The door opened, and a woman wearing dark sunglasses walked past Blythe. Suspicious wives must be this guy’s specialty. When Fallow came out, she was surprised by how well-turned out he was. She chided herself for buying into the stereotype of too many old movies. No rumpled, ill-fitting suit for this detective; he wore pressed black dress slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a well-tailored camel jacket that appeared to be cashmere. He was handsome, with salt-and-pepper hair, and seemed to be in his early forties. Whatever money he saved on the modest office, he obviously didn’t spare on his personal appearance.
“I’m Jim. You must be Mrs. Oliver.” He shook her hand warmly and motioned for her to come inside.
“Blythe, please. Nice to meet you.”
In his much more stylish interior office, he led her to a small round table with two comfortable chairs and invited her to sit.
“Can I get you anything to drink? I’ve got coffee, tea, sparkling water.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He leaned back and gave her an appraising look. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like you to look into someone for me.”
He waited for her to continue. She shifted in her seat. “The thing is, my son is engaged, and his fiancée claims to have amnesia.”
“Claims to?”
Blythe shrugged. “I don’t mean to be suspicious, but I’ve learned over the years that you can’t always take everyone at face value. Our family is quite wealthy, and there have been a few occasions on which people have tried to get close to my children for that very reason.”
“And you think that’s what this woman is doing?”
She shook her head. “No, not really. I think she is likely sincere in her affection and she probably does have amnesia . . . which is a problem unto itself. I guess I’m saying either she has something to hide, in which case she’s pretending not to remember, or she really doesn’t remember, which means somewhere there are people missing her. Maybe a husband, a child. I’d rather find out before my son becomes legally bound to her.”
“I understand.” He wrote something on the pad and then looked at Blythe. “If she does in fact have amnesia, and if she isn’t able to recall anything at all, we can still discover plenty using only her name and hometown.”
“We don’t know any of that.”
“So you don’t even know her real name?”
“No, that’s the problem,” Blythe said. “She goes by Addison Hope, but she doesn’t know her real name.” Blythe filled him in on what Gabriel had told her about Ed and Gigi and the illegal documents Ed had obtained. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about this, but she knew it bothered her.
Fallow cocked his head and raised his brows in surprise. “Wow. They could get in deep trouble for that.” He made another note. “So, this Ed and Gigi. They’ve known her now for two years? What’s your sense of their credibility?”
Blythe thought back to the night when they’d had dinner together at Ed and Gigi’s, a sort of meet-the-parents gathering. Blythe had instantly liked them both—Gigi was warm and kind, and Ed seemed like a good down-to-earth guy. That these people had taken Addison in and clearly gotten to know her so well had allayed some of her fears.
After dinner, Gigi had taken Blythe aside to speak privately. “Addison was nervous about tonight,” she said. “She has a lot of insecurities because of her memory loss. It’s hard for her.”
Blythe appreciated her directness. “I have to admit it’s a bit worrying to me. It’s moved very fast.”
“I can understand why you would feel that way, but I want to tell you that Addison is one of the finest young women you’ll ever meet. I don’t know what happened in her past, but if she wasn’t always a caring and compassionate young woman, she turned into one along the way. I’m sure that’s what Gabriel sees in her too.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, and I look forward to getting to know her better.”
Gigi’s eyes had grown soft. “Do give her a chance, Blythe. She deserves that.”
Shaking Gigi’s words from her head, Blythe exhaled. She looked across the desk at the private detective. “They’re nice enough. I do know they lost a daughter years ago, so how much that’s informed their attachment to Addison, I don’t know. But her whole story, about Ed finding her hitchhiking along a highway in New Jersey, with no ID, no money, no credit cards, nothing, has always sounded a little fishy to me. Shouldn’t someone be looking for her? And wouldn’t it be easy to find her?”