Full Contact by Tara Taylor Quinn Page A

stared at him. Not at the ugly door in front of them. At him. This rogue of a man with his long hair and black leather. He knew she felt safe as long as she was in control.
    And he was handing over control.
    â€œWhen?” The word, struggling past the dryness in her throat, made her cough. “Tomorrow morning?”
    Because he didn’t want to give her time to chicken out? To rethink?
    He didn’t know her very well. When Ellen said she would do something, she did it.
    But she hadn’t said she was going to do this.
    â€œI have church.”
    â€œTomorrow afternoon then?”
    With Josh gone, she had the whole day spread before her. And if she didn’t have anything to do, her mother and David would expect her to spend the day with them. They would want her to.
    â€œI’ll meet you in the Walmart parking lot.” The parking lot where her car had sat, out of gas, all those years ago. “And we head away from town.”
    She would have her cell phone. The man had credentials. He’d been referred to her by a medical professional. If she was going to be normal, she had to trust.
    â€œYou got it.”
    Yeah, she probably did have it. She only wished she knew what it was.
    And, more importantly, she wished she knew if there was a cure.
    Â 
    A FTER HIS TWO-O’CLOCK appointment, Jay returned to Shelter Valley and spent the afternoon at Montford University Library, going through microfiche and computer files of yearbooks, newspaper and magazine articles, newsletters—church, school and community—anything he could find where a former occupant of Shelter Valley might have been mentioned.
    He skimmed. Read. And made copies, too.
    â€œAnything I can help you with?” The middle-aged librarian stood over his shoulder. If Jay wasn’t mistaken, the man had read everything on the screen he was perusing.
    â€œNo, I’ve got what I need, thanks.”
    â€œYou interested in knives?” A Damascus and Pearl D/A filled the screen. With its jagged and multifaceted blade, the thing looked lethal just sitting on the page. It also looked like something a dangerous biker dude might own. Jay had never seen one in real life. And had no need to, either.
    â€œI’m interested in the knife show,” Jay said, clicking the back button to show the previous page of the article. Then he clicked forward to the page following the picture. It showed a shot of the crowd attending.
    Jay was currently focused on articles about functions of interest to guys. The knife show had been in Tucson the year before he was born. Maybe his mother had attended with his father. Maybe there had been mentionof a name, a caption on a photo, anything that would resonate when he happened upon it.
    â€œWell, if there’s anything I can help you with, let me know,” the man said. He stepped back, but he stayed in the vicinity, and Jay figured he’d be reporting to the local sheriff’s office.
    Just before five o’clock he had one of those moments that made months of research worth every second. In a newspaper article about a men’s doubles tennis match between Montford and the University of Arizona in Tucson in May of 1978, there was a crowd shot. It captured a woman—the expression on her face was priceless, as though she was entranced. The woman was Tammy Walton.
    To the man who had known his mother only through a few pictures, the clipping was priceless—a new link to her.
    But to the investigator, the picture mattered for an entirely different reason. There was also a man in the picture. Behind his mother. The man had his arm around her and was leaning into her in a way that made it obvious they were close. Very close.
    The man’s face was only partially displayed and he was not named.
    But unless Jay had lost the instincts that had seen him through more than ten years of successful cold case investigation, he was looking at Jay Billingsley, Sr. The man who had