“What do you mean?” I said.
“Every one of these pictures was taken in Colorado.” He flipped pages and pointed. “That’s Mount Evans right there.” He went forward a few pages. “That’s Casa Bonita. And there’s Red Rocks. Got to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse there one time, and it was totally kick ass. It was during the . . . which tour would that have been?”
“We’re from Detroit,” I said, much louder than I’d intended.
“That may be, but these pictures were taken in Colorado. And your folks got married in Colorado.” He flipped to the back and pointed at a wedding announcement.
I yanked it out of the album.
Mr. and Mrs. Bart I. Davis
request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter
Marianne T. Davis
to
Michael D. Rhones
son of
Mr. and Mrs. Dwight N. Rhones
on Saturday, July 28, 1990, at seven o’clock in the evening at Cherry Hills Community Church
Greenwood Village, Colorado.
“No,” I said, my reality suddenly threatened. “It must have been some friends of theirs, because I don’t know those names.” I didn’t want to consider that Dad had lied to me about . . . everything.
“What were their names?” he said.
“I don’t know what Mom’s name was,” I said.
Roxanne gasped. “You didn’t know what your mom’s name was? How could you not—-”
Dekker silenced her.
“Dad’s was Charlie Moshen.”
“M--O--T--I--O--N?” Curt asked.
“No. M--O--S--H--E--N.”
Curt pulled the invitation from my hands and stared at it for so long I wasn’t sure if he was still awake, except that his eyes were open. Then they widened. “Rox,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Go get Scrabble, will you?”
Her face lit up, but I didn’t understand why. Were we going to play a game? She left the room. Curt’s eyes never moved from the invitation. Roxanne appeared with a brick--colored box, which she put on the table. Curt set the invitation down, opened the box and started pulling letter tiles out and laying them in front of him. When he found all the tiles he wanted, he arranged them so they said CHARLIE MOSHEN.
His eyes grew wider and he looked at me. I didn’t understand until he rearranged the tiles.
“Holy shit,” Dekker said. “Check it out, Rox.”
“Oh, my gosh,” she said, picking up the invitation and holding it next to the tiles.
Which now spelled MICHAEL RHONES.
The box I’d taken from Mr. Dooley’s office had the initials M R on it. M R for Michael Rhones. “The letters are signed ‘M,’ ” I said. “M for Michael.” I picked up the wedding invitation and studied it again.
“My mom’s name was Marianne,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else. “Why . . . did Dad change his name? I don’t understand. And if we weren’t from Detroit, why did Dad say we were?”
“Maybe you’re in the witness protection program,” Curt said.
Dekker backhanded Curt’s shoulder. “That’s what I said!”
They high--fived.
“I don’t think you’re going to Detroit,” Curt said. “I think you’re headed to Denver. Just my two cents.”
“That’s great!” Dekker said, his face and voice full of enthusiasm. “That’s so much closer than Michigan!”
“You need to find these -people, the Davises and the Rhoneses,” Curt said. “You may have some family still there.”
“Dad said his parents were dead,” I said, a tingling sensation starting on my scalp and spreading down my arms.
Why had Dad changed his name?
If he’d changed his name . . . did he change mine?
What was my real name?
“Your dad also told you he didn’t have any siblings, and you can tell that guy standing with him in the pictures is his brother,” Dekker said.
“Maybe they’re cousins.”
“I guess my point is that your dad said a lot of stuff which is turning out not to be true. So I think Denver is the place to start. In fact,” Curt said, “what do you say we try to find these folks right now?” He picked up the phone receiver and held it out to me.
I couldn’t move. My throat was dry. “Could you do it?” I said in a small voice.
He nodded and punched some numbers on the keypad. “Denver, Colorado,” he said into the phone. “Dwight N. Rhones.” He spelled it out and listened. “Oh? That’s a bummer. Can you look up another one for me? Bart I. Davis.” He listened again. “Sure. Give me that one. Do you have the address too? Thanks.” He found a pen and a pad of paper and scribbled a phone number and address on it. “Thank you. Have an awesome day.” He hung up the phone and slid the paper in front of me. “That’s Mrs. Bart I. Davis’s info right there.”
I stared at it, and the tingling covered my entire body. Was I actually looking at the contact information of my maternal grandmother? It couldn’t be. Dad said I didn’t have any relatives. I folded the piece of paper and put it in my pocket.
Curt rubbed his hands together. “Rox, how much longer we got until the timer goes off?”