“No. They’re out front.”
Angie followed the big blonde to the reception area. Through the bullet-resistant glass above the counter she saw a male in his thirties seated in a chair beside a slight, mousy-looking female. The male wore plain clothes, but Angie could see the police badge on his belt where his jacket folded back. A file folder rested in his lap. A thread of trepidation curled through Angie. She unlocked the side door and entered the reception area. The man stood immediately.
“I’m Angie Pallorino,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“Constable Shawn Pietrikowski, RCMP missing persons,” the male said. “And this is Kira Tranquada, BC Coroner’s Service.”
The young woman stepped forward and extended her hand. Her rain jacket bore the Coroner’s Service logo on the left breast. “I’m with the IDRU—the identification and disaster response unit,” she said.
“What’s this about?” Angie said as her brain raced through past cases she’d worked, trying to figure out if these two were here because of something she’d been investigating.
“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Pietrikowski said.
Angie hesitated. “Come this way.” She led them through the reception door and down a long corridor toward interview room B. They entered, and she shut the door behind them. It was one of the smaller rooms. A two-way mirror hid a tiny observation area. A table was pushed up against the wall, three chairs around it. Mounted up the far corner near the ceiling was a discreet camera and audio feed.
“Take a seat,” she said, pulling up a chair for herself.
Tranquada set her bag down on the floor beside a chair and removed her jacket. As she draped it over the back of the chair, she glanced pointedly at Angie’s boots. The sense of trepidation deepened in Angie.
The pair seated themselves. Pietrikowski positioned his folder squarely on the table in front of him. He flicked a glance at the two-way mirror and cleared his throat. “To confirm, for the record, you are Angela Pallorino, adopted daughter of Joseph and Miriam Pallorino?”
His words hit Angie like a mallet. Blood rushed from her head.
“What is this about?” she snapped. “Is it my mother? Has something happened to my father?”
“So that’s an affirmative—you are Angela Pallorino?”
“Yes, I’m Angela Pallorino,” she snapped. “Daughter of Joseph and Miriam Pallorino. And yes, I was adopted. How do you know this? What relevance is this?”
Po-faced, the RCMP officer carefully opened his file. On top of the documents contained inside was a photograph. He unclipped the photo and slid it toward her.
Time stood still. Angie stared at the photo—the same dirty little high-top runner from the news. The one that had washed up at Tsawwassen. Something grayish-white inside. Nausea began to rise in her belly along with a fierce urge to flee.
Uciekaj, uciekaj! Run . . . run . . .
“Do you recognize this shoe?”
Pulse racing, she slowly raised her gaze to meet the Mountie’s. She turned to look at the woman from the coroner’s office.
I’m with the identification and disaster response unit . . .
“This looks like the shoe I saw on the news,” Angie said carefully.
“It was found—”
“I know where it was found,” Angie said, voice clipped, anxiety rising. “I said, I’ve seen the news.”
Tranquada swallowed and shuffled uncomfortably in her chair at Angie’s sharp retort.
“You haven’t seen that shoe anywhere else?” Pietrikowski said. “Maybe you remember it from some years back?”
“What in the hell is this?”
Tranquada leaned forward and touched the photograph gently. “We managed to obtain a viable DNA sample from this foot. We got a cold hit to a known individual in our system.”
A buzz started in Angie’s head.
“The DNA is a match to yours, Ms. Pallorino,” said the officer. “An identical match.”
CHAPTER 22
Angie stared at the photo of the shoe—a little life raft. A preservation container. Its contents safe from underwater scavengers. It could have floated for miles and miles and miles from anywhere. She felt like Alice going down the rabbit hole, falling, falling, spinning, spiraling downward, and nothing was making sense. Silent, the dour-faced Mountie assessed her. Tranquada watched her, too.
Angie leaned forward, opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again and said, “I don’t understand.” She looked up from the photo and met Tranquada’s dun-colored eyes. “Identical DNA? What does that even mean? Are you saying I could have had a monozygotic twin?”
“If you’ve still got two feet, yes, it’s possible,” said Tranquada.
“Of course I have two feet,” Angie snapped.
“The other alternative is that there’s an error. Or an adventitious match, which is a match obtained when the DNA profiles from two individuals match just by chance.” Tranquada’s dun eyes were gleaming. This novelty, this cold hit, was exciting to her. Angie got that, on a professional level. But to her, this was a whole other animal right now.
“Also,” Tranquada continued, “antiquated RFLP analysis was used on the original sample, which was standard from 1986 to around 2000, so we’d like to take a new sample to confirm the match. We can take a buccal swab now, if that’s okay with you?”
Twice in one day—you have got to be kidding me.
“Why is my DNA even in your IDRU system?” Angie said, voice clipped, blood pressure rising. “It’s not like I’m in the National DNA Data Bank for convicted offenders, either.”
“Your profile was provided to the IDRU by the Vancouver Police Department,” Officer Pietrikowski said.
“I . . . didn’t know that the VPD has my DNA profile on file.”
“They don’t,” the Mountie replied. “Detective Arnold Voight submitted your DNA to the IDRU before he retired from the VPD.”
“He submitted an MPQ,” Tranquada explained. “That’s a missing persons query. It included your DNA from the angel’s cradle case.” She reached down into her bag and pulled out a biological evidence collection kit as she spoke. “The IDRU was created expressly to identify human remains found in this province and to do it in a coordinated fashion.” She placed the kit on the table. Angie tensed.