Out of the Dark by Sharon Sala

way of knowing what she was told. For all we know, she may not remember enough of her childhood to make any connections to what you said. Lots of times children who are stolen from one parent are told by the other one that the parent is dead…or, in some cases, that the parent doesn’t love them anymore.”
    “Dear God,” Sam said. “What are we going to do? This is Margaret all over again. She didn’t want to be found and stayed lost for all these years. If Jade doesn’t want to be found, what’s to stop this from happening all over again?”
    “Me,” Luke said, and then pointed to the envelope in Shelly’s lap. “Are those the pictures?”
    She nodded, then handed them to him.
    Luke opened the envelope and dumped them out onto the coffee table between them. Almost immediately, his gaze fell on a close-up of the woman in the booth. He knew he should say something, but there were no words for what was going through his mind.
    At thirty-seven years old, he’d seen his share of attractive women, but the face in the photo was beyond attractive. She was, without doubt, one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen in his life. He picked up another, then another and another, staring in disbelief at the delicate curve of her cheek and the thick, black hair falling in waves over her shoulder and down her back. When he finally let himself look at the man with her, his stomach knotted. The man was, in his way, as physically beautiful as a man could be.
    “Let me see,” Sam said.
    “Keep in mind, it still has to be determined if this woman is truly the artist. We only have her word that she put the fingerprint on the canvas.”
    “I saw her doing caricatures,” Shelly said. “And the shirt she was wearing had some tiny paint stains. I remember seeing them and thinking how perfectly bohemian.”
    Luke handed him the photos, watching his friend’s expression for signs of distress. But he need not have worried. The moment Sam’s gaze fell on the woman in the photo, he exhaled a deep sigh.
    “Oh God…dear God…she looks like my mother.”
    “Are you sure?” Marsh asked. “You’re not just seeing something in her that you want to see?”
    Sam looked up, his eyes lit with joy, tears rolling down his face.
    “Wait here,” he said, and hurried out of the room. A couple of minutes later he was back with a small framed photo. “This is a picture of my mother and father on their wedding day. You judge for yourself.”
    They crowded around the photo. Marsh and Shelly murmured to each other about the similarity in likenesses, but Luke remained silent. Finally Sam noticed.
    “Luke, what do you think?”
    “That you have a beautiful daughter,” he said, and then picked up the photo with the best view of the couple’s faces. “And I need to make plane reservations for San Francisco.”
    Sam clutched Luke’s arm. “Find her, my friend. I need this in my life before I die.”
    “I’ll find her,” Luke said, but he didn’t voice the other part of what he was thinking. He had to find her or live the rest of his life haunted by her face.
    A short while later they were all gone, leaving Sam with more hope for the future of his family than he’d had in years.

Four
    R ain peppered the windows of the bus near Jade’s face, blurring her view of the passing countryside. She was tired of the travel, but afraid to go back to sleep for fear she would have another nightmare. Besides that, Raphael didn’t look well. He’d suffered from motion sickness nearly the entire trip, and she was getting worried. His skin was pale and clammy, and she’d begun to notice for the first time that his face looked drawn—even thin. She always expected him to look after her, while she rarely considered that he might need care. He was her rock—the strong one who never complained. Guilt shafted through her as she leaned over and laid the back of her hand against his forehead. He didn’t have a fever, but his eyelids had a bluish,