Read Online Searching for Cate by Marie Ferrarella - Free Book Online

midnight. Closer to two in the morning. “Got an address for you, Cate. You ready to take it down?”
    She’d been in a deep sleep when the phone rang. It had taken her a couple of breaths to get her mind reasonably in gear. It took a little longer to find a writing utensil and paper.
    â€œDon’t you ever sleep?” she asked.
    Jeremy was a self-described insomniac who prowled chat rooms in the dead of night when nothing else presented itself as a diversion. This was a diversion.
    â€œNot when something’s on my mind. I’ve been looking for this woman for you since you left our field office. By the way, how is it down there?”
    Her first response would have been “chaotic,” butthat would have been describing her life, not conditions. She gave the standard reply. “Weather’s perfect.”
    Jeremy made a little disparaging noise with his teeth and lips. “Huh. It has no character.”
    She thought of the cold, clammy winters, the sticky, humid summers she’d left behind. Watching leaves turn color did not balance out the minuses. “That’s okay. I’ve got character enough to spare.”
    There was no paper to be had, but the local newspaper caught her attention. Scooting off the bed, Cate bent down to capture a corner of the paper and pull it back to her.
    In a pinch…
    She spread the paper on her lap, her pen poised over one of the margins. “Okay, shoot.”
    Jeremy recited the address and phone number he’d found in the top-secret files. He turned down her offer to pay him for the information. This was what he did, he told her, he challenged himself. Not for any personal or monetary gain, but just to see if he could do it.
    Grateful for his help, Cate jotted the address and phone number down along the margins of the newspaper. She did her best to print carefully. Someone once told her that her handwriting looked as if a spider had been dipped in ink and then allowed to run pellmell over a page. Cate fervently hoped she’d be able to make it out in the morning,
    â€œThat’s it for now,” Jeremy had concluded.
    She put the pen back down on the nightstand. “Thanks, Jeremy. I owe you one.”
    She heard him laugh shortly. “After all the work I’ve put in, you don’t owe me just one. You owe me your firstborn.”
    There was a slight pang in her stomach. She tried not to think of Gabe. “Since there’s little chance of there ever being a firstborn, let me take you out to lunch the next time I’m up there.”
    â€œYou’re coming back?”
    He sounded eager, which she thought was sweet. She’d always liked Jeremy, thinking of him as a slightly unkempt younger brother, even though in reality he was a couple of months older than she was.
    As to what she’d just said to him, she’d meant coming back to Frisco for a visit. His question made her stop to consider. And realize again that from where she was standing, her future was undecided and murky.
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see.” She knew nothing was going to be decided until after she’d met with her birth mother and eradicated the hollow feeling she’d been carrying around inside of her for the past three weeks. “First I need to take care of these loose ends.”
    Everyone who knew Cate knew she was like a bulldog with a bone. Once she clamped down on something, she wouldn’t let go until it was resolved to her satisfaction.
    â€œJust don’t let them strangle you. Pleasant dreams, Cate.”
    â€œYeah, you, too.”
    But even as she hung up the receiver and stifled another huge yawn, Cate knew she wasn’t going to get any sleep, not tonight. If she forced herself to remain in bed, all she was going to wind up doing was counting the minutes as they trickled their way into dawn. And then count more minutes as she waited for a decent time to arrive before she showed up on