Unleashed (15 page)

Silence poured over the phone line and he could feel her weighing whether or not to talk to them. It was clear from her initial reaction, she didn’t want anyone to know she’d once lived at the shelter.

“Maybe we should just swing by your husband’s office and ask him if he knows anything,” Danny said.

Lauren agreed to meet them in a coffee shop two towns over. “But I have to be back by eight,” she said.

He parked the car and followed Caroline across the street, his hand resting in the small of her back. When she tried to inch away, he slid his hand more firmly around her waist. She might as well get used to him having his hands on her again. The curve of her waist was just the start.

A rush of warm, coffee scented air hit them as he opened the door. It was easy to spot Lauren, as she was the only woman over the age of twenty-five in the place. She sat alone, her eyes fixed on the door, her hands wrapped around the paper cup in front of her.

As they approached her table she stood up and nervously stuck out her hand. Around his age of thirty-five, give or take a year on either side, Lauren was pretty in a kind of matronly way. Fine lines fanned out from clear blue eyes, and her auburn hair was straight and grazed her chin. Jeans and a cardigan showed off a body that had done moderately well through the rigors of having two children.

Well, three, assuming the one she had as a teenager made it to term.

“I don’t have much time,” Lauren said as she sat down and motioned for them to do the same. “My husband took the boys to a movie, but I have to be back when he gets home.”

Danny nodded. “This shouldn’t take much time. We just need to ask you about a few people you might have come in contact with while you were living at Harmony House.”

Tension carved deep lines around Lauren’s mouth. “If I answer your questions you have to swear you won’t tell anyone I ever lived there,” she said, her voice barely audible. Her lips pressed into a tight line. “No one has any idea I ever lived there, that I ever had another—” she stopped and shook her head, unable to force the word “baby” out. “He can never know.”

Caroline reached out and laid her hand over Lauren’s. “I’m sorry we have to force you revisit what’s obviously a painful subject, but we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t really important.”

Lauren nodded.

“Do you recognize this woman?” Danny held out his cell phone with Anne’s picture on the screen. “We think she was a volunteer at Harmony House while you were a resident.”

“Yes,” Lauren nodded. “That’s Anne. I can’t remember her last name, but I remember she was really nice, always trying to help us figure out what we were going to do once we had to leave the shelter.”

“Her last name is Taggart. Anne Taggart.”

“She’s Danny’s mother,” Caroline interjected.

Danny watched Lauren’s face for understanding to dawn, for her to put the name together with the one she’d been hearing in the news lately.

Nothing. Instead she asked, “Really? How is she?”

“Do you follow the news, Lauren?” Caroline asked gently.

“Not really, why?”

“Because Anne Taggart went missing eighteen years ago, and her body was recently discovered outside of La Honda.”

Lauren covered her mouth in horror, then looked around to make sure no one was listening to their conversation. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. All I knew was that Anne stopped showing up one week, and after that I moved out of the area. I never heard anything about her disappearing. I’m really sorry I can’t help you—” she started to stand up.

Danny caught her hand and gently forced her back down. He called up another picture on his phone. “We’re not finished yet. How about this man? Do you recognize him?” He held out his phone so she could look at an older picture of James Medford.

Lauren’s already pale complexion turned the color of chalk. “Yes,” she said after several seconds of silence. “I recognize him. That’s Jack Murphy. He’s the man who convinced me to sell my baby.”

“H
e what?” Caroline felt like she’d taken a fist to the stomach. There had to be some mistake.

“He paid me twenty thousand dollars to give up my baby for adoption,” Lauren said, her voice a whisper as she leaned closer.

Caroline was going to be sick. There was no way James could have been involved in something like that. “But you said his name was Jack Murphy. This man’s name is James Medford. He is—was my husband. Maybe it’s not the same man.” She was grasping at straws and she knew it.

Lauren shook her head. In the low light of the coffee bar, Caroline could see the sheen of tears in her eyes, the faint tremble in her mouth. Lauren’s fingers twisted around her cup and she held herself perfectly still as the story came spilling out. “I was only sixteen, and I had run away to live with my boyfriend, who was twenty. We were going to get married and keep the baby, but he was killed in a liquor store robbery.”

“I’m so sorry,” Caroline said.

Lauren let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t be. He was the one doing the robbing. Stupid idiot tried to rob a liquor store with a toy gun. The manager’s wasn’t a toy. God, we were so stupid.”

“How did you meet Jack?” Danny asked gently.

Lauren took a deep breath and collected herself. “I’d seen him at the shelter before, and I knew he helped some of the girls find adoptive parents for their babies. The girls he helped were always really secretive about it—said it was really important that no one else knew any details. All I knew was that the adoptions were closed—no future contact with the kids, records sealed tight, all that stuff. When I was about seven months pregnant, the director called me into her office one day. Jack was there, and he wanted to make a deal.”

“What kind of a deal?” Caroline asked through lips that had gone numb.

“He said he worked with wealthy, childless couples who would do anything to have a healthy baby. They would pay any amount. If I agreed to give up my baby after it was born, I would get twenty thousand dollars.”

Caroline wasn’t overly familiar with California’s adoption laws, but she knew paying a mother for her child was illegal. Big time.

James had brokered the deal himself. She looked up to see Danny studying her with a funny look on his face. Almost compassionate.

“I know how awful it sounds,” Lauren said and scrubbed at her eyes. “But it was the best choice. I had nothing, there was no way I could have supported us. My baby girl went to live with a rich couple who wanted her. That money helped me make something of my life. Now I have a great husband and two perfect little boys, and I never would have had that if I’d kept her.”

Caroline swallowed back a lump in her throat as she heard Lauren repeat the words she must have said to herself millions of times. Like when she woke up in the middle of the night, stared into the dark and wondered about what might have been.

Caroline could relate. She’d done a lot of dark of night second-guessing herself in the past decade.

“Really, it all worked out for the best,” Lauren said.

James would have been a hero for helping a young girl with an impossible choice, had it not been clear he’d profited from the venture, too. Not for a second did Caroline believe twenty thousand dollars was the end of it.

“I don’t understand though,” Lauren asked. “Why would he say his name is Jack Murphy?”

“Cover his tracks,” Danny said. “Adoption records are sealed in some counties in California—where was the baby born?”

“St. Luke’s. Up in South San Francisco.”

Danny nodded. “But in some cases adoptees can get their records unsealed. He filed the papers under a false identity so no one could ever trace it back to him.”

False identities and fake adoption records? This was getting more sickening by the second. “How many other girls did he…help?” Caroline wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“There was one other girl while I was there. Emily Parrish. Her parents were religious freaks and threw her out when she got pregnant. Jack wanted her to give up her baby, too.”

“The files showed there were four other girls living at Harmony House at that time. James wasn’t working with any of them?”

Lauren licked her lips, taking care to choose her words. “Two of the other girls were Mexican, one was black, and one was,” she paused, looking sheepish, “really ugly.”

“James only wanted pretty white babies for his clients,” Danny bit out.

“It wasn’t Emily’s fault she was beautiful, and I may not look it now, but I was a lot cuter as a sixteen-year-old. James made us swear the babies’ fathers were white too, and told us the deal was off if the babies came out looking, how did he put it? Ethnic.”

Caroline swallowed back a surge of bile. She pushed it away, forcing herself to focus. They still didn’t really know how or if Anne Taggart was involved. “So was Anne helping him with any of this? Was she involved at all?”

“No,” Lauren said. “I mean, I talked to her about giving the baby up, and she thought Jack was a great guy for helping us, but I never told her about the money part. He made us swear.”

“She thought he was a great guy?” Danny asked, and only someone who knew him well would pick up on the hostility vibrating through his voice. “Do you think they were having a relationship?”

Lauren’s wide eyes darted nervously between Danny and Caroline, as though it had just dawned on her that they were discussing Danny’s mother and Caroline’s husband. “They were friendly,” she said carefully. “They seemed to like each other, but I don’t know anything that happened outside of Harmony House.” She shook her head and held her hands up as though to fend off a predator.

Caroline couldn’t blame her. Danny’s eyes were narrowed into icy gray slits and his whole body was tense. She put her hand on his arm and gave him a warning squeeze.

“I remember them arguing though, about Emily. It was right before Emily left.”

“Left?”

Lauren nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to know, but Emily wanted to back out of the adoption. She wanted to keep her baby. She and the director and Jack had a meeting and he was really pissed. Afterward, Emily told Anne what happened. Anne promised to help her smooth things over with Jack. They got in a huge argument. He told her it was none of her fucking business, and she said he had no right to force her to give up the baby if she didn’t want to.”

“What happened to Emily? We can’t seem to find any record of her anywhere after she left the shelter,” Danny said.

Lauren shrugged. “After she decided she wanted to keep her baby she left. She moved back with her parents, at least that’s what Christine told us. I remember Anne was really upset. She’d heard about Emily’s family and was worried about how they’d treat her. After that she quit showing up for her volunteer shifts. I figure she was pissed at the director and Jack and didn’t want anything to do with any of us.”

“She didn’t show up because she disappeared,” Danny said bluntly. “What about Jack? Did you see him after that?”

Lauren closed her eyes and nodded. A big fat tear escaped to roll down her cheek. “The day after my daughter was born. He had me sign some papers and gave me my check. Then he took my daughter to her new family.”

Lauren looked at her watch and her eyes widened in horror. “I have to go now.” She jumped from her seat. “Good luck with everything,” she said awkwardly and practically ran to the door.

Danny held Caroline’s arm as they walked to her car. She knew she should pull away, but it felt too good to have his big, strong hand on her, his muscular presence at her side.

She climbed in the car and waited for the accusations to fly. With every new discovery, it became more clear James had something to do with Anne’s death. He had probably killed her to keep his secret. Her mind flinched away from acknowledging the possibility.

Instead of voicing her worst fears, all Danny said was, “If this goes the way I think it’s going to go, that woman’s going to have to tell her husband what happened. She should have told him a long time ago.”

“She wanted a new life. A clean slate. I can appreciate that.”

“She claims to love her husband, but she keeps something like that from him? That’s not cool.”

“Some secrets get too big to share,” Caroline said. She should know, she was choking on hers, and she never made it past the twelfth week of her pregnancy.

“Not if you’re going to spend the rest of your life with someone.”

“Right. Says the expert in romantic relationships who is always so open about everything.”

“Not wanting to spill my guts all over the table for everyone and keeping big secrets like, say, having a baby, are two very different things. But you’re right. I’m certainly no expert on romance. Good thing we figured that out early.”

Caroline ignored the pinch of grief and pulled out her cell phone as Danny guided her car out of Lauren’s neighborhood. She needed to talk to Patrick. He was James’s closest friend. If James had been up to something, chances were Patrick would have had an idea. He had to have been suspicious, even if he hadn’t known exactly what James had been involved with.

Melody answered on the first ring. “Hey Caroline. I’ve been wondering how you are. Are you still hanging out with that fine—”

“Mel, sorry to cut you off, but I really need to talk to Patrick. Is he home?”

Danny started to say something, and she held her hand up for silence.

“Sure, I’ll get him.”

“I’d really rather talk to him in person. Will he still be home in about an hour?”

“Yes, but you can’t stay long. Patrick has to get up early again tomorrow to catch a flight.”

Caroline promised they wouldn’t take too much time and hung up.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Danny’s harsh voice cut through the car’s dark interior like a steel blade.

“Patrick has been James’s best friend since they were freshmen in college. I can’t believe James would have all of this going on without Patrick knowing something.”

“That may be true, but if he hasn’t said anything in all this time, why would he say anything now?”

“Maybe he doesn’t realize what he knows. But he could remember something from that time that could help us.”

“What are you hoping to find out, Caroline?”

She wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. Another explanation? An accomplice who held a gun to James’s head and forced him into this?” Anything but what the truth was shaping up to be. “Let me talk to Patrick, okay? He and Mel have done so much to help me, and if nothing else I don’t want them blindsided when the truth comes out.”

Danny finally agreed. “But you follow my lead. I’ll ask the questions, I’ll manage the information. Got it.”

“Sir yes sir,” she snapped.

He made a detour to his house to pick up a few changes of clothes. They left the lights of town behind and traveled up a windy, unlit road into the hills. As they climbed, the twists grew sharper and the trees grew bigger until Danny turned down a narrow, gravel drive and pulled up in front of a woodframe structure that was more cabin than house. To her intense disappointment he instructed her to wait in the car as he ran inside to grab his things.

After years of trying not to think about Danny at all, suddenly she was intensely curious about every aspect of his life, including his house. Though Joe Taggart had made a fortune as an investment banker, Danny and his brothers were no trust fund babies. Even if they were, Danny wouldn’t have spent his money on a lavish home. The house was small, cozy looking from what she could see of it from the single porch light casting its glow across the front. Intensely private, it was set back deep in the trees. It suited Danny perfectly.

She bet if she went inside, she’d find it sparsely, but comfortably furnished, with Danny’s typical piles of clothes and magazines littering every surface.

Danny emerged from the house and tossed a small black duffel in the backseat. He was largely silent on the drive across the bay, other than to ask Caroline exactly where they were headed so he could punch it into the Mercedes’ navigation system.

Caroline couldn’t get Lauren’s grief stricken face out of her head. Imagining the other woman’s pain cut her to the core. Money aside, Caroline understood the other woman’s choice. She’d learned through her experience with Kate that raising a child was hard even when there was family support and plenty of money. A scared, broke teenager with no one to fall back on barely stood a chance.

Yet she couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been, to carry a child, give birth to a healthy, perfect baby, then let someone else walk away with her, knowing you’d never see her again.

Caroline took a shaky breath and swallowed the baseball that had taken up permanent residence in her throat.

“You okay?”

“I can’t stop thinking about Lauren. About her baby.”
About my baby
. “How hard it must have been to give her up.” She swallowed back a sob.

“You’re pretty broken up over a stranger’s baby.”

“That my husband apparently helped her sell on the black market,” she reminded him. “I’m still a little shell-shocked from that. Besides, hearing Lauren made me think about Kate.”
And me
.

“Your stepdaughter, right. She’s got a kid.”

Caroline didn’t remember telling him that, but didn’t bother asking how he knew. It seemed no secret in the world was safe from Gemini Securities. “She got pregnant when she was nineteen. She’d just started her freshman year and she hooked up with a loser named Spike.” At Danny’s snort she said, “Seriously. That’s what he called himself. After Kate got pregnant, it was clear he was hoping to cash in on her trust fund. Instead, James cut them both off. Spike was out of there the first time Kate’s credit card was declined.”

“Sounds like exactly the kind of guy you want to blend DNA with.”

“It was another two months before I could convince Kate to move back in. She was so mad at James for running Spike off.”

“You wanted her to move back in? Why not let James write a check and let her live on her own?”

“I wanted her and the baby with us. She was young and scared and still needed her parents.”
I was young and scared and needed someone to lean on
. “And then when the baby came, I was able to help her.” She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, able to conjure up the sweet baby smell of Mikey’s head.