had not responded quickly enough.
'Laura,' he whispered. 'You still don't understand. I am a bird of prey. When I have been disturbed, there is only one way I know to make myself whole. Don't tempt me with your obstinacy. Now tell me what we are going to do.'
Laura's throat was parched. The gag was pressing against her tongue. Beneath the numbness in her hands and feet, the throbbing was intensifying as every muscle tightened with fear. She closed her eyes, struggling to concentrate. 'Jean… her daughter… I sent notes.'
After she opened her eyes, the flashlight was turned off. He was no longer hovering over her. She heard the click of the door. He was gone.
From somewhere nearby she could catch the faint aroma of the coffee he had forgotten to give her.
54
The office of Craig Michaelson, Attorney at Law, was located on Old State Road, only two blocks past the motel where Jean and Cadet Carroll Reed Thornton had spent their few nights together. As Jean approached the motel, she slowed down and blinked back tears.
Her mental image of Reed was so strong, her memory of their time together so intense. She felt that if she slipped into room 108, he would be there, waiting for her. Reed with his blond hair and blue eyes, his strong arms that wrapped around her, making her feel a kind of happiness that in all her eighteen years of life she had never imagined possible.
'I dream of Jeannie…'
For a long time after Reed died, she would wake up with the music of that song drifting through her mind. We were so in love, Jean thought. He was Prince Charming to my Cinderella. He was kind and smart, and he had a maturity far beyond his twenty-two years. He loved the military life. He encouraged me as a writer. He teased me that someday when he was a general, I'd be writing his biography. When I told him I was pregnant, he was worried because he knew what his father's reaction would be to an early marriage. But then he said, 'We'll just move up our plans, Jeannie, that's all. Early marriages are not exactly unheard of in my family. My grandfather got married the day he graduated from West Point, and my grandmother was only nineteen.'
'But you told me your grandparents knew each other from the time they were babies/' she had pointed out. 'That's a lot different. They'll see me as a townie who got pregnant so that I could get you to marry me.'
Reed had covered her mouth with his hand. 'I won't listen to that kind of talk,' he'd said firmly. 'Once they know you, my parents will love you. But on the same subject, you'd better introduce me to your mother and father pretty soon.'
I had wanted to be a student at Bryn Mawr when I met Reed's parents, Jean thought. By then my mother and father would have split. If his parents had met them separately, they probably would have liked them well enough. They wouldn't necessarily have learned about their problems.
If Reed had lived.
Or even if he had to die young, if it had happened after we were married, I still could have kept Lily. Reed was an only child. His parents might have been angry about our marriage, but they surely would have been thrilled to have a grandchild.
We all lost big-time, Jean thought achingly as she put her foot down on the accelerator and sped past the motel.
Craig Michaelson's office occupied an entire floor of a building that Jean knew had not been there when she and Reed were dating. His reception area was attractive with paneled walls and wide chairs that had been upholstered in an antique tapestry pattern. Jean decided that at least on the surface it would seem that the Michaelson firm was prosperous.
She had not been sure what to expect. On the drive to Highland Falls from Cornwall she had decided that if Michaelson had been part of Dr. Connors' system of improperly registering births, he would be something of a charlatan and surely very much on the defensive.
After she had waited ten minutes, Craig Michaelson came out to the reception area himself and personally escorted her into his private office. He was a tall man in his early sixties, with a big frame and slightly sloping shoulders. His full head of hair, more dark gray than silver, looked as though he might have just left the barber. His dark gray suit was well cut, and his tie was a subdued gray-and-blue print. Everything about his appearance as well as the tasteful furnishings and paintings in his office suggested a reserved and conservative man.
Jean realized that she was not sure if that wasn't the worst possible scenario. If Craig Michaelson was
She looked directly at the lawyer as she told him about Lily and showed him the copies of the faxes and the DNA report. She sketched out her own background, reluctantly emphasizing her academic standing, the honors and awards she had received, and the fact that because of her best-selling book her financial success was a matter of public record.
Michaelson never took his eyes off her face except when he examined the faxes. She knew he was sizing her up, trying to decide if what she was telling him was the truth or just an elaborate hoax.
'Because of Dr. Connors' nurse, Peggy Kimball, I know that some of the adoptions the doctor arranged were illegal,' she said. 'What I need to know, what I beg you to tell me, is this: Did you handle my child's adoption yourself, or do you know who adopted her?'
'Dr. Sheridan, let me start by telling you that I never had any part in an adoption that was not handled to the strictest letter of the law. If at any time Dr. Connors was bypassing the law, he did so without my knowledge or involvement.'
'Then if you did handle my baby's adoption, are you telling me that it was registered with my name as the mother and the name of Carroll Reed Thornton as the father?'
'I am saying that any adoption I handled was legal.'
Years of teaching students, a small percentage of whom had been adept at dissembling and half-truths, had made Jean feel capable of spotting that practice whenever she encountered it. She knew she was encountering it now.
'Mr. Michaelson, a nineteen-and-a-half-year-old girl may be in danger. If you handled the adoption, you know who adopted her. You could try to protect her now. In fact, in my opinion, you have a moral obligation to try to protect her.'
It was the wrong thing to say. Behind silver-framed glasses, Craig Michaelson's eyes turned frosty. 'Dr. Sheridan, you have demanded that I see you today. You have come in with a story for the truth of which I have only your word. You have virtually suggested that I might have broken the law in the past, and now you are
He stood up.
For a moment Jean remained seated. 'Mr. Michaelson, I have pretty good instincts, and my instinct is that you handled my daughter's adoption and that you probably did it legally. My other very strong instinct is that whoever is writing to me and is close enough to Lily to steal her hairbrush is dangerous. I am going to go to court to try to get the records released. The fact remains, though, that in the interval, something might happen to my child because you are stonewalling me now. If it does, and I find out about it, I don't think I'll be responsible for what I'll do to you.'
