Lisa Scottoline - Look Again

"Look, my mom thinks that Amy couldn't have had a baby, but I don't agree. All the doctor said was that she probably couldn't have a baby, and Amy made a big deal of that. Even my husband said she could conceive." Cheryl's tone resonated with resentment. "She's a major drama queen. She just used the twisted ovary to get attention."

"So do you think she had a baby?"

"Of course, it's certainly possible. We all stopped seeing her about the same time. If she had a baby three years ago, I have no way of knowing it for sure. I was married by then, and we don't see as much of my family." Something flickered behind Cheryl's eyes, but she guarded that emotion. "They all smoke, for one thing. We don't tolerate smoking around the house."

"Your husband's a doctor, you say?"

"Yes, a physician. He just left to take the kids to pizza for dinner. We have twin girls. We thought it wouldn't be a good idea if they were around while you were here."

"Right." Ellen considered it. Twins. They'd be Will's cousins. But back to business. "So do you have any idea where Amy could be? Your mom thinks she stays in touch with you."

"Amy does email, but hardly ever. When she needs money."

"Do you send her any?" Ellen wanted the address.

"No. My husband didn't think I should, so I stopped, and she stopped asking."

"May I have her email address? It really is important that I get in touch with her."

Cheryl frowned. "I should email Amy first and make sure that she wants to hear from you. After all, if she gave up her baby for adoption, she had a choice about whether she wanted to hear from you, didn't she?"

Damn. "Yes, but as your mom probably told you, the lawyer who brokered the adoption has passed away, and I have no other way to get this information."

Cheryl handed her back the papers. "My husband said that they can disclose medical information in an adoption, even if they keep the identity of the parent secret."

"That's true, but I find that I need to ask one or two more questions." Ellen tried another tack. "Tell you what. Would you give Amy my email address and have her contact me?"

"Okay."

"Thanks." Ellen hadn't come this far to be turned away. "What if she doesn't email me back? Will you give me her email?"

"Cross your fingers."

Ellen thought of her earlier request, which she'd made by phone. "I was wondering, too, if you were able to find any photos of her."

"Sure, I found two I had in the computer, one young and one more recent. I suppose it's okay if you have them." Cheryl turned to the end table, picked up two papers, and handed one to Ellen, pointing with a manicured index finger. "That's Amy, when she was little."

Ellen looked down at a photo of a cute girl holding an American flag and wearing an Uncle Sam hat. "How old is she in this picture, do you know?"

"She'd just turned five. Before she turned into a freak." Cheryl chuckled softly. "Does your son look like her?"

"Not that much." Ellen had to admit it. Amy's nose was wider than Will's and her lips fuller. "Frankly, he looks more like you."

"It must run in our family. I look nothing like my kids, either. Can you imagine that, carrying twins for nine months and they don't look like you?"

"It doesn't seem fair." Ellen was too preoccupied to smile. "Will must look more like his father, but I don't know what his father looks like. Does the name Charles Cartmell mean anything to you?"

"No."

"According to the adoption papers, he's the father."

"Never heard of him. Amy dated tons of guys. She was never in a committed relationship."

"If she got pregnant, would she tell the father? I mean, would she feel as if she should?"

Cheryl scoffed. "Are you kidding? If I know my little sister, she probably didn't know who the father was. She could have made up the name on the form, couldn't she?"

Ellen leaned forward. "But why would she make up his name and not her own, or yours?"

"I don't know." Cheryl shrugged, but Ellen considered it for a minute.

"Wait, I bet I do. She couldn't make up her name because she had to produce ID at the hospital when Will got sick. But if she never married Charles, or Will's father, he never appeared. She could make up his name." Ellen's thoughts clicked ahead. "Tell me, did she have a boyfriend back then, three years ago, that you remember?"

"Oh, she had plenty. Is that the same thing?" Cheryl laughed, but Ellen didn't.

"No name you can recall?"

"No. Maybe this photo will help. It has a guy in it, and they look pretty chummy." Cheryl handed over the second photo. "This is the most recent picture I have of Amy. She emailed it to me, and you can see the date. June 5, 2004."

"That would be shortly before she had Will," Ellen said, cheering inwardly. It was a picture of Amy, grinning on the beach, in a black bikini, with a brown beer bottle in her hand. Her arm was looped around a shirtless man who raised his bottle to the camera. If Will was born on January 30, 2005, she would have been about two months pregnant when the photo was taken, assuming it was taken when it was sent. But she had no baby bump, though maybe she wasn't showing yet, and there was that beer bottle.

"What are you thinking?" Cheryl asked.

"That if Amy was seeing this man around then, he could be Will's father."

"He's so her type. Amy went for bad boys."

Ellen eyed the man, who wasn't bad-looking for a bad boy, with narrow eyes and long brown ponytail. Something about him looked almost familiar, but maybe it was that he looked a little like W. He had the smile, a little tilted down, but it looked like a smirk on him. The photo was too blurry to see more detail and it had been taken from a distance. "In the email, did Amy say who he was, or where they were?"

"No."

Ellen mulled it over. "It could be anywhere it's warm, which could be anywhere, in June. What did she say in the email, if I can ask?"

"Nothing. She just sent the photo. Nice, huh?" Cheryl scoffed again, but Ellen's gaze remained on the photo. She could be looking at Will's birth parents. Charles Cartmell, if it was him, had a sleeve of multicolored tattoos she couldn't read and he looked a little drunk, even in the fuzzy resolution.

"The focus is so bad on this."

"It could be my printer. Keep that copy and I'll email you another, if you want."

"Please, do." Ellen told Cheryl her email address. "Did Amy have any girlfriends?"

"She never got along with other girls. She hung with the guys."

Ellen made a mental note. "You said Amy emails you. Did she ever mention any men in her emails?"

"Not that I remember."

"Would you mind looking back at the emails, so we can check?"

"I can't, I deleted them." Cheryl checked her watch. "Well, it's getting kind of late."

"Sure, I should go." Ellen rose with her papers, hiding her frustration. "Thanks so much for meeting with me. Think she'll email me?"

"God knows."

Ellen said her good-byes and left, wondering if it was really Charles Cartmell in the photo. She hit the cold air outside and looked up at the sky, dark and starless.

Maybe it wasn't too late to take a drive.

Ellen sat in her car with the engine off, watching the snow fall in the dark, holding the court papers. She was parked outside of an elementary school, a three-story redbrick edifice that had been there since 1979, according to its keystone. The school was at Charles Cartmell's address, but obviously, he didn't live here. He had never lived here. Amy must have pulled the address out of thin air and made up the name, too. She might as well have picked Count Chocula.

Ellen wasn't completely surprised. She had known that Grant Avenue was one of the busiest streets in the Northeast, in a commercial area, but she had been hoping that there would be an apartment house or maybe a converted rowhouse.