“Nope. I’ve got records of births seven years before this one. I’m sorry, honey, but maybe you weren’t born here after all.”
“Well, is there another Granite Cay Hospital? Maybe it happened there and they got the—the addresses mixed up.” Even as Riley said it, she knew how thin and desperate her explanation was. Carla knew too, and she patted Riley’s hand again gently.
“I wish I could help you, honey, I really do, but there’s nothing here.”
Riley nodded slowly, her whole body feeling numb. The room was enormous but the walls started to creep toward her. She stepped away from Carla’s counter and sat down hard on the closest chair she could find. It was grossly stained but she didn’t care.
The baby wasn’t born here. The parents didn’t exist.
If it was a regular adoption, Riley reasoned, there would be a paper trail. Unless her parents didn’t want anyone to know…
Her throat constricted. Her parents wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t just steal a baby—or adopt one and hide the records. They were rule followers, a by-the-book family. They would have told her if she were adopted.
Riley unfolded the birth certificate again, scrutinizing it, just as she had nearly every hour since she’d found it. If it were true—if her parents stole her—would the hospital have no record? Did the hospital destroy her record in an effort to protect itself? Riley felt sick and sweaty, but she didn’t want to be in that hospital for one minute longer.
She made a beeline for the automated glass doors and gulped greedily at the lukewarm, non-germ-infested air outside. She edged away from some smokers, and her heart seized when she saw a man peering at her. I know him—I know him—I know him, Riley thought, trying to shake her brain from its fog.
The train!
The second she remembered where she knew him from, he was gone, zigzagging across the hospital’s well-manicured lawn and into the parking lot. He threw a glance over her shoulder and caught Riley’s eye, his gaze so icy that she felt it zing through her.
Why was he here?
Riley considered flipping on her heel and asking Carla for a bed in the psych ward when her cell phone rang and nearly gave her a heart attack.
“Are you going to stand there all day or are you coming into the coffee place?”
Riley licked her lips, trying to pull her scattered thoughts back together. “Um, yeah. I mean, no. I’ll be right over.”
She crossed the street without looking and thanked God that her stupidity didn’t turn her into a hood ornament. She took several deep breaths before yanking open the coffeehouse door. She chanced a glance over her shoulder, expecting the train man to be right behind her, his nose pushed up against the window, but the sidewalk was empty. She turned, scanning the place for JD.
“Hey.”
He was sitting at a corner table, a spiral notebook open in front of him, its pages littered with his precise black scrawl. He pressed a coffee toward Riley and smiled. “It’s full fat. Extra whipped cream.”
She took the coffee and tried to mirror JD’s smile. By the odd way he looked at her, Riley was pretty certain that her mirrored expression was a fun house one. She leaned over and sipped her coffee.
“Almond Roca?” Riley asked, letting the sweet warmth of the coffee slip through her.
“Shot in the dark,” JD said with a shrug. “So, did you get what you needed at the hospital?”
Riley bit her bottom lip then frowned. “Actually, no.”
“No? They didn’t have Jane’s medical records? How is that possible?”
Riley took a big swig of coffee, letting it burn her throat and buy her some time. “They had the records but they—they’re not at the hospital anymore.”
JD dropped his pen and leaned back in his chair, flexing his arms over his head. Riley looked away as his biceps stretched out the arms of his T-shirt. “You mean they’re at the hall of records or something now?”
Hope bloomed in her gut. “Yes, hall of records. Carla—from the front desk—said I should go there now.” Riley looked at JD’s open notebook, at his still steaming coffee mug. “Or in a little bit.”
He flipped his book closed. “Why wait?”
“Because I have no idea where to go, for starters.”
JD sauntered over to the front counter and leaned in toward the barista. He gestured Riley over.
The barista drew a crude map on a paper napkin, explaining the busses they should take to get to the hall of records. Once they confirmed that they had it, the barista looked up at JD and then at Riley. “Whaddya’ll want at the hall of records? They don’t have anything there but ancient stuff.”
“Actually, my friend is looking for fam—”
“Farming records,” Riley interjected. “For a school project.”
JD shot her a strange look but the barista didn’t seem to notice. He just shrugged and pushed the napkin into Riley’s hand. “Well, good luck.”
“Farming records?” JD asked, his brow creased.