket. He pulled out an envelope and paused, noticing the slight trembling of her chin. But when she tilted her head, defiantly raising her face to his, Joel flicked open the envelope and withdrew the photograph, handing it to her in a swift movement that caught her unawares. She fumbled, letting it float to the ground.
He started to bend down for it, but she beat him to it, sweeping up the picture and bringing it to the tip of her nose as if inspecting it through a magnifying glass. Then she leaped to her feet and, clutching the photo in her right hand, began to jog across the grassy park lawn to the sidewalk beyond.
“Hey!” Joel shouted, but she didn’t turn around. It seemed as if she increased her stride at the sound of his voice. She was running now, dodging the busy traffic to cross the road, and heading down a side street. Joel swore. He swung his small pack over a shoulder, grabbed the one she’d left behind and took off after her. Though judging by her pace, he doubted he’d catch up to her.
He was about half a block behind and starting to sweat with the extra load of packs, while she seemed to be just getting into a rhythm, loping ahead of him as effortlessly and gracefully as an antelope. He swore, realizing how all of those postponed sessions at the fitness center were working against him. When she turned right at Wellington, he slowed down, knowing where she was headed. Her apartment.
Allie, once inside her apartment, knew exactly where to look. Whisking the photograph from the journal in her desk drawer, she charged back down the stairs and onto the front porch. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, but she knew it wasn’t from the run. That had scarcely raised a sweat.
The private investigator hadn’t fared as well, she noted. His breath sounded ragged, as though he were barely holding himself together. Although he didn’t appear to be on the verge of total collapse, his eyes were beginning to get that wild look that unfit people sometimes get when their bodies are screaming at them to stop. She waited on the top step while he got his breathing under control.
“I guess you recognized the photo,” he finally said.
At least he had some sense of humor. “I have the same one,” she said, extending her right arm. “At least, part of it.”
He took the fragment of photo from her. “You must be—what? About two when that was taken?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“And the other half? Do you know—”
“Who snipped my mother out?” Allie shrugged. “Dad, I guess. I found that in his papers after he died. At the time, it was just another reminder that he wanted to forget my mother. Maybe he did it out of love for me—wanting to protect me from questions he couldn’t answer,” she added.
The P.I. was heading up the steps now, standing so close she could feel the heat from his run still evaporating off him. Allie instinctively backed away.
“Or maybe he just didn’t want you asking any questions, in case you stumbled on it one day. You have to admit, the resemblance is—”
“Striking,” Allie put in.
“Which is why your grandfather was certain you were Katrina’s daughter.”
Allie waited a moment, letting that register. “So now what?” she asked, striving for calm.
“There’s more,” Joel said. “My client—your grandfather—has a proposal for you, so to speak. We’ll need somewhere quiet to talk.”
The roaring in her ears came back and with it, a surge in blood pressure. Allie covered her face with her hands. She didn’t want to hear or discover anything more. Enough was enough. She breathed deeply, using her tented hands to ease the hyperventilation. That is, until they were gently lifted up and away, and folded into Joel’s as he pulled her closer.
“I know,” he murmured, his breath whispering across the top of her head. “It’s all too much to take in. You just want me to go away so you can get back to your life.”
He was so close to her any passerby would have thought they