“What was her story?”
“That she fired Priscilla the day she died.”
“She was going to tell that?”
“Well, no, she was going to say that all the little kids loved Priscilla.”
“Then why fire her?”
“For telling the truth.” Sam told the whole story, according to both women, as it had been told to him.
“So that would be ‘The Awful Parents,’ I guess. But who are ‘The Other Awful Parents’?”
“Her own, I think. Or vice versa.”
“So that could explain the incredibly impersonal service. I’ve never seen one like it. All those fancy people there to hear nothing about her, at least not until the mourner rebellion.”
“Mourner rebellion.” Sam nodded. “That’s what it was.”
“The mom and dad looked as if they’d wandered into a funeral for a stranger.”
“I just got slapped by one of them.”
The detective’s eyes widened. “What did you do, tell them you liked her?”
“I suggested to her mom that if she ever wants to know for sure whether her husband had molested their daughter, I still have some DNA that could prove it one way or the other.”
“Holy moly, Doc. Let’s walk while you tell me more.”
As they got up to enter the park, the detective pointed to the bucket list. “Who are Sydney and Allen, do you know?”
“Sydney is the sister who hated Priss for giving away three million dollars to charity, and I’m guessing that Allen is Priss’s boyfriend who cheated on her with her sister.”
“Man, oh, man,” the detective said. “Am I ever glad you gave her a piece of paper with your name on it.” He laughed a little. “What about this last name? Dustin.”
“Don’t know,” he said, lying.
As they parted, the detective said, “Don’t worry. We’ll catch her killer the easy way—with surveillance video.”
Sam’s heart picked up its pace.
He had worried about exactly that possibility.
He steadied his voice: “A camera in the park?”
“No, across the street from her building.”
For the first time that day, Sam felt beyond nervous, beyond anxious, and deep into frightened. When he shook hands in farewell, he hoped his palm wasn’t as sweaty as he feared it was.
At the last minute, he found the nerve to ask, “Have you looked at it yet?”
“The video?” The cop shook his head. “No, but I hear it’s good stuff. See ya, Doc. You gave me good stuff, too. Thanks.”
Sam got his breathing under control and then called home just to hear his wife’s voice. She was an architect, working from their house.
“How’s tricks?” she answered, their habitual query.
“Okay. How are you and Eric?”
They had a ten-year-old son, the light of both of their lives.
He would have been adopted if they’d gone through proper channels, if Sam hadn’t put the proper papers under his patient’s nose and whisked them away to be shredded after Priscilla signed them. No one was ever supposed to know her baby was a child of incest; Eric was only ever supposed to know that he had been loved by a young mom who couldn’t keep him. And when the time came for him to ask about her, she would have vanished into bureaucratic thin air. He would never know where she was, she would never know where he was, and everybody would be happier for it.
Priss had named him Dustin.
Of course, he would be on her bucket list.
Of course, she would want to see him once more before she died, if only from a painful distance. That’s what Sam’s wife Cassity had predicted when he told her about Priscilla’s diagnosis. His wife, so smart, so empathetic, had immediately cried, with desperation and doom in her voice, “She’s going to want to see him, Sam! It’s going to ruin his life!”
And ours, Sam had realized at that moment.
At first, he’d tried to convince himself that nothing could happen, for Priscilla couldn’t find any of the information she might seek; she didn’t possess copies of the paperwork and had been too young to know to ask for them.
But he realized that if she were as determined as he knew she was capable of being, she would then come to him, asking for the information: Where is my child?
What would he tell her? He could lie, but that would only lead her to an adoption agency that had never heard of her. He could tell her the truth—that he had fooled her and taken her baby—a revelation that could spiral into disaster.
Maybe she’ll be happy I did it, he’d tried to convince himself. Maybe she’ll think it’s all for the best.
But what if she didn’t? Could they take that chance?
They could lose Eric.
Losing his medical license would be the least of Sam’s punishments; losing Eric would be the very worst. Between those two consequences would be kidnapping charges against him and his wife.
“Honey,” Cassity said, interrupting his terrified thoughts, “he’s still at school. Are you so busy you’ve lost track of time?”
“I guess so. Speaking of … gotta go. Love you guys.”
“Ditto, Doctor.”