Don't Say a Word - Barbara Freethy [18]
"I don't think he's stopped in the past six months," Liz replied, wondering why Julia hadn't noticed. "We're going to have to do something."
"He'll be all right," Lucia interrupted with a wave of her hand. "He's grieving. It's understandable. Now, it's picture time. And smiles all around. You, too," she said to Michael. "You're practically family."
"Am I?" Michael asked, looking at Julia. "Am I practically family?"
"Of course you are," Liz said when her sister couldn't seem to get the words out. She grabbed both their hands and pulled them to their feet. A moment later they were swept up in the DeMarco crowd, and Liz breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe if they could just survive this night, Julia would get over whatever was bothering her and return to being her reliable older sister who was about to marry the man of her dreams. But as Liz took her place in the group portrait, she couldn't help glancing toward the door, wondering if the man in the black leather jacket and blue jeans had really been a wedding photographer. He'd had a doozy of a black eye. She hadn't met many wedding photographers who looked like they'd just gotten out of a bar fight. But if he wasn't a wedding photographer, who was he?
Julia spent most of Saturday morning going through the storage unit that was filled with the remnants of her mother's life. After the funeral, her father had made a sudden decision to sell their home, saying he couldn't bear to live in it without his beloved wife.
Julia had suggested he wait, but he would have none of it, and within three months the house was gone, Gino now lived in a two-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the wharf, Liz had moved in with Julia, and what they hadn't had time to go through had been put in this storage locker.
Looking through her mother's things was unbelievably depressing. Julia wished she didn't have to do it alone, but she couldn't ask Liz to help. She couldn't talk to anyone about the picture-except Alex Manning. In the cold light of day she'd had to question why she'd agreed to work with a man who'd been beaten up, thrown in jail, and kicked out of Colombia. And that was just last week. She'd found that information in a recent article in the Examiner. Further re-search on the Internet had unveiled the fact that his reputation for being a brilliant photographer was only surpassed by his reputation for getting into trouble. The last thing she needed was more trouble.
But she'd made her deal with him and she'd stick to it-at least as long as it made sense. Or until she had proof that she was not that girl.
So far she had no proof of anything. As her mother had told her, there were absolutely no photos of either of them before the wedding pictures taken when her mother had married Gino. It was as if they'd come into existence at that moment. But her mother had had a life before Gino, thirty-three years of life. She'd had parents and grandparents, and she'd grown up some-where. But where?
Her mother had told her she was from Buffalo, New York. That was the only Information she'd ever shared. She said if her parents didn't want her, she didn't want them. Julia had often wondered about her grandparents, but loyalty to her mother had kept her from asking questions or requesting to see anyone. After all, they hadn't wanted her, either. Now she had a feeling she would have to find them if only to prove the truth about her birth.
Sitting back on her heels, she considered again how best to do that. How did one find a needle in a hay-stack? For that matter she couldn't even find the hay-stack. She had nothing to trace, not one little clue.
"Julia?"
She looked up as her sister appeared in the door-way. Liz was dressed in running shorts and a tank top, her brown hair swept up in a ponytail. She looked like she'd just come from a jog. Liz was one of those people who liked to run and work out. Julia's favorite form of exercise was a long walk to Starbucks followed by a latte. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Looking for you. I stopped by Dad's place. He told me he gave you the