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somewhere. It’s not a very common name,” said Michael. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find her.”
    “I hope you’re right,” said Austin.
    “James is a very common name,” Carl corrected.
    “But Georgia James isn’t,” Michael argued.
    “How does a woman do that to her own child?” Jackie asked.
    “Wait a minute,” said Carl, “If Nick and his daughter weren’t really estranged, why didn’t he ask Laura about it after he found out? He lived for another week, didn’t he?”
    “I think he might have, but she must have denied it. He didn’t say anything to me about asking her, but then he died before he could, I suppose.”
    “What’s the real story on Laura?” Carl asked. “A mother doesn’t abandon a child without a very good reason.”
    “ Laura loves her husband, and her husband loves money – lots of it,” Austin answered. “She does whatever he wants, but the cost to her is high. She started to drink about the time they came back from France and is still a heavy drinker.”
    “ Nick couldn’t convince her to leave Mathew?” Michael asked.
    “He tried numerous times. When he started seeing expensive jewelry on the credit card statements, he showed them to his daughter and asked if Mathew had given them to her. The answer, of course, was no, and even that didn’t convince her. Later, we discovered several pieces of jewelry had been returned for cash. It was a pattern we saw over and over.”
    “Once a crook, always a crook,” Carl muttered. “You charge the jewelry to his father-in-law , and then use the cash to pay off your gambling debts. Very ingenious.”
    “Ingenious enough to hide a child for years,” Jackie added.
    “I wish you could see Mathew in court,” Austin said. “He holds his wife’s hand to impress the judge, but it is easy to see that nothing could be more foreign to him. How he keeps her sober enough to be there is beyond me too. Nick would be…” Austin lowered his eyes and didn’t finish his sentence.
    “You feel sorry for Laura?” Jackie asked.
    “I do. She is a lot like her father in many way s, but she didn’t inherit his strength.”
    “ How old is Georgia now?” Carl asked.
    “ Twenty-two, as near as I can figure,” Austin answered. “We don’t have her exact date of birth.”
    “You didn’t find the hospital in France?” Jackie asked.
    “Not one with a record of Laura giving birth,” Austin answered.
    “ Why not just go to the press?” Michael asked.
    Austin puffed his cheeks. “Can you imagine how many phony Georgias we would see if we did that? They’d be lined up around the block. Maybe if she had some sort of mark, a scar or characteristic, we could rule most of them out and go from there. I’ll call a press conference if you think I should.”
    “Let’s leave that option open,” said Jackie.
    “Did your detective try to find Miss Bertrand?” asked Carl.
    “ He did, but I swear, Miss Bertrand has fallen off the face of the earth. I tried to find her every way I could too. Nothing on the internet, and there’s no phone listing for her either.”
    “Well, maybe we can find her,” said Jackie. “Maybe she knows something else that could help us find Georgia.”
    Austin looked Jackie in the eye. “ Even if we do find Georgia, there’s no way to prove who she is except with DNA.”
    “Do you have the Connelly’s DNA to compare it to?” Jackie asked.
    “I would need a court order and a living, breathing daughter before a judge would give me one…unless you know how to get it without the Connellys knowing.”
    Jackie walked back to her chair, sat down, and studied the look in Carl’s eyes. “If it comes to that, we…”
    “Why all the time me?” Carl asked.
    “Because you look normal and Michael doesn’t,” Jackie answered.
    “I don’t look normal? ” Michael asked. “That’s the first I’ve heard of that.”
    Jackie laughed. “Okay then, less su spicious. He can dig in a trashcan without drawing