Open Secret

A sob escaped her. In the middle of the living room, she let her purse drop to the floor, her hands suddenly nerveless.

“They wouldn’t lie,” she said aloud, her voice cracking.

Why was she so upset? So scared? She trusted them. She did. He was crazy!

Across the room, she saw the red message light blinking on her answering machine. Heart pounding, Carrie went to it, touched the play button.

“Ms. St. John, this is Mark Kincaid. When you’re ready to talk, my phone number is…”

With a cry of rage and terror, she hit Delete.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOW COULD SHE barge into her parents’ house and demand, “Am I adopted? Did you lie to me?” It would be like asking the man you loved whether he was having an affair. There was no going back from the question.

Soften it. Laugh and say, “I know you’d have told me if I were adopted, so I feel silly even bringing the subject up, but… I am your daughter, right? Biologically as well as legally?”

No. She wouldn’t ask. She didn’t have to. Why on earth was she letting this guy she didn’t even know shake her confidence in who she was?

Carrie moaned and rolled over in bed, pulling a pillow over her head. At this speed, she was going to have to call in sick in the morning. It would be hard to function without any sleep at all.

Pillow pressed to her face, she thought, Okay. Be logical. Analyze.

This Mark Kincaid. Was he really a private investigator? Or was he some con artist pulling a scam, or even some guy using the story to approach her for some creepy reason?

She took the pillow from her face and stared at the dark ceiling. She didn’t like any of those choices. Being the target of a con artist was scary, and a creepy stalker even worse.

If he was legit, at least she wouldn’t have to keep wondering whether her dead bolt lock was really adequate. But in another way, that possibility was the most frightening of all.

With a sigh, she flicked on her bedside lamp and sat up, feeling with her feet for her slippers. She should have done some research before she went to bed, but since she wasn’t even close to sleepy, she might as well do it now, instead of spending all night stewing.

Leaving her computer booting, she heated water in the microwave for a cup of herbal tea. Chamomile was supposed to make you sleepy, right? Then, with the teabag steeping, she went online and typed, Mark Kincaid—Private Investigator.

Several dozen options popped up immediately and she thought, Oh God, he is legit. There were references to articles in the Seattle Times, the Post-Intelligencer, the Everett Herald. Apparently P.I.s belonged to associations, like everyone else. Who knew there was a Pacific Northwest Association of Investigators, a Washington Association and even a National Association of Investigative Specialists? There were Web sites that sounded like they belonged to adoption search organizations, referencing investigators who specialized in finding birth parents or adoptees. And Kincaid Investigations in Seattle had its own Web site.

She clicked on that one and found that Mark Kincaid and his partner, Gwendolyn 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.