Cry Mercy (25 page)

The only honest part of her life right now was the work she was doing for the foundation. She was giving the search for Belinda Hudson her best efforts. She was getting closer to the heart of it—the answer was with Donor 1735, she knew that much—but he was still clouded in mist.

And then there was Nick. He was the one complication she hadn't planned on. All her professional life, she'd made a point of not getting involved with people connected in any way with any case she worked. She'd spent the past four years devoting her
time and energy and total focus on Chloe. For most of that time, she'd convinced herself that at this time of her life, she didn't need anyone else. Work and her daughter had been more than enough for her. Now she wasn't so sure.

She wiped her wet face with a tissue she found in her bag and blew her nose.

“No time to feel sorry for
you,”
she chided herself. “A girl is still missing. There's work to be done.”

She drove through the gates somewhat sheepishly, waving to the security hut without really looking at the man who was stationed there this morning. Having practically blown through the gates on her way out earlier, she was too embarrassed to meet his eyes now. She parked near the side of the house and entered through the front, hoping to slip in without being seen.

She should have known better.

“Are you all right?” Trula was just coming through the front hall when Emme opened the door. “Dear lord, child, the way you fled this morning, you'd have thought demons were at your heels.”

“I'm okay. And I'm sorry.” She could have added,
And yes, there were demons at my heels
, but that would have required more explanation than she was prepared to give. “I didn't mean to upset anyone. There was just … just something I had to do.”

“Honey, if something is bothering you—oh, hell, clearly something is. Maybe there's something we can do to help.”

Emme started down the hall, not wanting to look back on that kind face. She'd be tempted to spill it all,
everything about Chloe's father and about her own deceit. Once they knew—Trula and Robert and Mallory and Kevin—they'd be showing her the door. Falsifying her résumé, getting Steffie to lie and cover for her … what would happen to Steffie if the truth came out? She'd be bounced from her job in a heartbeat. Emme flushed scarlet just thinking of the terrible position she'd put her friend in.

I had to save Chloe
, she reminded herself.

“Emme?” Trula stood in the hallway, a worried look on her face. “You know I'd—we'd—help you in any way we could.”

Emme nodded. “I know, Trula. And I appreciate it more than you could know.”

She continued down the hall and quietly went into her room. The kindness of everyone around her had been so unexpected, it had overwhelmed her. Last night she'd been thinking that in a pinch, it would be her, Trula, and Nick. Now she found herself for the first time ever feeling part of something larger than herself. It was more than she could think about and still function the way she needed to. She pushed away the events of the morning and stuffed her emotions back into that place where she kept things she didn't want to think about, and got to work.

First things first. She dialed Henry Carroll-Wilson's cell phone. Forced to leave another message when voice mail picked up, she tried Lori's number. No answer there, either, so she left basically the same message she'd left for her brother.

Next on the list: Aaron.

She turned on her computer and searched her email. There was still no response from him. She called Nick
and was disappointed to have to leave a voice mail for him as well. She couldn't think of much to say other than “Please let me know if you've heard from Aaron.”

When she hadn't heard back from anyone by noon, she decided she was losing too much time waiting. She hunted through her file for the article about Aaron. Skimming, she made notes on an index card. His last name was Sparks. His hometown was Gettysburg and his father was from Rising Sun, Maryland. She went online and found a phone listing for A. Sparks in Gettysburg and dialed the number. The call was forwarded to another line, and she was expecting voice mail to pick up when the call was answered.

“Hello?”

“Is this Aaron Sparks?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes. Who's this?”

Emme introduced herself and explained that she was following up on the email he received from Nick Perone.

“Oh. Right. Belle's uncle.” He stifled a yawn. “I didn't get around to answering that yet.”

“Well, since I have you on the phone, I can save you the trouble. I'll ask you a few quick questions, you can give me a few quick answers, and hopefully that will take care of it.”

“Is Belle really missing?” he asked softly.

“Yes, Aaron. She really is missing.”

“You swear?”

“I swear. Why would I make that up?”

“Because she …” he hesitated.

“Because she what, Aaron?”

“Because it's just weird timing, that's all,” he mumbled.

“Because she was looking for Donor 1735?”

“No. Because she found him.”

“She found—” Emme took a deep breath. She hadn't expected this.

“Well, she thought she did, anyway.”

“Did she give you a name?”

“Uh-uh. She just sent me an email one time that said
bingo
, all in capital letters. I wrote back and asked if she'd gotten lucky and she wrote back that she was pretty sure she had, that she'd keep me posted but I didn't hear from her again.”

“That was your last contact from her? Do you remember when you got that email?”

“I think it was after Christmas break from school.”

Emme thought for a moment before asking, “How did she track her donor, Aaron?”

“Same way I tracked mine. I walked her through the process, but she was pretty much doing it on her own. Belle was one smart chick.”

“Can you walk me through it? I'm guessing she contacted you first via email and told you she wanted to search for her donor the way you had.”

“Right.”

“Then what?”

“Mostly, at first, she asked pretty general questions. Like, what lab did I use and how did I find it. Stuff like that.”

“How did you find the lab?”

“Online. That was the easy part.”

“So then she asked you to help her and you said yes. What steps did—”

“Well, actually, no. I told her I couldn't help her.”

“Why wouldn't you help someone who was trying to do the same thing you did?”

“I said I couldn't help her, not that I wouldn't.”

“I'm not following you, Aaron.”

“Belle wanted to find her donor the same way I found mine, but that wasn't possible. I tracked my donor through my Y chromosome DNA.” He paused to let that sink in.

“Which Belle, being a female, wouldn't have.” Emme gave herself a mental slap on the forehead. “The Y chromosome is passed male to male, father to son.”

“Right. It's sort of like the way the last name is passed on, you know? Boys get the X chromosome from their mom, and the Y from their dad. Girls get two X chromosomes, one from each parent. No Y chromosome, no Y chromosome-DNA test. No way to find the donor using the method I used.”

“But you just said that Belle later told you she found her donor.” Emme frowned. “How did she do that without the right DNA?”

“I didn't ask her who she got it from. But she came back a few weeks later and told me she had the DNA goods. I walked her through it from there.”

“She didn't say where the DNA came from?”

“Nope.”

One of the brothers, Emme thought. It had to have come from one of the brothers. Henry? The twins? Justin?

“Can you take me through the steps you went through with her?”

“Oh, sure. But …”

“But what?”

“But I might not have the information she sent me about 1735 anymore. I don't know if I kept all that.”

“What information?” Emme frowned.

“Where he was born and when. Where he went to college. What his ethnic background was. All the stuff the clinic would have given to Belle's mom.” He paused. “You know how I found my donor, right? I knew where he was born and the date and his ethnic background, which was Italian. After I had the DNA markers run through the online genealogy databases, I found a couple of guys with the same Italian last name. I went online and found one person who was born on the right date in the right city with that last name. So even if you had the DNA from the donor, without the rest of the information, you're not going to find him.”

“Can you check to see if you still have Belle's info and get back to me?”

“Sure. I'll do that right now. Can you hold on?”

“I've got all day.”

It only took six minutes.

“Sorry,” he told her. “I must have deleted those emails.”

“And there's no way to get them back?”

“I don't think so.” He grew quiet. “Maybe … I don't know. I can ask my buddy. He's like a super tech whiz.”

“Would you do that, Aaron? Please.”

He hesitated. “I'm wondering if this is a cool thing to do or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was one thing to help Belle find her donor, but I
don't know about this. How do I know who you really are? How do I know this is really, like, kosher?”

She gave him the website address for the Mercy Street Foundation. “Check it out. Check out Robert Magellan. Belle has been missing since January, Aaron. Her uncle came to us to help find her because the police had no luck. There's a real good possibility that maybe she found her donor, maybe he knows where she is.” She felt herself losing patience. “And besides all that, we have no other leads.”

“I guess it's okay,” he said. “I'll call my friend and see what he can do.”

“Thank you, Aaron. If we find her—if she's still alive—we'll have you to thank.”

There was a long silence on the phone. “You think maybe she's not alive?” he asked, his voice quivering.

She could have kicked herself for that slip.

“There's always that chance when someone's been missing for so long.”

“Shit.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” she agreed. “Call me after you talk to your buddy. I'll be waiting to hear from you.”

She hung up and pondered her next step. She had the names of four of the male-donor siblings. Which one would Belle have contacted for a DNA swab?

Henry was the most likely. She tried calling him again, but had to leave another message. She didn't have phone numbers for Justin or the twins. She went to the donor-sibling website and posted a general message.

She sat back and rubbed her temples, berating herself. She certainly was no DNA expert, but she certainly should have figured out that you couldn't trace Y chromosomes through a female offspring.

She got up and walked to the window and looked out on a perfect summer day.
Which of your brothers came through for you, Belle, and what did you do with the results of his test?

What would I have done?
Emme asked herself.

I'd have found the lab, just like Aaron said, and I would have sent the swab in. Then when I got the results back, I would have sent them in to the databases, just like Aaron did. But first, before I sent the report anywhere, I would have made a copy. Several copies. I would have kept at least one—maybe more than one, in different places, just for safety's sake, since I wouldn't take chances with something that precious. And I would have sent a copy to the brother who'd given me his DNA.

She walked back to her computer and checked her mail. Nothing yet. She wondered how long she'd have to wait before one of the boys owned up—if he'd own up at all. She sent out one more email to the four boys, an addendum, telling them it was okay if they didn't want to own up to having given Belle their
DNA, but in the alternative, a copy of the DNA profile Belle had sent back to them would be just fine. She typed the address of the foundation on the bottom of the email and hit send. There was nothing she could do now except wait.

F
or the third time that day, he sat at his desk, checking her new emails. It had become almost an obsession. At first, he'd only wanted to know what she knew, who she corresponded with on a regular basis, whom she'd told what. Once he had the answers to those questions, he wanted to know more, and so the game had begun. He'd studied the emails for her style, and thought he'd been doing a pretty damned good job mimicking her. He was clearly winning this round: He knew who, and he knew what. Now he had to figure out how best to resolve this particular mess.

This latest one was a bit of a mystery to him.

The email wasn't signed and he was certain it wasn't anyone he knew. Lori's roommate, maybe? He debated the wisdom of replying to a message from someone who might pick up right away that he wasn't Lori. As much as he'd love to play with
Pammiegirl22's head right now, he really shouldn't. He'd put that one on ice for a while and see what happened.

He reopened and reclosed emails that were months old. She and Belle had been busy little bees, hadn't they? And so eager to share with their donor siblings.

He lingered over the photos that Belle had sent Lori of Belle, Will, and Wayne on a Georgia beach the year before. Once again he enlarged the photo to fill the screen. Belle was so perfect, with her pretty skin and that long beautiful hair. And her smile … she really did have a beautiful smile. It made him happy just to look at her face and remember when one of her smiles had been for him.

The twins, well, they were a different story. It had been a source of irritation to find that they had the same hairline that he had. The same shape of the face. The same eyes. The resemblance, while not overly strong, was definitely there.