She was as suspicious as she was defensive, which might mean she was everything she claimed to be, or not. "Merely that your ambition may come up against yet another glass ceiling."
"I don't think any of this is your business, Ms. Bellamy," the other woman snapped.
"I am certifying for my client that you are who you say you are and therefore are also suitable for employment with them." Jessa offered her a cool smile. "At present, everything about you is my business."
"Yes, of course. I'm sorry." The faint lines around Ellen's mouth eased. "It was really a shock to find out I'm being investigated, or whatever you call it. Then they told me I had to come over here right away, or I wouldn't eligible for hire. It scared the heck out of me."
"No need to be afraid. It's all over now."
Ellen smiled. "Really? That's all I have to do?"
"That's it." Jessa stood. "I appreciate your taking the time to come in and fill out the paperwork." She held out her hand.
"Thank you." Ellen Farley's hand joined hers.
Shadowlight.Jessa stood in the center of what appeared to be a cheap hotel room. The odors of cigarette smoke, sweat, and sex nearly choked her as she gazed down at the two bodies writhing together on the worn paisley carpeting. Neither had undressed completely, but the man's buttocks gleamed white beneath a low tan line, and shook as he thrust himself into Ellen Farley with eager, frantic movements.
She could feel their lust crawling inside her head, dragging with it everything they thought. While Ellen's mind focused on the need tightening in her pelvis, her lover Max's thoughts were at odds with his enthusiasm.
"We're going to be rich, baby," the man panted as he grabbed her bouncing breast through her damp silk blouse and dug his fingers into the mound. "So fucking rich. We'll never have to work another day of our lives."
Max Grodan was already rich, Jessa knew. Beyond rich. He could leave Ellen and never have to work another day for ten lifetimes—and he had worked very hard to keep Ellen from discovering that.
Ellen groaned. "What if I get caught? This time they'll know it was me. I'll go to prison, Max."
"Ellen Farley will go to prison, if they bother to dig her up out of the ground." Max nuzzled her neck. "Judy Tulliver is going to Rio with me and five-point-nine million bucks."
The image in Max's mind was of a shallow grave, but it was empty. At least until he shoved Ellen's limp body over the edge.
Sunlight.
Jessa released the other woman's hand, smiled, and watched her leave the office. As soon as the door closed, she dropped down into her chair and buried her face in her hands. She sat like that until the worst of the shakes from her vision stopped and she could think of something other than running after Ellen and pleading with her not to go anywhere near Max.
She couldn't do this. Not here, not now.
With a trembling hand she picked up her phone and dialed a two-digit extension. "Angela, check the U.S. interment database and see if you can find a listing for an Ellen Ann Farley, date of birth February nineteenth."
"What year, Ms. Bellamy?"
She flipped open the file and gazed at Ellen's date of birth. To use identity records belonging to another person, Ellen would have had to choose someone born prior to 1936—the year the United States began issuing social security numbers—with digits that could be easily doctored. The digit 1 could be easily changed to a 4—or a 7. "Try 1914."
"Searching." After a few moments, Angela took in a quick breath. "One hit. Holy Moses. Ellen Ann Farley, born 1914, died 1916. Interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Albany County, New York."
"Good." Jessa put the phone on speaker so she could walk around the office and work out the last of the trembling weakness from being in the shadowlight. "Call the Office of Vital Statistics in New York, and have them fax a copy of Ellen Ann Farley's actual birth certificate to us. If the certificate numbers match, we'll move on to social security."
"Yes, ma'am." Angela hesitated before adding, "See what I mean? You're never wrong about people, Ms. Bellamy."
"No." Jessa looked down at the vase of white roses on the coffee table, and touched one of them. "This time I wasn't."
"Adele, standing there and breathing on it ain't gonna get that window clean," Maribeth Boden said as she finished rubbing the last streak from the glass in front of her.
Adele Watkins didn't reply, but swatted the air with her hand.
"Come on now." Maribeth walked over to help her friend, and studied the dusty inside of the pane. "We got three more offices to do before ... we—" She stopped and gulped. "Sweet baby Jesus."
"Uh-huh," Adele murmured.
The man on the other side of the window stood in the shade the recessed arch over it provided. While Maribeth saw a lot of men during her rounds of the office buildings she cleaned every day, she couldn't recall ever noticing one put together like this one.
He was too dark to be white, and too light to be black. She would have pegged him as Hispanic or Indian, if not for his dark blond hair and light eyes, but that wasn't right either. If someone had asked her, she would have said his skin reminded her of her mama's homemade pralines, all hot and smooth as they cooled on waxed paper in the kitchen.
His pretty skin covered broad, heavy muscles, the kind she'd never seen on a white man, not even the ones at the gym around the corner. When he shifted position, they didn't ripple; they flowed.
"You think he's gonna put that jacket back on?" Adele murmured.
The white sleeveless shirt he wore clung to his chest and torso like body paint, and made it clear to Maribeth that everything it covered was just as fine as what it exposed. "God wouldn't be that hateful to me."
Adele sucked in a sharp breath as the man turned his head to look at the window. "He knows we're watching him."
"No, he don't," Maribeth chided. "It's privacy glass; the outside's like a mirror, 'member? He's just looking at himself." But he didn't do much of that before he went back to watching the street. "You think he works here?"
"If he does we're blind." Adele pressed her dark hand to the dirty window. "Damn, Mari, but if he ain't the finest man I've seen in my whole life, I'll eat my mop."
Maribeth thought of her man, Darnell, who was still home in bed after a long night on the road. "Think I'm gonna go home for lunch today."
Adele sputtered a laugh. "I was thinking I'd take my coffee break in the back of my husband's cab."
"Morning, ladies." Carter Burleigh, one of the young attorneys who worked on the floor, walked up behind them. "Have either of you ... found—" He stopped speaking, but his jaw remained in its dropped position.
Adele glanced back at him. "That your boyfriend, Mr. Burleigh?"
"God wouldn't be that kind to me, Adele." Carter wedged himself between the two women to have a better look. "Damn."
"Amen," Maribeth said on her own sigh.
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