Alternate Reality
an excerpt

Chapter 2 Excerpt:
“You must be Mary Mendoza.” I eliminated the pleasantries that make meetings awkward. The woman blushed, dropped her eyes and then lifted them to meet mine forthrightly and shook my outstretched hand. “Who’s the room roach?”
Mary looked startled and the little one screwed up her face like I was nuts.
“Rwoom Rwoach?” The little girl tried to say.
“Yeah, little kids who crawl all over stuff and leave messes!” I laughed and winked at her. She made a face and flounced off in her little purple dress to look at the one sad plant I had near the window in a coffee can.
“Miss Sergeant?” Mary asked tentatively, not sure if she had a crazy person or not. I could see the big doubt in her mind because of my remarks.
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Besides, it tells me how smart the kid is. She’s bright.”
The mother nodded like most mothers will because their babies are always smart. I smiled back thinking I was poor fodder for the mommy job. Shrugging I offered her a folding chair next to my desk and seated myself behind it. The seat of power I always joked with Nick. He said it was more like the Inquistion. Either way, it gave me a tactical advantage, because unless you read Daschel Hammet, most books don’t deal a lot with the concept that your clients lie to you. Sometimes, for good reasons. Sometimes for dumb ones. But either way, I was going to get a version of the truth. I just needed to see if it was a version that wouldn’t get any of us killed.
“Let’s get this out of the way. Can I call you Mary?” she nodded, I put her at ease, “You can call me Reggie, like everyone else.”
“Why do you think that your daughter is the object of kidnapping attempts?” I could see her weighing her story options so I held up my hand to stop her. “I don’t want excuses, explanations, or what you think I want to hear. What do you KNOW is the reason.”
Mary’s shoulders sagged, and she turned to the now quiet toddler tugging at her sleeve and gave her a granola bar from her purse.