Jean felt as though huge metal doors had slammed shut right in front of her face. "Except now I have to find her," she said slowly, the words catching in her throat. "I have to find her. Peggy, you did imply that Dr. Connors didn't treat all his adoptions that way."

"No, he did not."

"Then he used a lawyer for some of them?"

"Yes, he did. That would be Craig Michaelson. He's still practicing, but he moved to Highland Falls years ago. You know where that is, I'm sure."

Highland Falls was the town nearest to West Point. "Yes, I know where it is," Jean said.

Peggy took a final sip of coffee. "I have to leave-I'm due at the hospital in half an hour," she said. "I wish I could have been more help, Jean."

"Maybe you can be," Jean said. "The fact remains that somebody found out about Lily, and maybe that happened at the time I was pregnant. Is there anyone else who was working in Dr. Connors' office who might have had access to the records?"

"No," Peggy said. "Dr. Connors kept those files under lock and key."

The waiter laid the check on the table. Jean signed it, and together the women walked into the lobby. Jack Emerson was sitting in a chair near the front desk, a newspaper on his lap. He nodded to Jean as she stood at the door saying good-bye to Peggy, then he stopped her as she passed him on the way to the elevator.

"Jean, any further word from Laura?"

"No." She was curious why Jack Emerson was in the hotel. Surely after that ugly exchange at the dinner table last night, he wouldn't want to run into Robby Brent. Then when he spoke she wondered if he could read her mind.

"I want to apologize for that exchange with Robby last night," Emerson said. "I hope you realize that was a lousy insinuation he made. I didn't ask Laura for that picture. I had written asking her to be an honoree at the reunion, and she sent it with her note of acceptance. She probably mailed out a thousand of those publicity pictures and inscribed all of them with hugs and kisses and love."

Was Jack Emerson studying her to see if she bought that explanation of the picture in his den? Jean wondered. She couldn't be certain. "You're probably right," she said dismissively. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I've got to run." Then she paused, her curiosity getting the better of her. "You look as though you're waiting for some-one.

"Gordie, I mean Gordon, did ask me to take him around and look at some property after all. He didn't like anything the hot shots from the country club showed him yesterday. I have exclusives on a couple of sites that would be perfect for corporate headquarters."

"Good luck. Oh, here's the elevator. See you, Jack."

Jean walked rapidly to the elevator and waited as some people exited. Gordon Amory was the last to get out. "Did you hear any more from Laura?" he asked hurriedly. No.

"All right. Keep me posted."

Jean stepped into the elevator and pushed the number of her floor. Craig Michaelson, she thought. I'll call him the minute I get to the room.

Outside the hotel, Peggy Kimball got into her car and fastened her seat belt. Frowning in concentration, she tried to place the man who had nodded to Jean Sheridan in the lobby. Of course, she thought. That was Jack Emerson, the real estate guy who bought the property after our building burned down ten years ago.

She put the key in the ignition and turned it. Jack Emerson, she thought contemptuously. There had been a suggestion at the time that he might have had something to do with that fire. He not only wanted that property, but it had come out that he knew the building like the back of his hand. In high school he had made his spending money working a couple of evenings a week on the cleaning crew there. Was he working in the building when Jean was seeing Dr. Connors? Peggy wondered. We always scheduled girls like her in the evening so that they wouldn't run into other patients. Emerson might have spotted her and put two and two together.

She began to back out of the parking space. Jean wanted to know about anyone who might have been working in the office, she thought. It might be worth mentioning Jack Emerson to her, even though she was absolutely certain that neither he nor anyone else could have gotten into those locked files.

Sam Deegan's subpoena for the telephone records that would show the area where Laura's phone call to Jean had originated produced exactly the same results as the one he'd gotten a day earlier. The second call from Laura had been made from the same kind of cell phone-the kind that could be purchased with one hundred minutes of available calling time and did not require a subscriber's name.

At eleven-fifteen on Tuesday morning, Sam was in the district attorney's office giving him an update. "It's not the same phone Wilcox used Sunday night," he told Rich Stevens. "This one was purchased in Orange County. It has a 845 exchange. Eddie Zarro is out checking the places in the Cornwall area that sell them. Of course, it's been turned off, just like the one Wilcox used to phone the Glen-Ridge desk clerk Sunday evening."

The district attorney spun a pen in his fingers. "Jean Sheridan can't be one hundred percent certain she was talking to Laura Wilcox."

"No, sir, she can't."

"And the nurse-what's her name, Peggy Kimball?-told Sheridan that Dr. Connors may have arranged an illegal private adoption for her baby?"

"That's what Mrs. Kimball thinks."

"Have you heard anything from the priest at St. Thomas about baptismal records?"

"So far they're drawing a blank. They've been pretty successful reaching people who had baby girls baptized within that three-month period, but they haven't come up with one single instance of anyone admitting that their child had been adopted. The pastor, Monsignor Dillon, is smart. He called in some of the long-timers on the parish council who were around twenty years ago. They knew of families who had adopted children, but not one of them has a girl who's nineteen and a half now."

"Is Monsignor Dillon still working on it?"

Sam rubbed his hand over his head and thought again of how Kate used to tell him that he was weakening the roots of his hair. He decided it was a sign of his fatigue that from thoughts of Kate his mind jumped to Alice Sommers. It seemed more like two weeks than two days since he had seen her. But then, since early Saturday morning when Helen Whelan was reported missing, everything had been spinning out of control.

"Is Monsignor Dillon still searching through the files, Sam?" Rich Stevens asked again.

"Sorry, Rich. I guess I was woolgathering there for a minute. The answer is yes, and he's also called some of the neighboring parishes and asked them to do a discreet check on their own. If they think they have anything, Monsignor Dillon will let us know, and we can subpoena their records."

"And is Jean Sheridan following up on Craig Michaelson, the lawyer who handled some of Dr. Connors' adoptions?"

"She's seeing him at two o'clock."

"What's your next step, Sam?"

They were interrupted by the ringing of Sam's cell phone. He grabbed it from his pocket, glanced at the ID, and the fatigue suddenly dropped from his expression. "It's Eddie Zarro," he said as he pushed the talk button. "What have you got, Eddie?" he snapped.

As the district attorney watched, Sam's mouth dropped. "You've got to be kidding me. God, I feel so dumb. Why didn't I think of that, and what is that little weasel up to? Okay. I'll meet you at the Glen-Ridge. Let's hope he didn't decide to take off today."

Sam closed the phone and looked at his boss. "A cell phone with one hundred minutes on it was bought at the drugstore on Main Street in Cornwall a few minutes after seven last night. The clerk remembers distinctly the man who made the purchase because he's seen him on television. It was Robby Brent."