The Wrong Girl (45 page)

“Jane, we’re so grateful.” Carlyn began.

Tuck had pulled the charm bracelet from her pocket.

“Jane? My mother—my adoptive mother—is dying. You know that. The nurse called this morning. To let my mother say—well, I’m flying down there tonight.”

“I’m so sorry.” No wonder Tuck’s voice had sounded strange.

Tuck held up the bracelet. Carlyn moved behind her, draped an arm across her shoulders. “She told me that
she’d
made this bracelet.
She’d
written the note. To prevent me from finding my birth mother. Remember I told you she’d hate that I was looking? So this morning she said…”

Jane watched Tuck struggle for words. Her eyes welled with tears and Carlyn comforted her.

“Go ahead, honey,” Carlyn said. “We understand she did it out of love, sweetheart. Out of thinking you’d be happier.”

Tuck took a deep breath. “She said she couldn’t face me, but had to tell me the truth. Let go of the guilt. All these years, she wanted me to feel loved by
her.
That she was my only ‘real’ mother. That she and Dad were my real family. She knew if anyone tried to say otherwise, I’d use the bracelet and note to prove they were wrong.”

“Which she almost did. Right, honey?” Carlyn handed the footprint back to Jane. “But that’s why we don’t need the footprint, Jane. I’m so happy to introduce you to—”

“Audrey Rose Beerman.” Tuck blinked away the tears. The bracelet twinkled in the milky sun. “The
right
girl. The rightest girl in the world.”

Jane stabbed the elevator button, again and again. If the
Register
people didn’t fix this, she was going to—Damn. No time.

She yanked open the stairwell door, raced up the three flights, down the hall, and toward Alex’s office. She stood in the hallway, catching her breath.

Scrabbling her hair into place and clutching Ella’s bag of documents—Alex was gonna love the footprint thing—she headed toward his office, marshaling her pitch. She’d have the scoop on the arrest for the Lillian Finch murder. No conflict of interest there. They couldn’t lay her off now.

A flutter in her chest as she approached Alex’s office
. Calm down, Jane.

She would dig up the whole deal on what happened at the Brannigan, too. The Tuck thing—well, that was a happy ending. Happy-
ish
. But what documents had burned in the fire? Had other families been sent the wrong children? It could be a huge story. But she’d need time to research it. And write it. She’d need a job to make that happen.

Alex was there, she saw him through the window in his jeans and starched oxford shirt, standing behind his desk, sorting manila folders. Not on the phone.

She knocked, twice, didn’t wait for an okay.

“Alex, listen to this!” She was smiling, big time, but hey, this was a big scoop. “I’ve got a
hell
of a story.”

Alex did not return her smile.

“Yeah, Jane.” He gestured her toward the couch. Which was empty. No piles of files, no documents, no clutter. Just couch.

“Sit down, okay?” he said.

Her face went cold. Her heart weighed a million pounds.
The layoffs.
What Hec—whoever—had warned her about. This was it. She was being laid off.

“What, Alex?” She stayed in the doorway, struggled to hide her emotions.

“You know we’ve had some … difficulties, here at the
Register,
” Alex said. “I wanted to tell you face-to-face. That’s why I haven’t been answering your calls. Really. Please sit.”

Jane lowered herself to the couch, then stood again.

“Am I—,” she began. She could take it. “Just tell me.”

“You’re fine,” Alex said. “The fifth floor is impressed. You’re tough, and determined, and a real team player. Now that Leonard Perl’s arrested—the whole Hec Underhill thing—you’re clear to come back.”

“So why did—?”

“It’s me they’re letting go, Jane. Someone had to take the hit for hiring Hec. And that was me.”

Jane sat down. Stared at her knees for a silent moment.

“I’m so sorry.” She wasn’t fired. It was Alex. That’s why no one had told her.

“I’ll be fine, Jane. I’ve got a lead on a new job in Washington, D.C. Your pal Amy still there? Maybe we can all have dinner. Sometime. Now that I’m not … your boss anymore.”

“But that’s so unfair.” Getting blamed for something he couldn’t have known. He’d gotten her this job. Backed her. Trusted her. Now he was leaving.

“Life’s not fair. It’s only short.” Finally he smiled. “My last day isn’t until tomorrow. Tell me about your story.”

*

Jake would never feel comfortable holding an infant. Little Diane had a death grip on his forefinger. Her tiny fingers barely made it around. He shifted on Bethany’s living room couch, worrying.

“You’re a natural,” Bethany Sibbach said. “Look how she’s cuddling into you. You ever thought about having kids, Detective?”

He had, of course. And someday, maybe soon, he’d want to talk about it, with Jane. But it was this little girl whose future he was interested in now. He’d promised Maggie Gunnison he’d make sure Diane Marie was taken care of. He’d been haunted by that. Now they were onto the whole scheme, and the DA had taken over.

But why should the baby be an innocent victim? He’d called Bethany to see if there was anything he could do. Instead of answering, she’d asked him to come over.

“Me and kids? That’s a story for another day,” Jake said. “But this particular kid—”

“—is staying with me,” Bethany said. “We knew her birth mother is deceased, and her father—unknown. So. I wanted to tell you in person. I got the okay from the DFS director. She pulled some strings. Special circumstances. Paperwork’s making its way through the system. She’ll be Diane Marie Sibbach. I’ll be her mom.”

Bethany tickled the little girl gently under her chin, scooped her out of Jake’s arms. “Right, sweetie? Right?”

“Phillip and Phoebe?” Jake asked. They were both upstairs, naptime. Bethany told him Phillip
had
seemed to recognize Diane, but wasn’t particularly interested.

“Off the record? We have a wonderful family all set to adopt them.” Bethany’s eyes were on Diane, swaddled in pink fleece, only her pudgy face showing. “I’ll keep special watch on them, extra close. We can’t control everyone’s lives, Detective. In foster care families, as in any family, we can’t make certain everything works out for every child. All we can do is love them. And do our best.”

“I promise,” Jane said. Her fingers itched to push the green play button, but this was Jake’s show. He’d sent his assistant on an errand so they could be alone in his office at police HQ. Jane had banged out an exclusive front-pager for this morning’s paper about the Munson and Brannigan arrests, but she knew there was more to the story. She was about to see it.

“You cannot say I showed you this,” Jake said. “It’s strictly background. We’re on to this case because of you. I owe you. Not because it’s you, Janey. It’s only fair. And the Supe is aware. But if you reveal—”

“I promise.” Jake had Collins Munson’s confession on video. And she was about to see it.

“This is conference room B. Munson’s in a folding chair at the table. My back’s to the camera. The woman’s his lawyer,” Jake said. “She objected, but after an overnight in a Suffolk County jail cell, probably contemplating life without parole, Munson insisted. I have to admit, Jane, his defense is a new one. I forwarded the tape to the relevant part.”

“
Let me. See. The video,
” Jane pleaded.
Geez.

Jake hit the green button.

“So how many were there, Mr. Munson?” Jake’s voice came over the tinny speakers.

“Have you heard any complaints?” Munson said.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Jake said. “You took the footprints out of the files so the probative evidence was gone. Ms. Finch found out, obtained copies from hospitals, and threatened to expose you. So you killed her.”

“Has anyone called to say they’re unhappy?” Munson took a pocket square from his jacket, polished his glasses, examined the lenses in the fluorescent lights. He wore a tweed jacket and gray slacks. No tie or belt.

Jake made a mark on his legal pad. “Mr. Munson, your role was to reunite, on request, birth parents with the children they’d put up for adoption. But you were sending—just anyone?”

Munson flipped a palm, derisive. “Of course not. When there was a true match, marvelous. That’s our goal, after all. But for many of our clients, the birth mothers were—shall we say—uninterested. Or dead. I’ve handled these cases for many years, hundreds of them. Thousands. Many of these connections could never be made. Then I thought, if we matched basic characteristics, eye color and age and such, how would they know?”

Jane couldn’t help it. She pushed stop. “How would they
know
?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “He realized—well, listen. We don’t have much time.”

He pushed play.

“How would they know?” Jake asked on the tape.

“Precisely,” Munson said. “The children were infants when they were left at the Brannigan. No memories, no history, no idea of their origin. The birth parents, too, had seen their child only briefly. If at all. How would they know what they’d look like as adults? I mean, who would ask for a DNA test? When the agency offers you your
child
? Your
mother
? We simply took the outliers, often the ones whose birth parents were deceased, or where the child was deceased, and put them together. It was all they ever wanted. To be a family. We could give it to them.”

“We?” Jake said.

“‘We,’ the Brannigan,” Munson said. “But
I
put the families together.
I
created them. I
was
the Brannigan. No matter what that pompous ass Niall thought. Or Lillian, who was about to ruin it all.”

Jane pushed pause. The screen froze.

“You didn’t tell him about Ella, right?” she asked. “That she figured it out? Because—”

“Jane,” Jake said. “Gimme a break.”

He pushed play.

“So let me get this straight,” Jake said on the video. “Every time—”

“Of course not,” Munson said. “Of course not
every
time. Sometimes, the request came in and the family was available and it all fit together without my … help. Sometimes, however, we had to give Mother Nature a little nudge.”

“Did they pay you?”

No answer.

“Munson?”

A woman’s voice came from off camera. “Collins, you agreed.”

“Of course they paid me,” Munson said. “I would explain they had a difficult case. The Brannigan simply did not have the resources to do extensive research in the whereabouts of birth parents who did not want to be found. Or children who did not want to be found. I explained I knew a top-notch investigator who could help them. Separately. For a fee. Of
course
they paid. They’d pay anything.”

“Who was that investigator?” Jake asked.

Munson stared at the camera, his disdain apparent. “Detective. There was no investigator. I took their money. I chose a family.
Et voilà
.”

Jane pushed pause. “Holy—”

“Yeah. It’s almost over.” Jake pushed play.

“So as I asked, Mr. Munson,” Jake said on the tape. “How many times? And you’ll need to provide the records of the instances where you sent—”

“You really want that, Detective?” Munson asked. “All those happy families we created. You think it’s best to ruin their lives?”

Jane pushed stop. The screen went black.

“Yeah, you know? Tuck thought she was the wrong girl because of the bracelet. But she was the right girl, in the end. And they’re so happy. But this means there are other adults out there, living with people they’ve been deceived into believing are their families.”

Jake shook his head. “I know. It’s sick, really. We’re trying to figure out what’s illegal about it.”

“Can you just leave them? With the people they love?” Jane sat in one of Jake’s office chairs, leaned back, stared at the ceiling.
Medical histories. Genetics. Inheritance. Truth.
Would she want to know?

“All those families,” she said. “It puts their whole lives into question.”

She clacked the chair upright again. “What are you going to do?”

Jane propped her feet on the low wooden coffee table in Jake’s living room. Took a sip of her wine, leaned back into the couch cushions. Jake’s feet were next to hers. Their socks touched. This was perfect. But she couldn’t allow herself to get used to it.

Diva had flattened her golden retriever self on the floor against the couch, stretched out, from nose to plumy tail, under their legs.

“Diva would probably eat Coda,” Jane said. “No way that’d work.”

“We could figure it out.” Jake took a swig of his beer.

They sat in silence, listening to the evening street sounds, a car or two, the buzz of an airplane.

“Ella’s gonna be okay,” Jake said. “She’s talking—well, writing—the District Attorney. They’ll decide what to do about the Brannigan ‘families.’ Good thing
we
don’t have to. You know Ella said—wrote—that Munson had offered to find Ella her birth mother. Imagine if they had? And gave her an impostor family?”

“It’s incredibly sad,” Jane said. She’d been promised the scoop on the Brannigan story. Alex had insisted she send it to him in Washington. His office was empty now. There was already buzz about the new city editor. “People. Families, you know. Everyone’s is crazy, some of the time at least. But still—”

She touched Jake’s toe with hers. Thought about her mom, and her father, and home. Thought about families. Maybe she
should
go visit. Her father meant well. He just wasn’t good at showing it. People weren’t perfect. Life was short.

“—that’s all this whole Brannigan thing was about, you know? Families. People would do anything to find theirs. So Munson took their money, and sold them one. Sold them a family. He actually believed he was doing a good thing?”

“Yeah, so he insists,” Jake said. “Not killing Lillian, of course. Or taking Ardith. But by then he was trapped. Maggie Gunnison thought she was helping, too. No good deed, you know? The DA is considering probation for her, though, now that she’s promised to help untangle that paperwork.”