“Too much wild party for me last night,” Jenny rasped, rubbing her throat. She gave me a confused
“Ian and I have some issues to talk about related to Noelle’s estate,” I said. I thought she was looking at the book and file in my arms with suspicion, but that might have been my paranoia. “What can I get you, Jen?” I asked her. “Some tea with lemon and honey?”
“I’m just going to crash again,” she said.
“Good idea. Want some juice to take up with you?”
“Yeah. Maybe.” She headed for the refrigerator, but I beat her to it. I set the record book and file on the kitchen table and quickly poured a glass of orange juice. Ian stood quietly next to the island, and I knew he didn’t know what was safe to do or say. I handed the glass to Jenny.
“Thanks,” she said. “See you all later.”
“She sounds miserable,” Ian said as we watched her head for the stairs.
“I know.” I moved the spanokopita from the baking pan to a plate. “We can nibble party leftovers,” I said, setting the plate on the kitchen table.
“Your hands are shaking,” Ian said, and then he lowered his voice. “Is this really about Noelle’s will or the… other things we’ve been talking about with regard to her?”
“Neither.” I rested my hands on the island and let myself simply breathe in and out for a moment. “I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said finally, glancing toward the hallway and the stairs. I’d really wanted no one home for this conversation. Especially not a sick kid who might need me. I motioned to the table. “Have a seat,” I said. “I have coffee? Iced tea? I can brew decaf if you like. Or you might actually need a glass of wine when I tell you what I have to say.”
“Coffee’s good.” He lowered himself to one of the kitchen chairs, his eyes never leaving my face.
I poured him a cup, then sat down at the end of the table, glancing toward the hallway again.
Ian looked at the book and file on the table, but didn’t touch it. “What’s this?” he asked.
I let out a long breath. “I’ve opened a gigantic can of worms and I don’t know how to get them all back in the can,” I said quietly. “I thought of just keeping it to myself, but I can’t. I don’t know who else to talk to.” I pressed my fingers to my temples. “I need your help to know what to do.”
“It’s a legal matter?” he asked.
“Yes and no.” I pulled out the typed letter Noelle had written to Anna and set it in front of him. The color drained from his face as he read it.
“Holy…” He looked up at me. Shook his head. “What’s next? I mean, seriously. What the hell is Noelle going to dump in our laps next? And who is Anna?”
I explained how I’d stumbled across the letter and how Tara and I finally figured out Anna’s identity. “But to answer your question about what’s next, I can tell you exactly what’s next.”
He looked as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
I leaned toward him. “I believe the baby Noelle dropped was Tara’s,” I said quietly.
He jerked back as if I’d stung him. “What the… Why would you think that?”
“I found the date Anna Knightly’s baby disappeared on the Missing Children’s website,” I said. “Or, at least, the date she was born. The only baby Noelle delivered during that time was Grace. Or the baby who…the
He still wore his frown as he looked up from the paper. “Wasn’t Jenny born around the same time?”
“Jenny was born on the thirty-first and Grace on September 1, but I had Jenny in the hospital and Noelle wasn’t involved at all. Tara was in labor while I was having a C-section.”
Ian looked up at the ceiling. “I distinctly remember the night Grace was born,” he said. “Noelle and I were engaged back then, remember?”
I nodded.
“She called me a few times from Sam and Tara’s, telling me how rough going it was. She was really worried. She’d talked about getting Tara to the hospital, but in the end, it worked out all right.” He abruptly shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense, Emerson,” he said. “Tara would have known if another baby was suddenly substituted for hers.”
“I don’t remember it all that well since I was busy having a baby myself, but I do remember Tara telling me she was so zonked after the delivery that she barely remembered even holding Grace until the next morning.”
“But Sam was there,” Ian said. “He would have been awake and alert and known if his baby was suddenly dead.”
“Don’t say it like that.” I shivered.
“Well, that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?” Ian sounded suddenly angry. I wished he would lower his voice. “Noelle killed a baby and somehow got rid of it and then she came up with this—” he waved at the letter “—this lamebrain plan and went to the hospital and found an appropriate substitute and brought it back and all that supposedly happened when? While Sam and Tara were sleeping on the most exciting night of their lives? It’s hard to swallow.”
“We know it happened, though,” I said. “We have it in Noelle’s own words.”
“Maybe there were babies Noelle delivered that she never recorded in her logbook,” Ian suggested.
“Then I think there would have been torn-out pages and there are none from 1994.”
