Birthright (32 page)

“We never even asked the damn questions. I've spent the best part of a year asking them.”

Anxiety curled up in the center of her chest. “Don't start
this with me, Jake. I've got enough messing up my head right now.”

“I know. Callie, I want you to know—” He broke off as Ms. Biddle approached.

Bad timing, he thought in disgust. It had been nothing but since he'd managed to get back to Callie again.

“Mr. Carlyle can give you ten minutes. If you'll take the stairs to the second floor, his assistant will show you in.”

“Thank you.” Jake took Callie's arm as they started up a staircase. “See? Never underestimate the power of prevarication.”

The second floor was as graceful and charming as the first. She'd pegged Carlyle as rich, classy and successful.

Both his appearance and that of his office seemed to bear that out.

The office resembled a gentleman's study. A large study, to be sure, but with what Callie thought of as a manly and intimate tone. Shelves of books and mementos lined two walls. There were paintings by American artists as well as American antiques.

The masculine theme was continued in colors of burgundy and navy, the use of leather and brass.

Richard Carlyle stood behind his desk. He was tall and well built. His hair, streaked with gray, was well cut and brushed back from a high forehead. Both his nose and mouth were thin. When he extended his hand she noted the mono-grammed cuffs. The Rolex. The glint of diamonds in his wedding ring.

She remembered Henry Simpson describing Marcus Carlyle as a handsome man, a dynamic man of exquisite taste.

Like father, she decided, like son.

“Ms. Dunbrook, Mr. Graystone. I'm afraid you have the advantage on me. I'm unaware of any family connection.”

“The connection's with your father,” Callie said. “And his involvement with my family. It's very important that I locate him.”

“I see.” He steepled his fingers, and over them his face
lost its polite interest. “As this is the second inquiry about my father in the last few days, I have to assume they're connected. I can't help you, Ms. Dunbrook. And I'm very pressed for time, so—”

“Don't you want to know why?”

He let out what might have been a sigh. “Quite frankly, Ms. Dunbrook, there's little you could tell me about my father that would interest me. Now, if you'll excuse me?”

“He arranged for babies to be stolen, transported, then sold to childless couples who paid him large fees without being aware of the kidnappings. He drew up fraudulent adoption papers in these cases, which he never filed with any court.”

Richard stared at her without blinking. “That's ludicrous. And I'll warn you such an allegation is libelous as well as preposterous.”

“It's neither when it's the truth. It's neither when there's proof.”

He continued to watch her with that cool blue gaze that told her he must have been a killer in court.

“What proof could you possibly have?”

“Myself, for a start. I was stolen as an infant and sold to a couple who were clients of your father. The exchange was made in his Boston office in December of 1974.”

“You have misinformation,” he countered.

“No I don't. What I have are a lot of questions for your father. Where is he?”

He was silent for a moment, so silent she heard him draw in a breath. “You can't expect me to believe these criminal accusations, to stand here and take your word.”

Callie reached in her bag. “Copies of the adoption papers. You can check. They were never filed with the court. Copies of the fees your father charged for my placement. Copies of the initial tests run to substantiate that I am the biological daughter of Jay and Suzanne Cullen, whose infant daughter was stolen, December of 'seventy-four. Police reports,” she added, nodding at the pile of papers she put on his desk. “Newspaper accounts.”

“You should read them,” Jake suggested, then took a seat. “Take your time.”

Richard's fingers trembled lightly as he reached in his pocket for gold-framed reading glasses. Saying nothing, he began to go through the file.

“This is hardly proof,” he said after a time. “You're accusing a man of trafficking in children, of kidnapping, fraud.” He took the glasses off, set them aside. “Whatever personal problems my father and I might have, I don't believe this of him. If you persist in these accusations, I'll take legal action.”

“Take it then,” Callie invited. “Because I'm not going to stop until I have all the answers. I'm not going to stop until the people responsible for what happened to the Cullens, and other families, are punished. Where's your father?”

“I haven't seen my father in more than fifteen years,” Carlyle shot back angrily. “If I knew where he was, I wouldn't tell you. I intend to look into this personally, of that you can be quite sure. I don't believe there's any validity in your allegations. But if I find differently, I'll do what I can to locate my father and . . . I'll do what I can.”

“There have been some attempts to stop us from finding him, and those answers,” Jake stated calmly. “Physical attacks, arson.”

“For God's sake, he's ninety.” As Richard's composure wavered, he patted a hand over his hair. “The last time I saw him he was recovering from a heart attack. His health is poor. He'd hardly be in any shape to physically attack anyone or start fires.”

“Anyone who could organize a black-market system for babies could easily hire someone to do the heavy work.”

“I haven't agreed that my father had anything to do with a black market. Everything I see here is supposition and circumstantial. The man I knew was a mediocre father, a complete failure as a husband and often a difficult human being. But he was a good lawyer, with a strong respect for the system and a dedication to the institution of adoption. He helped create families. He was proud of that.”

“Proud enough to destroy some families to make others?” Callie put in. “Proud enough to play God?”

“I said I'd look into it. I'm going to insist you cease and desist making any libelous or slanderous statements about my father. If you'll give my assistant numbers where you can be reached, I'll be in touch once I've made a determination.”

Jake got to his feet before Callie could speak. “It's strange, isn't it, Carlyle, to have your perception of your family, your sense of self shaken in one blinding moment?”

He took Callie's hand, drew her to her feet. “That's exactly what happened to her. We'll see if you have half the guts she does. Half the spine. So you look into it, you make your determination. And you remember this: We'll find him. I'll make it my goddamn life's work to find him. Because nobody's going to get away with making Callie unhappy.”

He squeezed her hand as she stared at him. “Except me. Let's go.”

She didn't say anything to him until they were outside. “That was some closing speech, Graystone.”

“You liked it?”

“Pretty effective. I haven't thought much about being unhappy. Mad, determined, confused, but not unhappy.”

“But you are.”

“Doesn't seem like the most important thing, in the big scheme.”

“I made you unhappy. That's something I've thought about quite a bit over the last year.”

“We made each other unhappy.”

He put a hand under her chin, turned her face to his. “Maybe we did. But I know one thing for damn sure. I was happier with you than I was without you.”

Thoughts tumbled together in her head, refused to make sense. “Damnit, Jake,” was all she could say.

“Figured you should know. Being a smart woman you'll be able to conclude I prefer being happy to unhappy. So I'm going to get you back.”

“I'm not a . . . a yo-yo.”

“A yo-yo comes back, if you've got the right hand-eye coordination. You're no toy, Dunbrook. You're work. Now, do you want to stand here on the sidewalk in Atlanta discussing my future happiness?”

“No, I don't.”

“We can hang around, try to give this guy another push—or let him simmer. Braves are in town. We might be able to catch a game. Or we can go back north and back to work.”

“What's this? You're not going to tell me what I'm supposed to do?”

He winced. “I'm trying to cut down on that. How'm I doing?”

“Actually, not too bad.” She gave in to impulse, touched his face, then immediately turned away to stare back at Richard Carlyle's office. “He said he hadn't seen his father in over fifteen years, but his first instinct was to stand up for him.”

“It is instinct—cultural, societal, familial. Close ranks against the outsider.”

“I don't believe he doesn't know where his father is. Maybe he doesn't have the exact address stored in his head, but he has to know how to get to him. If we push, his instinct would be to barricade, wouldn't it?”

“Probably. Following that, to either confront his father with the information we just put in his hands, or to warn him.”

“We don't have to worry about the warning, because Carlyle already knows we're looking. I'm sure of that. Let's give him a few days. I say we go back to work, on the site and on the list of names Suzanne gave me.”

“I guess that shoots any chance of a suite at the Ritz here, and my fantasy of getting you drunk and naked.”

“Pretty much.” Maybe she was an idiot, she thought, but she, too, was happier with him than she was without him. “But you can buy me a drink at the airport bar and make sexual innuendos.”

“If that's the best I can do, let's find a cab and get started.”

Y
ou're back.” Bill McDowell trotted up to Callie the minute he arrived at the dig. His young, earnest face was still shiny from its morning scrub.

Callie grunted as she looked through the dumpy level to the surveyor's staff West Virginia Frannie held. “We were only gone a day, Bill.”

“Yeah, I know, but nobody was sure when you'd be back. I had a dentist appointment first thing this morning or I'd've been here sooner.”

“Um-hmm. How'd it go?”

“Good. Great. No problems. You've got really nice teeth.”

She managed to swallow the chuckle. “Thanks.” She noted the height on the staff that gave her vertical distance. “Next point, Frannie.”

Jake had been right, again, about the couple from West Virginia. Frannie was skinny, silly and obsessed with Chuck, but willing to follow instructions.

And unlike Bill, didn't breathe down her neck and continually ask questions.

She rotated the movable telescope until she focused on the new position, took the second reading. All the while Bill hovered behind her.

She could smell his aftershave, the lacing of bug repellant and a whiff of Listerine.

“I found potsherds yesterday,” he told her. “I got the photographs if you want to see. I took Polaroids for my own records. Dory took the others. Hey, Dory! How's it going?”

“Hi, Bill. Any cavities?”

“Nah. Anyway . . . um, Callie?”

“Huh?”

“I wrote up the report last night. They're really cool—the potsherds. Digger said they were probably from a cooking pot. They were scribed and everything.”

“That's good.” She noted down the measurements. “That's got it, Frannie. Thanks.” She began scribbling the
calculations on her clipboard, and spoke absently to Bill. “Stick with the same location today, see what else you turn up.”

“I was kind of hoping I could work with you.”

“Maybe later.”

“Well, okay. Sure. Anyway, this is all so much cooler than I thought it was going to be. I mean, it takes forever, but then bam! you get something and it's great. But whenever you need a hand, I could work with you over there.” He gestured toward the area marked off for the cemetery. “With the bones. I figure I can learn more in one day with you than a month with anybody else.”

She reminded herself she was here to teach as well as dig. Enlightenment was as essential as discovery. “We'll see about it tomorrow.”

“Awesome.”

He jogged off to get his trowel.

“You know, you can get a rash having your butt kissed that much,” Jake commented.

“Shut up. He's just eager. You're going to want to have one of your beauty-pageant contestants start another triangulation. Sonya, probably. Dory could work with her.”

“I've already set them up.” He gestured to where the two women were working with measuring tapes and a plumb line. “Starting next week, we're only going to have Sonya on weekends. She starts classes full-time.”

“What about Dory?”

“She's arranging a sabbatical. She doesn't want to leave the dig. Chuck and Frannie are staying on. Matt, too. For the time being anyway. You couldn't drag Bill away with a team of mules. We're going to lose a couple of the itinerants, the undergrads. Leo's working on replacements.”

“If we're going to be shorthanded, let's keep those hands busy while we've got them.”

They separated, Jake to work on what they'd termed “the hut area,” and Callie back to the cemetery.

She could work there with the pulse of Digger's rock music, the chatter of the planning team, the trill of birds in the trees at her back. She could work in her own bubble of
silence where those sounds simply pressed against the edges of her concentration.

She had the moist ground under her fingers, and the music of it sliding from her trowel into her spoil bucket. She had the sun on her back and the occasional brush of breeze to cool it.

She used trowel and brush and probe, painstakingly excavating the distant past, and her mind carefully turned over the known elements of her own.

William Blakely, Suzanne Cullen's obstetrician, retired twelve years after delivering her of a healthy baby girl. Seven pounds, one ounce. He died of prostate cancer fourteen years later, survived by his wife, who had been both his office manager and his nurse, and their three children.