“It’s yours. If you want it.”
A feeling of trepidation unfurled through Angie. She stared at the envelope. “What is it?”
“Open it.”
She took the envelope, lifted the flap, and removed an old Kodak print. In fading colors it showed a skinny little girl in a hospital bed wearing pj’s too big for her. She clutched a teddy bear similar to the stuffy in the bassinet. The girl’s complexion was so pale she looked almost translucent, a blue vein showing at her temple. Hair, deep red, hung lank about her bony shoulders. Unsmiling, she stared directly at the photographer with pale-gray eyes that were empty of all emotion. Her mouth was brutally swollen, bruised. Blackened by a line of stitches like some bad Halloween makeup.
“I shot that photo shortly before child protection services took her. At that point she’d been here under observation for almost four weeks, and although she still hadn’t spoken a word . . . I . . . she looked at me differently that morning. I felt she was trying to communicate. So I held her hand, and I squeezed and said, ‘Honey, if you’re listening to me, if you can understand me, squeeze my hand.’” Emotion hitched Jenny’s voice. She fell silent for a moment, blew her nose again. “And then . . . then I told her that she was going to be safe . . .” Once more, Jenny’s voice wavered. “I . . . I just wanted to make some connection, to have her show me some sign that she was aware—not of what was happening to her, or had happened, but that there were people in this world who cared, really cared, and who were kind, and that the folks working in the system would find her a loving home, that one day she’d really know love.” Jenny blew her nose again, her tissue going ragged. “And she did—Janie squeezed my hand.”
Emotion closed Angie’s throat. Quickly she turned her head away. The little bassinet blurred as tears swam into her eyes.
“Do you have children?” Jenny said.
Angie shook her head, not trusting herself to look at the nurse.
“I don’t, either. I can’t. But I always wanted them. I believe children validate our reason for being—they are what makes us eternal. And when I was given the news of my infertility, I felt that life for me had ended in some way.” The nurse fell silent. Still, Angie was unable to meet the woman’s eyes, to see in the woman’s face the rawness that laced her voice.
Jenny continued, her words growing gravelly. “I’d been struggling emotionally with this news, but that day, when the angel’s child squeezed my hand, I . . . I felt I’d made a fundamental contribution in this one little girl’s life. I felt validated. Maybe I missed out not having kids, but on that day Janie Doe showed me I did make a difference in the lives of others, and that alone was a life worth living.”
“You did,” Angie whispered. “You did make a difference.”
“Is she happy—your friend? Did her life go okay after she was adopted?”
Angie wiped her eyes with the base of her thumb and finally turned to face the nurse.
Jenny’s kind brown eyes locked fast and sincerely onto Angie’s gaze. “I need to know.” She made a small fist and knocked it against her sternum. “It affected me—my heart, right here. I never stopped wondering. It’s why I kept that photo. And when you phoned out of the blue just after Christmas, asking to meet with me, it was like a sign.” She swallowed hard. “I thought, yes, she’s okay, the angel’s girl is out there somewhere, and . . . in trying to find the truth, she’s finally coming home. All the way back to the beginning, as things must be. I know it sounds strange, but . . . that’s what I thought. My cradle girl is coming home. Full circle.”
Angie took a moment to marshal herself. “Yes,” she said very quietly. “Her life went okay. She grew up in a safe and privileged home. Her adoptive parents loved—still love—her in every way they know how. She never wanted for material possessions. They sent her to the best schools and took her on wonderful vacations. And all the while, she never remembered or knew for a moment what had happened to her that Christmas Eve. Nor did she ever recall anything about her past. Until recently when she started to . . . see things. Hear things. That’s when she sought the help of a therapist and when she pushed her father for the truth. He finally told her how she was found in a cradle. And now she wants to learn the whole story—the before. She wants to find her biological parents.”
A kind of knowing and peace entered Jenny’s face, and she nodded. It was a look Angie associated with holy people.
“Thank God,” the old nurse whispered. She raised her hand to touch Angie’s arm, and Angie braced—her usual response to unsolicited physical contact. The nurse noticed and lowered her hand, instead channeling it back into her coat pocket. She dug out another Kleenex and once more blew her nose. “Sometimes paths cross for a reason, Angie. I’m glad you came. So glad.”
A surge of warmth filled Angie, along with a bittersweet poignancy and a sense of deep kinship. This woman was a physical link to that little girl from before—that little girl in pink who’d been haunting Angie from the murky depths of her own subconscious. The girl Angie had come to find. Herself.
“Going public—speaking about it—could help, you know,” said the nurse. “People, relationships change. After all these years, someone might be ready to come forward.”
“I know,” Angie said softly. “But I’m not ready. Not yet. If . . . if you could please keep my visit to yourself for now, I’d really appreciate it.”
Jenny Marsden gave her a long, searching look. “Sometimes we think we’re keeping secrets,” the old nurse said softly. “But really, those secrets are keeping us. Be careful, Angie. Don’t let this secret keep you.”
CHAPTER 2
Detective James Maddocks watched the six young women through the hospital ward observation window. Just teenagers by all appearances. All dark-haired save for one blonde. All emaciated. Vacant eyes. Expressionless features. All had barcodes tattooed onto the backs of their necks.
The girls had been discovered two weeks ago when police had swarmed the Amanda Rose, a Caymans-registered high-end luxury yacht moored in one of the city’s quaint harbors.
It was Maddocks and Angie’s investigation as part of a team tasked to hunt the Baptist that had led law enforcement to the Amanda Rose. Aboard the now-impounded vessel, they’d discovered the Bacchanalian sex club—a top-dollar international floating brothel. And in the bowels of the boat they’d found these six underage women being forcibly confined for sexual exploitation. All were foreign. Apart from this, little else was known about them—not one had uttered a word since their rescue.