Something didn't fit. Tess drummed her fingers on the tub's rim, trying to pinpoint what was wrong.

"Jackie's baby wasn't adopted. There were no parents to blackmail in her case. Why didn't you name your price and tell her that the baby had gone back into the system? Why didn't you tell her what we wanted to know when we first came out there?"

Willa lowered her eyes. "The people who took her baby and gave her back, their…privacy meant a lot to them. They wouldn't have wanted that crazy ni-that crazy bitch showing up at their house, asking questions, making a fuss."

Tess grabbed Willa's arm and shook it, quite roughly. "What did you tell Jackie?"

"I told her what she wanted to know." At her best, Willa Mott was plain and ordinary. Angry, her features seemed to shrink, until her eyes almost disappeared and her mouth was as small as a bug's. "I told her the name of the people who took her baby, the people who gave it back-when they found out it was half-nigger. You see, they paid for a white baby, and they said it wasn't enough if it looked white, it had to be white. The agency offered them a discount to keep it, but they said no way. I can't say as I blame them."

Tess leaned to the side until her right temple touched the cool black-and-white tile. It was a big bathroom, but it wasn't built for four people, and it suddenly seemed stiflingly close.

"You didn't tell Jackie that part, did you?"

"I had to tell her," Willa Mott whined. "I didn't have a choice."

"You could have lied, the way you did before. Why did you pick today to become so honest and aboveboard?"

"Because today is the day your fancy friend held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if I didn't tell her everything I knew."

"A gun? Where would Jackie get a gun?" Tess ran downstairs to the front door, where she had dropped her knapsack by the hall tree. Sure enough, her Smith and Wesson was gone. Jackie must have faked her headache, so she could sneak the gun out of Tess's bag and into her purse. She had been planning this all along, perhaps from the moment they had left the Edelmans'. Do you think there ever were any Johnsons who planned to name their baby Caitlin? I guess we'll never know.

"Where did Jackie go after she put you out of the car?" she asked Willa, a little breathless from taking the stairs so fast. "She went to the adoptive parents' house, didn't she? Where do they live? What are their names?"

Willa suddenly looked coy. "Why, I'm not sure I can remember, just like that. What's it worth to you to find that crazy nigger bitch?"

Tess backhanded her, and Willa's head snapped back, hitting the wall was a dull thud. It felt pretty good, probably better than it should have.

"Tess!" her mother shouted. "This is how you do business?" But her father looked impressed.

"You are through making money off your files, Willa Mott. Do you understand that?" Tess held her by the shoulders, the way someone might grip a sullen child, and shook her hard enough to make her head wobble on her skinny neck. "You are never going to sell another piece of information as long as you live. Now tell me what you told Jackie."

"Dr. and Mrs. Becker, Edgevale Road in Roland Park," Willa whimpered. "And that crazy-that woman already took my files anyway."

"So everything you told us was a fucking lie, wasn't it? The name, the location, what the adoptive father did for a living. You were making sure we never got close, so you could milk them instead."

Gramma picked this moment to come upstairs. "Aren't you done in here yet?" she demanded from the doorway. There hadn't been this many people in the Monaghan bathroom since a memorable high school party, in which Tess and her friends had discovered the mixed pleasures of mixed drinks. "You're holding everything up."

"This is kind of important," Tess said between gritted teeth, but too intimidated by her grandmother to just push past her and make a mad dash for her car. "People's lives may be at stake. There's a woman-Jacqueline Weir, you might remember her as Susan King. She worked for Poppa in the Fells Point store, and she's about to make the biggest mistake of her life."

She couldn't help it, she was curious to see what her grandmother's face would reveal, curious to see how she would react to the name. But Gramma looked unimpressed.

"That troublemaker? Wouldn't you know she'd pop up again just now, when there's money to be made. She always did have a nose for money. Well you tell her that she's not getting another penny, you tell her that. Nothing's changed."

Pop up again? "What do you mean, Gramma? When did Jackie-Susan-pop up before?"

"Oh, she came around ten or twelve years ago, asking Samuel for money for college, but I put my foot down. So he got her pregnant, the stupid man, and had to give her money for an abortion. You think someone who owned a drugstore might have had the means to prevent such a thing, might have taken the time to sell himself a prophylactic kit. But he didn't and he had to pay. I accepted that. Once. Were we to pay for his stupidity for the rest of our lives? When she asked for help again, I told Samuel it was out of the question. Otherwise, she'd never be out of our lives. Now you tell me she's back. I can't say I'm surprised. I wonder how she heard about the land sale?"

"You knew? You knew all this time?"

"Of course I knew. Your grandfather could never hide anything from me. Believe me, he didn't stray again. As I reminded him, Maryland is a community property state. First he was too rich to leave me, and then he was too poor. What's half of nothing?"

"Knew what?" Judith asked. "Who's Susan King? Will someone please tell me what's going on?"

"I'd tell you, Mom, but I have to go stop a woman from committing her second felony of the day," Tess said. "Let Gramma explain it all to you. Besides, she's known about it much longer than I have."

"There's nothing to explain," Gramma said, with a wave of her hand that suggested the past was an inconvenience-a fly to be swatted, a smear on a window pane that could be erased with a quick shot of Windex.

"There's a lifetime to explain," Judith said. "A lifetime of secrets and lies, and I'm sick of it. You're not going anywhere, Theresa Esther Monaghan, until you tell me everything."

Tess grabbed her mother's hand. "I'll tell you what I know in the car, if you insist. But I should warn you I'm going to be driving just a little bit above the speed limit."

Chapter 26

Tess's driving proved to be the least of Judith's concerns, even as Tess ran every amber and not a few reds on the way to Roland Park.

"So this woman, this client of yours, she's…connected to Poppa?" Judith asked tentatively. "And Mama knew, she knew all this time, and never told any of us?"

The sign at the intersection said no right on red, but Tess thought it surely couldn't apply to her. After a quick glance to make sure no cops were around, she tore around the corner.

"She didn't know Jackie put the baby up for adoption, because Poppa didn't know the baby was ever born. Jackie told him she was going to get an abortion, and kept the money. She told me when she asked for his help with college, he said the business was too shaky for him to help her. But I guess he couldn't squeeze that much cash out without going to Gramma, and she put her foot down."

"So I have a half-sibling."

"Yeah, a sister."

"I always wanted a sister," Judith said, then smiled. "Well, that was inane."

"We saw her today. I knew it had upset Jackie, but I guess I didn't know just how freaked out she was."

Tess was on Northern Parkway now. If she had been in her office, or her apartment, she could have made Roland Park in fifteen minutes. But her parents' house couldn't have been much farther away. If you thought of the Baltimore Beltway as a clock, it was akin to driving from seven o'clock to midnight.