Birthright (52 page)

He sat on the worktable beside her. “Philosophy sucks.”

“I'm almost finished brooding. You know that crap about me being jealous of Dory's bogus, right? If I'd been thinking straight, I could've stopped her another way. Just called out, asked her to hold up a minute. Something. Then if she'd run, everyone would've seen it. But I wasn't thinking. I just wanted to stop her.” She shook her head. “Not even that. I just wanted to hurt her.”

“Damn straight,” he agreed.

“I should've figured you'd understand the sentiment.” She drank some tea and it soothed. “Now I feel sort of let down. I'm counting on the police and FBI to nail it, but it's like I've dug down, layer by layer, and I see pieces of what's under there, but I can't seem to make the whole thing out. And something tells me the whole thing isn't going to be what I wanted to find in the first place.”

“A good digger knows you can't choose what you find.”

“There you go, being rational again.”

“I've been practicing.” He picked up her hand, examined the scraped knuckles, wiggled her fingers. “How's this feeling?”

“Like I plowed it into bone at short range several times.”

Still, she used it to pick up the phone when it rang. “Dunbrook. Sheriff Hewitt.” She rolled her eyes derisively toward Jake, then froze. Saying nothing, she pushed off the table, stood with the phone at her ear another moment, then lowered it. Shut it off.

“They lost her.” She set the phone down carefully before she could give in to rage and heave it through the window. “She walked out. Just fucking walked out of the hospital when the deputy was distracted. Nobody remembers seeing her leave, nobody knows where she went or how she got there. She's just gone.”

D
oug swung by his mother's. The phone, he'd decided, wasn't the way to tell her what they'd learned. He wasn't sure what her reaction might be and knew, at this time of day, before his grandfather had closed the bookstore, before his father had made the trip from his last class across the county line, she'd most likely be alone.

When he was sure she was all right, he'd drive to Lana's. They'd go together to hook up with Callie and Jake.

He pulled up behind her car.

He wanted to box all of this up, close the lid and set it aside so they could all get on with their lives. He wanted a chance at that life. The sheer normality of it. He wanted to be able to tell his mother he was in love, planning to give her a ready-made grandchild, and he hoped more as time went on.

He walked in the front. He hadn't paid enough attention to the life his mother had made for herself, he admitted. How she'd built a business, created a home. The way she surrounded herself with pretty things, he mused as he
picked up an iridescent green bowl from a table. The strength and will it must have taken to create even those small bits of normalcy when her spirit had been shattered.

He regretted, very much, not only the way he'd ignored what she'd managed to do, but that he'd resented it.

“Mom?”

“Doug?” Her voice carried down the stairs. “You're back! I'll be right down.”

He wandered into the kitchen, sniffed the air gratefully when he scented fresh coffee. He poured a cup, then decided to pour a second. They'd sit at her table, drink her coffee while he told her what they'd learned.

And he'd tell her something he'd stopped telling her too long ago to remember. He'd tell his mother he loved her.

He heard the click of heels on wood—quick, brisk, female. And when he turned, nearly bobbled the second cup of coffee.

“Wow,” he managed. “What's up with you?”

“Oh. Well. Just . . . nothing really.”

She blushed. He didn't know mothers
could
blush. And apparently he'd forgotten how beautiful his own mother was.

Her hair was swept around her face, and her lips and cheeks were attractively rosy. But the dress was the killer. Midnight blue and sleek, it was short enough to show off terrific legs, scooped low enough at the bodice to give more than a hint of cleavage, and snug enough in between to show off curves he wasn't entirely comfortable thinking about his mother having.

“You hang around the house like this very often?”

Her color still high, she tugged self-consciously at the skirt. “I'm going out shortly. Is that coffee for me? Let me get you some cookies.”

She hurried to the counter to pick up a clear glass jar.

“Where are you going?”

“I have a date.”

“A what?”

“A date.” Flustered, she circled cookies on a plate, just
as she had when he'd come home from school. “I'm going out to dinner.”

“Oh.” A date? Going out to dinner with some guy? Dressed like . . . barely dressed at all.

She set the plate down, lifted her chin. “With your father.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I have a dinner date with your father.”

He sat down. “You and Dad are . . .
dating
?”

“I didn't say we were dating, I said we had a date for dinner. Just dinner. Just a casual dinner.”

“There's nothing casual about that dress.” Shock was slowly making room for amusement, and trailing just behind was a nice warm pleasure. “His eyes are going to pop right out of his head when he gets a load of you.”

“It looks all right? I've only worn it to a couple of cocktail events. Business functions.”

“It looks amazing. You look amazing. You're beautiful, Mom.”

Surprise, then tears filled her eyes. “Well, for goodness sake.”

“I should have told you that every day. I should've told you I love you, every day. That I'm proud of you, every day.”

“Oh, Douglas.” She lifted a hand to her heart as it simply soared. “There goes the thirty minutes I spent on my face.”

“I'm sorry I didn't. I'm sorry I couldn't. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you because I was afraid you blamed me.”

“Blamed you for . . .” Even as the tears spilled over, she lowered her cheek to the top of his head. “Oh, Douglas. No. My poor baby,” she murmured, and his throat clogged. “My sweet little boy. I let you down in so many ways.”

“No, Mom.”

“I did. I know I did. I couldn't seem to help it. But for you to think that. Oh, baby.” She eased back to kiss his cheeks, then cover them with her hands. “Not for a minute. Not ever. I promise you, not once—even at the worst—did I blame you. You were just a little boy.”

She pressed her lips to his brow. “My little boy. I love you, Doug, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you, every day. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you. I shut you out. I shut your father out. Everyone. Then when I tried to open up again, it was too late.”

“It's not too late. Sit down, Mom. Sit down.” He held her hands as she lowered into the chair beside him. “I'm going to marry Lana Campbell.”

“You . . .Oh my God.” Her fingers squeezed his, and more tears spilled over as she began to laugh. “Oh my God! Married. You're getting
married.
What are we drinking coffee for? I have champagne.”

“Later. Later when we're all together.”

“I'm so happy for you. But your grandfather, he's going to flip. Completely flip. Oh, I can't wait to tell Jay. I can't wait to tell everyone. We'll have a party. We'll—”

“Slow down. We'll get to that. I love her, Mom. I fell in love with her, and everything inside me changed.”

“That's just the way it's supposed to be. God, I need a tissue.” She got up, pulled three out of the box on the counter. “I like her very much. I always did. And her little boy—” She broke off. “Oh my, I'm a grandmother.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Give me a minute.” She pressed a hand to her stomach, breathed deep. “I feel good about it,” she realized. “Yes, I feel just fine about that.”

“I'm crazy about him. I need you to sit down again, Mom. There are some other things I need to tell you. About Jessica.”

“Callie.” Suzanne came back to the table and sat. “We should call her Callie.”

W
here would she go?” Callie paced Jake's office, pausing every few steps to study the time line. “No point in going back to Charlotte when her mother's in custody. Her father's dead. But would she risk trying to get out of the country, head down to the Caymans?”

“There might be money there,” Lana offered. “Money comes in handy when you're on the run.”

“We've established Carlyle was ill, largely incapacitated,” Callie went on. “If they were still marketing babies, it's unlikely he played a central role. He was old, sick, out of the country. He was dying. If they weren't still in the business, why go to such lengths to stop me from tracking him down? From finding out? If and when I found him, if and when I gathered enough information to interest the authorities, he'd be gone. Or close to it.”

“Logically, his connections feared exposure.” Jake continued scribbling on a pad. “Loss of reputation, possible prosecution and imprisonment. Or the business was still operating, which again leads to fear of exposure, prosecution and imprisonment, with the added incentive of loss of income.”

“I don't know how you can talk about it like a business.” Doug jammed his hands in his pockets. “Loss of damn income.”

“You have to think as they do,” Callie replied. “See as they do. It's how you understand their . . .” She gestured at Jake. “Culture, the societal structure of their community.”

“Your own community may still be compromised.” Lana motioned toward the door that connected to the living area. “She didn't do this by herself.”

“It's not one of them.” Jake pushed through papers he'd spread over his work area, checked data, went back to his pad. “She slipped in because she had a useful skill as well as forged credentials. Not that hard to pass the ID—it only required a decent hand with a computer to generate a connection to the university. A dig like this draws students, draws grads and itinerant diggers. But she had a specific skill.”

“Photography,” Callie confirmed. “She's a damn good photographer.”

“Maybe she makes her living that way.” Doug lifted his shoulders. “Her legitimate living.”

“She didn't know that much about digging, but she learned fast. She worked hard,” Callie added. “Bob and Sonya were here before any of this started. They're clear. Frannie and Chuck come as a set. She didn't know a hell of a lot, but he did. No way this is his first dig. I'd say the same about Matt. He's too knowledgeable about the procedure.”

“We've had others come and go since July, and we can't be sure about them.” Jake set down his pencil. “But this core group's probably solid.”

“Probably,” Doug echoed.

“We work with speculation, based on data and instinct,” Jake pointed out. “We input what we've got, get the best possible picture, then take the leap.”

He picked up a marker and, taking his pad, moved over to the time-line chart.

“I believe the police will find her, just as they'll track down the Simpsons.” Lana lifted her hands. “Once they do, they'll gather up the rest. You've already broken the back of the organization. You have your answers.”

“There's more. Still more underneath. I haven't got it all.” Callie stopped pacing to stand behind Jake. “What're you doing?”

“Blending time lines. Yours, Carlyle's, Dory's.”

“What's the point?” Doug asked.

“The more data, the more logical any possible speculation.” Callie skimmed the new references as Jake lined them up. The date of Carlyle's first marriage, the birth of his son, his move to Boston.

“Big gap between the marriage and the arrival of the bouncing baby boy,” she commented.

“People often wait several years before starting a family. Steve and I waited nearly four.”

“It wasn't as usual to wait this long forty, fifty years ago. And six years plus, that's a chunk. Lana, do you have the data on his adoption practice before Boston handy?”

“I can look it up. I brought all my file disks. Can I use your computer, Jake?”

“Go ahead. I'm adding on the dates of your mother's miscarriages, the stillbirth. Be interesting, wouldn't it, to have a look at the first Mrs. Carlyle's medical records?”

“Mmm. You can't be sure, yet, that's Dory's real date of birth.”

“Bound to be close enough. She's about your age, Cal. Makes her around twenty years younger than Richard Carlyle. According to my math, Carlyle would've been over sixty when she was born.”

“Sexagenarian sperm's been known to get lucky,” Callie commented. “How old's Dorothy?”

“Late forties, I guess,” Doug said from behind her.

“Well into her fifties,” Lana corrected without looking around. “But very well put together.”

Jake nodded, continued to calculate. “Maybe ten years older than Carlyle junior.”

Doug watched them work. It was similar to watching them cook breakfast, he thought. The moves, the rhythm. “I'm not following this.”

“Lana?” Callie studied the segments, the lines, the grid Jake was creating. “Got anything?”

“I'm getting it. The first adoption petition I found was filed in 'forty-six. Two that year.”

“Two years after the marriage,” Callie murmured. “Long enough. He'd been in practice, what, six years before he developed an interest in adoptions?” She stepped back, studied the entire chart, watched the pattern and connections form.

“It's a big leap,” she said to Jake.

“A logical hypothesis based on available data.”

“What is?” Doug stepped up to the chart, trying to find what they could see that he couldn't.

“Richard Carlyle was the first infant stolen by Marcus Carlyle. But not for profit. Because he wanted a son.”

Doug shoved his glasses farther up his nose. “You get that from this?”

“Just take a look at it,” Callie insisted. “He shifts the focus of his practice two years after his marriage, six years after he began his career. What if he and his wife were having problems conceiving? He develops a personal interest in adoption, researches it, gets to know all the ins and outs of the procedure.”

“Then why not just adopt?” Lana put in.

“You have to speculate on his pattern.” Jake picked up the coffeepot, shook the dregs, looked hopefully at Callie.

“Not now.”

He shrugged, set it down again. “He likes being in charge, calling the shots. His known history of infidelity indicates a man who uses sex, and who sees his prowess as part of his identity.”

“Not being able to conceive a child would damage his ego.” Doug nodded. “It's all right for the next guy, that's just great. But he's not going to let it be known he may be shooting blanks. But then how—”

“Wait.” Callie held up a hand. “One layer at a time. He's not going to publicize an adoption. It doesn't suit his self-image. But he wants a child, and he'd be the type who'd want a son. A girl isn't going to do. He'd want to know exactly who and where that child came from. He wouldn't tolerate the rules they had back then of sealing records on
birth parents. And he's looking around. Look at all these people who have children. Two, three, four kids. Much less worthy than he. Less financially secure, less important. Less.”

“It fits.” Lana swiveled her chair around. “With what we know about him, it fits his profile.”

“He's been representing adoptive parents for years now. He knows the routine, he knows doctors, other lawyers, agencies. He socializes with them. People create their own tribes within tribes,” Jake continued. “They form circles with like minds, or with those who bring a knowledge or skill to the group. Using this system, he finds birth parents who may fit his criteria. He takes his time. Then with or without a private arrangement with those birth parents, he takes his son. I'll bet my Waylon Jennings CD collection there'll be no adoption petition or decree on Richard Carlyle filed in the courts, but that fake ones exist somewhere.”

“Shortly after, he relocates to Houston. New city, new practice, new social group.”

“And because it worked, because he got what he wanted the way he wanted, he saw it as a means to . . . What did Dorothy call it?” Doug asked Lana.

“His mission, his profitable hobby.”

“He saw it as his way to meet the needs of other worthy, childless couples. His way.” Doug nodded. “And to profit from it. That's, ah, fetched.”

“Fetched?” Callie repeated.

“Not so much far-fetched. But pretty fetched.”

“Cute. Fetched or not, it's a reasonable supposition. Then you add that somewhere along the line Richard found out. It caused a rift between father and son. Marcus treated his mother shabbily, and perhaps because she didn't give him a son the more traditional way, this increased or caused his infidelities.”

“They didn't divorce until he was twenty.” Jake tapped his fingers on the time line. “The year Dory was born.”

“The marriage suited Carlyle. But now his son's grown. And, possibly, it was during this time Richard discovered the truth. The family's fractured. The marriage is over.”

“And Carlyle's had an illegitimate child with his secretary. That'd be a slap in the face for mother and son.” Now Doug picked up the coffeepot, set it down again. “It's an interesting theory, but I don't see how it helps locate Dory.”

“There's another layer.” Callie turned to the time line again. It all seemed so clear to her now. Just brush that last bit of dirt away and everything was right there. “Look at the dates again. The move from Boston to Seattle. About as far away as you can manage. Why? Because your secretary, who you've been intimate with, who knows your personal business, your criminal activities, who's been part of both for years, has just told you she's pregnant. But not with your child. With your son's.”

“Dorothy Spencer and Richard Carlyle?” Lana leaped up, hurried over to stand at the chart.

“A young, impressionable boy—maybe one who's just discovered he's not who he thought he was. He's shaken,” Callie surmised. “He's vulnerable. And he's angry. The older, attractive woman. If he knows his father's been with her, it only adds to the pull. ‘I'll show that bastard.' Dorothy's late twenties now, staring at thirty. She's been working for—and sleeping with—Carlyle for a long time. Given him her first youth. Maybe he made promises, but even if he didn't she'd be tired of being the other woman. The cliché. And getting nothing out of it. Here's the son. Young, fresh. Another hook into Carlyle.”

“If we assume she was sleeping with him since she was eighteen, nineteen,” Lana put in, “and there were no previous pregnancies, it might be Carlyle was sterile.”

“Or they were very careful, and very lucky,” Jake said. “More logical to believe it was the younger Carlyle who impregnated her, than the older. He's sixty and, according to known data and current supposition, had never before conceived a child.”

“Carlyle wasn't protecting his estranged, dying father,” Callie concluded. “He was protecting his daughter.”

“The question was, where would she go?” Jake drew a circle around Richard Carlyle's name on the chart. “To Daddy.”

“You run this theory by the cops, they're going to think you're crazy or brilliant.” Doug blew out a breath. “But if they're open to it, and they toss it at Dorothy, she might slip.”

“Let me put it together. On paper.” Lana pushed up her sleeves. “Make it as objective and detailed as possible.” This time she picked up the coffeepot. “But I could use some caffeine.”

“Jeez. Okay, okay, I'll make it.” In disgust, Callie grabbed the pot. She strode out, then slowed as she wound her way through the living room. She recognized the heroic snores that could only be Digger's. The lump in the recliner had to be Matt.

She knew the lovebirds had taken a room upstairs, and Leo had stayed over and taken another.

Though she agreed with Jake's rundown of her team, she detoured upstairs, poked in each room to count heads. Satisfied, she went down to the kitchen, measured out coffee.

“Everybody here?” Jake asked from behind her. “I figured you'd look—and if you didn't, I would.”

“All present and accounted for.” She dashed salt into the coffee, then poured in the water, set the machine to brew. “If we're right, this has been going on for three generations. Whether or not Richard Carlyle took an active part, he knew. There's something even more hideous about that. Passing down this, well, evil, from father to son to daughter.”

“A powerful patriarch using his influence, the strength of his personality, family loyalties. It was the structure the preceding generations grew up in. Their base.”

“And if Richard discovered he was in the same position as I am? Worse, much worse, because his parents, or at least his father, knew. Knew and orchestrated. How could he be a part of perpetuating it, of covering it up, of profiting from it?”