The point is, though, that if the phone call was from Laura and she's aware that she's considered missing, why wouldn't she be somewhat more specific about her plans?" Gordon Amory asked. "I wouldn't put it past someone like that Perkins kid to try to keep his hot story going by pulling a stunt like this. Laura was on that TV series for a couple of years. She has a distinctive voice. Maybe some drama student Perkins knows is imitating her for him."

"What do you think, Sam?" Mark Fleischman asked.

"If you want a cop's response, it's that whether or not Laura Wilcox made that call, I'm not satisfied by it."

Fleischman nodded. "That's the way I feel."

Carter Stewart was cutting his steak with decisive strokes. "There is another factor that should be considered. Laura is an actress on the skids. I happen to know she's just this side of being homeless."

He glanced around the table and looked smugly at the startled expressions on the faces of the others. "My agent phoned. There was a juicy little item in the business section of the L.A. Times today. The IRS is foreclosing on Laura's house to satisfy a tax lien."

He paused to lift the fork to his lips, then continued: "Which means that Laura may well be desperate. Publicity is the name of the game for an actress. Good publicity, bad publicity, it doesn't really matter. Anything to keep your name in the headlines. Maybe this is her way of doing it. Mysterious disappearance. Mysterious phone call. Frankly, I think we're all wasting our time worrying about her."

"It never crossed my mind that you were worried about her, Carter," Robby Brent commented. "I think that other than Jean, the only person who really might be concerned is our chairman, Jack Emerson. Right, Jack?"

"What's this?" Sam wondered aloud.

Robby smiled innocently. "Jack and I had a date this morning to look at some real estate that I might invest in, or at least might have considered investing in were it not so wildly overpriced. Jack was on the phone when I got to his place, and while I waited for him to talk to yet another few potential suckers, I looked over the collection of pictures in his den. There was a pretty sentimental inscription on one of Laura, dated exactly two weeks ago. 'Love and kisses and hugs to my favorite classmate.' It makes me wonder, Jack. How many hugs and kisses did she give you over the weekend, and is she still giving them to you?"

For an instant Jean thought that Jack Emerson would physically attack Robby Brent. Emerson bolted up, slapped both hands on the table, and stared across at Robby. Then, in a visible effort to control himself, he clenched his teeth and slowly lowered himself back into the chair. "There is a lady present," he said quietly. "Otherwise, I'd be using the kind of language you understand best, you miserable little toad. Maybe you've made a good living ridiculing people who managed to accomplish something in their lives, but as far as I'm concerned, you're still the same bird brained dope who couldn't find his way to the bathroom at Stonecroft."

Dismayed at the exchange of raw hostility, Jean's eyes swept the room to be sure there was no waiter present to overhear Jack Emerson's outburst. When her gaze reached the door, she could see that it was partly open. She had no doubt as to who was on the other side, taking in every word of the conversation.

She exchanged glances with Sam Deegan. Sam stood up. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'd better skip coffee," he said. "I have a phone call to trace."

51

Peggy Kimball was a generously sized woman of about sixty who emanated an air of warmth and intelligence. Her salt-and-pepper hair had a natural wave; her complexion was smooth except for the fine lines around her mouth and eyes. Jean had the immediate impression that Peggy was a no-nonsense person and that it would take a lot to faze her.

They both waved away menus and ordered coffee. "My daughter picked up her kids an hour ago," Peggy said. "I had cornflakes and cocoa with them at seven o'clock, or was it at six-thirty?" She smiled. "You must have thought you were listening to Armageddon on the phone last night."

"I teach a college freshman class," Jean said. "Sometimes I think those students sound younger than toddlers, and they certainly can be noisier."

The waiter poured the coffee. Peggy Kimball looked directly at Jean, her bantering demeanor gone. "I do remember you, Jean," she said. "Dr. Connors handled many adoptions for young girls in your position. I felt sorry for you because you were one of the very few who ever came to the office alone. Most of the girls were accompanied by a parent or some other concerned adult, sometimes even by the baby's father, who was usually just another scared teenage kid."

"Be that as it may," Jean said quietly, "we're here because I am a concerned adult worrying about the nineteen-year-old girl who is my daughter and who may need help."

Sam Deegan had taken the original faxes, but she had made copies of them along with the DNA report, which verified that the strands of hair on the brush were Lily's. She took them out of her bag and showed them to Kimball. "Peggy, suppose it was your daughter," she said. "Wouldn't you be upset? Wouldn't you construe all this as a threat?" She looked Peggy in the eye.

"Yes, I would."

"Peggy, do you know who adopted Lily?"

"No, I do not."

"A lawyer had to have handled the paperwork. Do you know what lawyer or law firm Dr. Connors used?"

Peggy Kimball hesitated, then said slowly, "I doubt there was a lawyer involved in your case, Jean."

There's something she's afraid to tell me, Jean thought. "Peggy, Dr. Connors flew out to Chicago a few days before my due date, induced labor, and took Lily from me hours after she was born. Do you know if he registered her birth in Chicago or back here?"

Kimball stared reflectively at the coffee cup she was holding, then looked back at Jean. "I don't know about you specifically, Jean, but I do know that sometimes Dr. Connors registered a birth directly to the adoptive parents, as though the woman had been the natural mother."

"But that's illegal," Jean protested. "He had no right to do that."

"I know he didn't, but Dr. Connors had a friend who knew he was adopted and spent his adult life trying to track his birth family. It became an obsession with him, even though he was deeply loved by the adoptive parents and was treated exactly as they treated their birth children. Dr. Connors said it was a damn shame that he ever was told he was adopted."

"Then you're saying that maybe there was no original birth certificate, and no lawyer involved. Lily may believe that the people who adopted her are her natural parents!"

"It's possible, especially since Dr. Connors flew to Chicago to deliver your baby himself. Over the years he sent several girls to that nursing home in Chicago. It usually meant he was bypassing registering the birth with the natural mother's name on the certificate. Jean, there's something else you must realize. Lily's birth may not necessarily have been registered either here or in Chicago. It might have been treated as an 'at-home birth' in Connecticut or New Jersey, for example. Dr. Connors was well known throughout the area for arranging private adoptions."

She reached across the table and impulsively grasped Jean's hand. "Jean, you talked to me at that time. I remember that you said you wanted your baby to be happy and to be loved, and you hoped that it would grow up with a mother and father who were crazy about each other and who also thought the sun rose and set on their child. I'm sure you told Dr. Connors the same thing. Maybe, in a way, he thought he was carrying out your wishes by sparing Lily the longing to find you."