Someone Else's Daughter (A Miranda's Rights Mystery) - Chapter One

Someone Else's Daughter (A Miranda's Rights Mystery) - Chapter Two

Nerves somersaulting down her spine, Miranda knocked on the door of Barbara's apartment. She heard scuffling then the door opened.

"Ms. Steele?"

"That's right."

"Please come in, Ms. Steele." The occupant opened the door wide. "May I take your coat?"

"Sure." Miranda stepped inside the cheery living room, half-expecting to see a dark-haired, thirteen-year-old girl standing in the middle of it. But that was her mind playing tricks on her.

She pulled off her scarf and leather jacket, and handed them to the small, trim woman. Probably in her fifties, Barbara had graying brown hair cut in a short, demure style, and brown, inquisitive eyes. She was dressed in a wool, peach-colored business suit that had a sterile look to it.

Her place was clean and well kept, with plants, needlepoint pillows, and pretty curtains on a window where the afternoon sunshine spilled in. It had a sort of grandmotherly feel. As did its occupant, who was trotting across the floor, straightening things that didn't need straightening, as if Miranda were the Queen of Sheba.

"Thanks for seeing me. Don't go to any trouble." She was feeling a little guilty for forcing herself on the woman.

"Oh, it's no trouble, Ms. Steele. Won't you have a seat?" Barbara indicated a flowery couch with a small coffee table in front of it.

"Thanks." Miranda sat down. After carefully placing her coat on the back of a dinette chair, the woman settled next to her.

No sign of other life. Barbara must live alone. Miranda hoped her reason for solitude wasn't like her own. She wouldn't wish that on her worst enemy, let alone someone who might know something about Amy.

The woman reached for a stack of files on the coffee table and began to sift through them. "I apologize for being a little disorganized. As I said on the phone, my manager wanted me to talk to you, Ms....may I call you Miranda? Oh, would you like some tea?"

"Yes, you can call me Miranda. And no, I don't want any tea." This lady could use a self-confidence course. Or maybe a shift with the wrecking crew.

Barbara nodded and kept sorting folders, her expression solemn.

Miranda watched her a moment. She wasn't going to wait until the whole stack was alphabetized. "What is it you have to tell me, Barbara?"

She stopped shuffling and gave Miranda a pained look, her brown eyes darting back and forth, as if she were looking for some lost secret. "I'm sorry, Miranda. I'm new at the agency and your file has just come to me. I have to perform some, uh, formalities."

Miranda shifted her weight. "O-kay."

Barbara selected one of the folders, took a paper from it and picked up a pen from the coffee table. "Let's see. You've registered with us a number of times." Her voice took on the singsong quality of an interviewer.

"Yes, every time I moved." Maybe that wasn't the best thing to say.

Barbara read from her sheet. "You're originally from Oak Park, Illinois."

"That's right."

She turned a page. "But you've worked in several states. And several jobs."

Yeah. So what? Since she'd left Leon, she'd welded girders on a skyscraper in New York, harvested crab on a fishing boat in Maine, done odd jobs on an oilrig in Texas.

She rubbed her hands against her jeans and laughed it off with a shrug. "Some people think I'm obsessive about physical jobs. Not only does it give you muscles, it thickens your skin." A therapist once told her she was sublimating repressed feelings about her affectionate ex-husband and should talk about them. What did shrinks know?