Mayer, offered a full range of investigative services, including domestic/infidelity, surveillance, skip tracing, workman’s comp fraud and attorney services. Adoption searches was a specialty.
No photos of the partners, for good reason, she supposed; P.I.s hardly wanted to advertise their faces, considering that following people and doing stakeouts was their line of work.
Mark Kincaid, she read, had been a Seattle Police Department homicide detective while his partner, Gwendolyn Mayer, had a ten year career with the Baltimore Police Department before coming west to join Kincaid Investigations.
Carrie printed the page as well as the one about adoption searches.
She sat back in her chair, trying to think calmly. So, Mark Kincaid probably was who he said he was. Unless somebody was using his name… Unlikely, she decided, remembering the way he’d watched people at the mall. He’d scanned the crowd with the eyes of a cop.
All right, he was legit. But he was wrong. Even homicide detectives-slash-private investigators could be wrong, couldn’t they? She wondered how they got enough information to find out that Baby John Doe had become, say, Baby Ronald Smith. Weren’t records traditionally sealed? She realized she knew very little about the issue. She’d never even had a friend who was adopted.
She clicked on one of the Web sites about adoption searches and read several short articles, followed by a checklist for the search.
Locate your amended birth certificate, she read.
How would you know if your birth certificate was amended? She was reasonably sure she had hers somewhere; she’d needed it to get a passport to take a school trip to Spain when she was in high school and then to go to London for a week with her parents when her father spoke at a conference there.
Apply for medical records from the hospital where you were born.
She didn’t actually know what hospital she’d been born in. With a flutter of panic, she tried to remember whether her mother had ever talked about her birth, or about labor, or even pregnancy.
Formally petition the court to open your adoption records.
She wouldn’t have to do that. If she was the right Carrie St. John, somebody had done the searching for her.
A sister. And he’d said she had a brother, too.
Her heart lurched with anxiety. Ridiculous. He was wrong, that’s all. He had to be wrong. Maybe tomorrow she should call him, hear the story and explain where he’d made his mistake.
Carrie turned off the computer again, rinsed out the mug and put it in the dishwasher, switched off the lights and went back to bed.
She almost managed to put the whole thing out of her mind by focusing on her job search, on where she wanted to live, on trying to decide whether she missed Craig at all.
But at the edge of sleep, when her guard relaxed, she thought, It’s true that I don’t look like Mom or Dad. Not really.
And when she did sleep, her dreams were restless, filled with people who told her they were her mother and father and sister and brother, and even a man who said he was her husband. Faces kept changing, and in bewilderment she started tapping women on their shoulders and, when they turned, asking, “Are you my mom?”
When her alarm went off, she was so disoriented it took her a minute to realize why it had gone off, where she was, why she was supposed to get up.
As tired as she was, she still didn’t have the slightest desire to go back to sleep. She showered, dressed and went to work.
There, grateful for the privacy her cubicle offered, she tried to concentrate. Midmorning, her phone rang.
“Hi,” her mother said. “I was just thinking about you and thought I’d call.”
“Mom.” Her mother never called her at work. “Is something wrong?”
“What would be wrong?” She gave a tinkle of laughter that sounded artificial. “I just wondered if you’d given notice, and if you’ve seen Craig again, and, oh,” she seemed to hesitate, then said in a rush, “if you’re up to anything new.”
“No, I haven’t given notice yet.” And she didn’t intend to today, either, Carrie realized. Right now, this job felt safe, comfortable. Stepping into the unknown wasn’t very appealing at the moment.
“Craig and your dad had a talk yesterday. I thought perhaps he’d have called you.”
“Mom, I can’t imagine Craig ever begging. And I was pretty firm with him.”
“Are you sure you’re not…well, just panicking at the idea of commitment? That’s not an uncommon reaction, you know.”
Was that what this was about? Her mother’s disappointment that she was rejecting the perfect son-in-law? A doctor, even; he and Daddy would have so much in common.
“I worry about you living alone. You do have an unlisted phone number, don’t you? Not just unpublished?”
So that’s what this was about, Carrie thought in shock. Her mother was afraid somebody would be trying to call. Somebody like Mark Kincaid.
She heard herself say automatically, “I’m pretty sure it’s unlisted, Mom. You don’t have to worry.”
Am I your daughter? Her mouth formed the words, but she didn’t say them. Eyes squeezed shut, Carrie felt dampness seep from them. Mommy, tell me the truth!
“I’d…better go,” she lied instead, her voice thick. “Somebody’s waiting to talk to me.”
Somehow she finished the day at work. By the time she got home, it was after five. Maybe Kincaid Investigations stayed open until five-thirty or six. She could at least leave a message.
Assuming she wanted to talk to him at all. The phone in her hand, she closed her eyes, steadying herself. She wanted, oh so desperately, to reject out of hand everything he’d said and the doubt he’d stirred in her, but she couldn’t. Her mother had sounded so…odd. Maybe, most of all, Carrie was unsettled by the knowledge she’d always lived with—that she was quite different from her parents, in looks, temperament, tastes and abilities.
Of course, kids weren’t clones of their parents. The genetic mix that made up any human being was complex. She’d never worried about it before. But now…
She dialed the number she’d taken from the Web site, listened to the options, pressed 3 for “Leave a message for Mark Kincaid” and then said in a rush, “Mr. Kincaid, this is Carrie St. John. I’m sorry I ran out on you. I’m still pretty sure that I’m not the person you’re looking for, but I’m willing to hear what you have to say.” She left her phone numbers, work and home, and hung up.
She had trouble deciding on anything for dinner, trouble figuring out what she wanted to do for the evening. She felt restless, anxious, jumpy. She wanted to talk to somebody, but couldn’t decide who. Stacy, a friend from nursing school, who hardly knew Carrie’s parents? Ilene, her best friend from childhood, who did know them? So well, in fact, that Ilene had gone to Carrie’s mom for comfort when her own parents had split up.
In the end, she didn’t
