Cry Mercy

ELEVEN

No one's responded.” Nick was on the phone to Emme by noon the next day. “No one's called any of my numbers, there's been no email…”

“Be patient. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours since you posted.”

“Patience isn't my strong suit.”

“Clearly.”

“I want to post something again.”

“Go ahead.”

“I'll get back to you.” He hung up, and she shook her head.

“Impatient” might be an understatement.

Emme returned to her computer screen and continued her search. There was much more information on donor siblings than she'd realized. She was partway through a long magazine article on the subject when her phone rang again.

“Okay, this is what I said.” Nick began without bothering to identify himself. “Does anyone know what happened to Belle? Doesn't anyone care?”

“That's it? That's your post?”

“Yeah. Well, I put in my information again, phone, email-” He paused. “You think it's too curt?”

“No, I think it's probably just right. Just enough drama to catch the attention of a teenager.” She thought for a moment before adding, “Though I probably shouldn't assume everyone on that board is a teenager. We don't know how old these people are or how many of them there might be. I'm guessing at least as old as Belinda, since Dr. Drake did say this guy's goods were pretty popular, but there could be some much older. According to the information I've been reading, women have been using donated sperm to achieve conception for over a hundred years. Traditionally, the recipients were women married to infertile men, but more and more single women and lesbian couples are using sperm donors to conceive.”

“So Belinda's donor siblings could be anywhere from toddler to fifty- or sixty-year-olds?”

“Conceivably. No pun.”

“That could put a whole new spin on this,” he said. “Thinking of her getting involved with a bunch of kids her own age doesn't seem as odd as some of these people being middle-aged. Which to my suspicious mind seems a bit creepy somehow.”

“Kids can do creepy things, too, believe me.”

“I guess.” He was quiet for a moment. “What if I still don't hear from anyone? Where do we go from here?”

“I'm working on that.”

“What?”

“I'll get back to you.”

“Get back to me now. What are you working on?”

Persistent SOB, she thought. Aloud, she said, “I told you that Mallory Russo's boyfriend is a detective. We asked him to run a quick search of the phone numbers on Belinda's bill to see if any of the incoming calls are from landlines, and if so, to do a reverse search.”

“Enter the phone number in some sort of database to get the name and address?”

“Exactly. As soon as I hear from him, you'll hear from me.”

“How long do you think it will take?”

“Not long. He said he'll get to it as soon as he can. That's the best I can tell you.”

“But you'll get back to me…”

“The second I hear from him. Promise.”

She glanced at her watch. It was twelve thirty. She'd bet her first paycheck that Nick would call back by three and he'd more likely than not ask her to follow up with the detective, something she'd rather not do. Doing everything you needed to do on your own cases was hard enough for a cop without someone leaning on you for a favor.

Fortunately, it never came to that. Mallory buzzed her office phone just before two.

“Charlie just called. I sent you all the info in an email,” Mallory told her.

Emme swiveled back to her desk and opened her mail. Mallory's was the one on top.

“Got it,” Emme said. “Thanks. And thank Charlie for me. Please tell him I appreciate it.”

“Consider it done. I hope it helps.”

“Me, too. Right now, this is all we've got. Thanks, Mal.”

Emme read the email, then printed it out and read it again. One name. One address. She reached for the phone and dialed Nick's number.

“This is good news, right?” he said by way of a greeting.

“How'd you know?”

“You wouldn't be calling just to tell me you still hadn't heard anything. What have you got?”

“Almost all of the numbers on Belinda's cell-phone bill were other cell numbers. Which makes sense, since that's how most kids communicate. Other than the calls to your house and your office, a couple of calls to a dentist's office, a drugstore, and a bookstore near the college, there was only one number attached to a landline.”

She heard him sigh through the phone and could almost hear his silent thought. Get on with it.

“The number we're interested in is listed as Nash Children.”

“Where?”

“Princeton, New Jersey.”

He fell silent again, planning, no doubt, what he'd say when he called. Time to nip that in the bud.

“I'll let you know what I find out after I get in touch with someone there,” she told him.

“Well, actually, I'm thinking I should be the one to call. You know, since I'm Belinda's uncle, and the posts on the message board were from me.”

“Now might be a good time to remind you that you contacted us and asked us to take on this case for you.” Before he could protest, she added, “And the fact that you posted the messages on that board is one of the prime reasons I'm going to be making the phone call. If this kid saw your post and chose not to contact you, there has to be a reason why. I'm the investigator, Nick. Let me do my job.”

“You'll make the call and you'll let me know what you find out?”

“Of course. But I'm asking you not to make any attempts to contact these people on your own.”

After a moment's consideration, he replied, “All right.”

Surprised that Nick conceded with no further protest, Emme began to dial the Princeton number, then realized that whomever the Nash child was she was seeking, he or she would probably still be in school at this hour. She'd wait until four to call. She redialed Nick to let him know she'd wait.

“′Preciate it,” he told her. “I'd have been wondering.”

“Who are you kidding? You'd have been calling.”

“You catch on fast.”

At 4:10 P.M., Emme dialed the number, which rang five times before voice mail activated. She hung up without leaving a message. When she tried again thirty minutes later, a young girl answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, may I ask who's speaking, please?”

“This is Hayley. Who's this?”

“Hayley, my name is Emme Caldwell. I'm a private investigator. I work for the Mercy Street Foundation. I'm looking for Belinda-Belle Hudson-on behalf of her family.”

Silence. Then, “I don't know anyone with that name.”

“Of course you do, Hayley,” Emme's voice dropped to a soothing tone. “She's one of your donor siblings.”

“How do you know that?”

“I'm a really good investigator.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you about Belle.”

“Why?”

“Because she's been missing for a long time, and she went missing on a day when her calendar indicated she'd had something planned with her donor siblings.”

Again, silence.

“Hayley, do you have ideas about what might have happened to Belle, where she might be?”

“I… I didn't know she was really missing. Everyone just thought she got involved at school or something and was just taking a break from the board.”

“Have others done that? Taken a break?”

“Sure. Sometimes things get pretty intense.”

“Why's that?”

“Oh, you know. Some people are more into the whole sibling thing than others.”

“Look, Hayley, I'd like to meet with you and talk about-”

“I don't think I-”

“Hayley, this is a very serious situation.” Emme's tone became more authoritative. “Belle could be in great danger.”

She didn't think adding “if she's still alive” would have been best under the circumstances.

“I don't know where she is,” Hayley protested. “I don't know anything.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sure your mother will appreciate how serious this is, even if you don't.”

“No, no, don't call my mother.” Hayley began to cry. “She'll be so mad. She doesn't know about the boards. About the others. She'll freak out. She didn't want me to look for my sibs, but I did it anyway. If she finds out, she'll ground me. Like, forever.”

“I'm sorry about that. I really am. But we're talking about a missing girl here.”

“All right.” Hayley sniffed and blew her nose. Emme held the phone from her ear until the blowing stopped. “I'll meet you. It will have to be after school, though, on one of the days when I'm in town late.”

“You tell me where and when and I'll be there.”

“How do I know you're not a white slaver or something? How do I know you're really a detective?”

“You look up the Mercy Street Foundation on your computer. You'll find my name on the website.”

“Is there a picture of you there?”

“No.” No picture of me anywhere, Emme could have told her. God knows who might see it, and recognize her for who she really was.

“Then how will I know?” the girl persisted.

“Look up the number and ask for me and when I get on the phone, you ask me for a code word. No one would know that but me.”

“Okay, cool. The code word is… Bonkers.”

“Bonkers?”

“That's my cat.”

“All right. I'll expect to hear from you within the next fifteen minutes. No later.”

Kids do enjoy a bit of intrigue, Emme thought as she hung up. She supposed she had when she was younger, too. For years she'd waited for her real parents to show up at whatever foster home she was in at the time and take her to her real home. Every night before she fell asleep, she'd play the scene over in her head like a scene from Growing Pains or Family Ties, the shows she watched on TV every week. There'd be a tearful reunion and she'd be swept from her tiny bed in her foster home into a long white limousine and transported to a beautiful house on a hill where every moment of her previously meager existence would be forgotten.

Emme smiled ruefully. Those were the days…

Her phone rang and she answered, “Emme Caldwell.”

“Okay, so what's the code word?” Hayley asked.

“That would be Bonkers.”

“Okay, so it's really you. I guess that's cool.”

“So what day this week looks good to you?” Emme pressed her.

“I have a music lesson on Thursday, but I usually have to wait until six for my mom to pick me up on her way home from work.”

“Where and what time?”

“There's a pancake house on Nassau Street, right near the theater. I can meet you there at four o'clock.” Hayley paused. “How will I know you?”

“Well, we could-”

“I know, I'll wear a red scarf. You wear something red, too.”

“All right. I'll see you on Thursday at four. Red accessory mandatory.”

“No, no, a red rose,” Hayley said excitedly. “There's a flower shop down the street. You can buy one there.”

“Fine.” Emme couldn't help but smile. “One red rose it is.”

Intrigue, indeed.

She punched in the number of Nick's cell phone.

“I have a sit-down with Hayley Nash on Thursday at four. I'm assuming you want to come along.” She was typing the pertinent information into her computer. “I'm estimating it will take three hours to get there, so you need to be here no later than one, in case we hit traffic.”

“Where will you be?”

“I'll meet you in the parking lot at the hotel. And oh, yeah-this time, I'm driving.”

“So, this whole donor sibling thing, it's like a movement now?” Nick asked. They were driving over the Scudder Falls Bridge connecting Pennsylvania to New Jersey in light midafternoon traffic. “Not that it isn't understandable. Dr. Drake said there were tens of thousands of these kids born every year. That's a lot of kids who know only half their story, so I guess it's natural to want to know the rest of it. I mean, everyone wants to know who they are, where they came from, right?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Spoken like a woman who knows who she is.”

Emme forced a smile.

“Hey, not everyone is as secure as you are, you know?” he told her. “I think it would be really hard to only know one half of your family. You know your mother, but your father-nada. It's normal to want to be able to get a feel for him. To be able to reach out to all the members of your family.”

He paused, as if expecting her to say something. When she did not, he continued. “Take my grandparents, for example. They were real important to me. Shaped my whole life. I don't know where I'd be or what I'd be doing if it hadn't been for my granddad.”

“Have you ever thought of doing something else?”

He shook his head without hesitation. “Why would I want to do that? I have my own business. I'm doing something that I love. I look forward to going to my garage every single day.”

“There are a lot of people into this car thing, I take it?”

“A lot, yes.”

“And a lot of them come to you to fix their cars?”

Nick smiled. “I restore the cars, not fix them. Big difference. And yes, a lot of people bring their babies to me.”

“I take it you're good at what you do.”

“There's a waiting list,” he said.

“Really? How do people know about you?”

“Car shows. Magazine and newspaper articles. Word of mouth.” He grinned. “And I've written a few books on the subject.”

“They have car shows? Like dog shows? Horse shows?”

“Close enough, yes. I started going with my granddad when I was twelve or thirteen. Damn, those were the days.”

“How many cars did he fix? Er, restore?”

“Seventeen.”

“So he'd buy the car, restore it, then take it to a show and sell it?”

“He didn't restore his cars to sell them, and he went to the shows because he liked to look at automobiles, liked to see what other people had, what they were doing. Sometimes, he did show his. Some he loaned out for special occasions, like the local Fourth of July parade or the Founders Day parade, but he only sold one while he was alive.” His voice dropped. “He kept the rest for me.”

“You still have them? You own seventeen cars?” Emme frowned. “What do you do with seventeen cars?”

“I don't have them all now. I had to sell most of them to start up my business, which is what my granddad had in mind all along. He figured they'd be a good investment, that they'd appreciate as the years went by, and they did.” He smiled. “Better than the stock market.”

“How many do you have now?”

“Originally, I kept four and sold the rest for my business. Now I only have the Firebird and a Corvette.”

“What happened to the other two?”

“I sold them to hire the private investigators to find Belinda after the police told me they had no leads. When they found nothing, I realized I was wasting the money. Until I saw Robert Magellan on TV that day a few weeks ago, I wasn't sure what my next move was going to be.”

“You're lucky you responded as quickly as you did. I understand there's been a flood of applications since that press conference.”

“There are that many people missing in this country?”

“More than you could ever imagine.”

She followed the signs off the interstate to Lawrenceville Road. The GPS assured her it would lead her straight into the heart of Princeton. Nick let her know when they'd arrived.

“That's Nassau Hall.” He rolled the passenger window down to gaze at the venerable brownstone building that sat back off the street behind tall gates, its entrance flanked by bronze tigers. “At one time, the capital of the United States.”

He turned to Emme. “That would have been in 1783. The Congress of the Confederation met on the second floor.”

“History buff?”

“Revolutionary War, yes.” He nodded, then added, “And also my sister went to school here.”

“You knew how to get here all along?”

“No. I've never been here before, never visited her when she was in college.” His expression was somewhat regretful. “Like I said, Wendy and I were never really close. When she was an eighteen-year-old freshman, I was six. I sort of understand why Belinda searched for her donor siblings. It's occurred to me that she's as connected to them, in a way, as Wendy and I were. Same sperm donor. Different mothers.”

“You think of your father as a sperm donor?”

“He never seemed to stick with any of his wives after they'd had a child. Neither Wendy nor I really knew him.”

“How many wives has he had?”

“I think four.”

“You have other half-siblings then?”

“I only know about Wendy, but I suppose anything is possible.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Last I heard. We're not particularly close.” Nick stared straight ahead, his jaw squared. It was clear this was not a subject he wished to discuss. She could respect that. There were some things she didn't like to talk about, too.

Emme craned her neck to look over the traffic that blocked the lanes in each direction. “We have to find Nassau Street.”

“You're on it.” He pointed across the street to the sign on the corner. “Where are we supposed to meet Hayley?”

“At a pancake place near the theater.” Traffic crawled toward the light. Several times she had to brake to avoid the pedestrians who crossed the street without apparent regard to the cars. They approached the next light slowly.

“This is Witherspoon Street,” she told him. “According to the map I looked at online, there should be some public parking down here somewhere. The pancake house is at the far end of this block of Nassau Street. We'll park and look for the florist.”

“What florist?”

“Hayley wants me to carry a red rose so she'll know me.” Emme smiled.

“Kid watches too many old spy movies.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

She made the turn, and searched for a parking spot. She found one in front of a small café, and fed the meter before heading up toward Nassau Street. At the flower shop, they stepped inside for the requisite red rose.

“This one's on me.” Nick paid the clerk and handed the flower to Emme. “It's the least I can do to thank you for letting me tag along.”

“Thanks.” She took the rose and they walked toward the corner, sidestepping the students who walked in pairs or in clusters. Nick took her arm as they navigated through the throng.

“There.” Emme pointed ahead at the two-story building with the striped awning. “Pancake House.”

They stepped through the red double doors, and once inside, she scanned the tables and booths for a teenaged girl wearing a red scarf.

“Hold the rose up a little higher.” Nick stood behind her, whispering in her ear.

“How stupid do I look twirling this thing around?” She gave the stem a twist as she glanced from one crowded table to the next.

“Well, I'm not sure that stupid is the word I'd use.” He took several steps away and pretended to be scrutinizing her. “Silly might work. Amusing is better. But not stupid.”

“Very funny. I'll try to remember not to ask rhetorical questions around you.”

Emme looked around the room. It seemed every kid in town and half of the students from the university had stopped in for a snack after class.

“Her red scarf should be easy enough to pick out. Oh, there, on the right…”

Emme took a few steps forward, holding the gaze of the young girl who sat alone at a booth against the wall, a bright red scarf tied jauntily around her neck. She had dark blond hair and round tortoiseshell glasses. She smiled uncertainly when Emme waved, and raised her hand to wave back. When she realized that Nick was headed her way as well, she froze.

“Who's that?” Hayley asked suspiciously.

Emme slid into the booth next to Hayley. “This is Nick Perone. Belinda… Belle's uncle.”

“The perv?” Hayley's expression was one of disgust.

“What?” Nick stared across the table. “What did you call me?”

“You're the perv who's looking for Belle.” She turned to Emme. “You didn't tell me you were bringing him.” Hayley shook her head. “I wouldn't tell you where Belle was even if I knew.”

“Go back to the part where you called me a perv.” Nick's frown creased his forehead and drew his eyebrows close together. “Where did that come from?”

Hayley shifted uncomfortably on the bench.

“Hayley, why would you say such a thing?” Emme asked.

The girl shrugged. “They were saying on the loop that maybe the reason why she ran away was because her uncle… the one who posted on the loop… maybe he, you know, hurt her.”

“Did Belle ever give you or any of the others any reason to think that her uncle-or anyone else-had been abusing her?” Emme asked. “Or had hurt her in any way at all?”

Hayley thought it over before shaking her head, “No.”

“Then maybe you shouldn't put any stock in some idle comment that someone”-some thoughtless jackass kid-“tossed out without any regard to the truth.”

“Listen, Hayley.” Nick lowered his voice and leaned his body closer to the table. “I am not now and never have been a ‘perv.’ I'm looking for my niece because she's been missing for five months-five months when anything could have happened to her. She's all the family I have, Hayley. I need to find her. You may be the only person who can help us to do that.”

“I'm sorry. You're right. It was just something stupid someone said.” Hayley turned to Emme. “Everyone knows I'm meeting with you. If anything happens to me, they have your name and your phone number. I posted it on the message board.”

“That was very smart of you, Hayley,” Emme assured her. “Good thinking on your part. Nick and I are only interested in finding out what happened to Belle, but you were right to take some precautions, just in case.”

The girl seemed to relax slightly.

“Are you hungry?” Emme asked.

“The food's pretty good here,” Hayley said, hopefully. “I usually get the peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip pancakes, but the raspberry ones are good, too.”

“I'm sold. Raspberry for me.” Emme looked across the table at Nick. “You need a menu?”

“Are you kidding? They have peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip pancakes and you have to ask?”

He gestured for the waitress and gave her their order. When she'd turned away from the table, he said, “So you told your donor siblings that you were getting together with Emme.”

“Not really everyone.” She appeared to Emme to be debating with herself. “Well, really just Ava.”

“Ava's one of your sisters?”

Hayley nodded. “She's the oldest. I always go to her when I have a problem or anything. You know.”

“Because every girl wants to have a big sister. I do understand,” Emme said, because she did, although her wanting had stopped long ago. “Hayley, how old are you?”

“I'm sixteen. I know, I look younger, but I was sixteen on my last birthday.”

“How old is Ava?” Nick asked.

“She's old. Like, twenty-four. Everyone says we look the most alike.”

“And that makes you happy.” Emme could tell that it did.

Hayley nodded again.

“Where does Ava live? What's her last name?”

“She lives in Boston. She's in graduate school. And we don't do last names. Just first names.”

“Why no last names?” Nick asked.

“Because they don't matter,” Hayley said simply. “We all have different last names, so we decided none of us would use them.”

“Because you're bonding as siblings, and you want to stress what you have in common, not what's different,” Emme noted. “I get it.”

Their beverages were served, coffee for Emme and Nick, soda for Hayley.

“How many are you, all together?” Emme asked.

“There are ten on the message board. We know there are others, but for whatever reasons, they're not into it.”

“Maybe you could tell me about the ones who are,” suggested Emme.

“There's Ali-she's eighteen. She lives in Pittsburgh. She's going to college at Bryn Mawr next year, so I'm going to apply there, too, when I'm a senior. We thought it would be fun to go to the same school and see each other more often.”

Emme took a small notebook from her bag. “I have to write this down. I'll never remember everyone.”

“I thought you just wanted to know about Belle.” Hayley frowned.

“I do want to know about Belle. But I need to know the people she cared about, if I'm going to be able to understand where she might have gone.”

“Hayley, you don't think she would have gone to stay with one of the other kids, do you?” Nick asked as if the thought had just occurred to him.

Hayley shook her head. “Uh-uh. Someone would have said.”

“So we have you, Belle, Ava and Ali-who are the others?” Emme tapped her pencil on the tabletop.

“There's Henry-he's twenty-two and he lives in Connecticut. He just graduated from college. Lori is his sister-they're from the same donor and the same mother so they're, like, full siblings. She's twenty and goes to Yale. Jessie-she's nineteen-she used to live in Florida but last year her dad moved them to France. She used to be on the board a lot, but now, not so much.” She thought that over for a moment before amending, “Not ever anymore. Wayne and Will, they live in North Carolina. They're seventeen and they're twins. No one's met them except for Belle.”

“When did Belle meet them?” Nick asked.

“She drove down to meet them one time last year. She said they're both really sweet guys but their mom doesn't want any part of the donor-sib thing, so they don't get to come to any of the get-togethers.”

“Why would Belle drive all the way down there just to meet them?” Emme wondered aloud.

“Because they never got to meet anyone and they were both feeling left out, I guess.” Hayley shrugged. “Belle didn't make a big deal out of it, she just went. The rest of us probably wouldn't have even known if the guys hadn't posted a picture of the three of them on the board. That was Belle, though. She'd do something nice but never talk about it.”

“So that makes nine, if I counted correctly,” Nick said.

“There's Justin, he's twenty-one and lives in Virginia. He's in college so we don't hear from him very often.”

“Where does he go to school?” Emme looked up from her notes.

“I don't know. He transferred someplace but didn't say where. He's pretty much dropped out.”

She rested an elbow on the table and planted her chin in the palm of one hand and looked wistful. “That happens sometimes. People drop out, they drop in, they drop out again, depending on what's going on in their lives. They get busy.”

She smiled ruefully and added, “Sometimes they get grounded. That's sort of what we thought about Belle, that something was going on and she didn't have time for us for a while. We-me and Ava and Ali-figured she'd be back when it suited her.”

“So it's really not unusual to not hear from someone on the list for a while.” Nick said. “But you wouldn't have thought it odd that someone dropped out for several months?”

“No.” Hayley shook her head. “Sometimes you just get overwhelmed with work. Plus, Belle said she was getting really busy with sorority rush coming up. We all thought she'd be back at the end of the school year.”

“Have you met, face-to-face, with everyone on the board?”

“No. Just Ali, Ava, Henry, Lori, and Belle. We've gotten together a few times. Well, Ava only once, ′cause she's in grad school and is real busy.”

“How about last January?” Nick asked.

Hayley turned to Emme. “That's the day you said she had on her calendar? The day she disappeared?”

“Yes. Did you get together that day?”

“We met in Philadelphia, me, Ali-she was in the area to visit Bryn Mawr-Belle, Henry, and Lori. I told my parents I had to go to the Philadelphia Art Museum for a school project, and that's where we all met. We went through the museum together and then we had lunch there. It was so much fun.” Hayley rested her elbow on the scarred tabletop, her fingers absently tracing a heart that someone had carved long ago, the inscription AS & MR still visible. Emme noticed the entire top of the table was one mass of carvings, as if people had been leaving their mark for generations.

“Did anything unusual happen?” Nick asked.

Emme kicked him under the table. My job.

He sat back against the seat. I got the message. She's all yours.

“I can't think of anything,” Hayley told him.

Emme sat back to permit the waitress to serve their pancakes. The aroma reminded her that she hadn't eaten since six thirty that morning. By the way Nick was eyeing his plate, she suspected that he'd had an early breakfast as well.

“Anyone following you? Or maybe paying too much attention to your group, or to Belle?” Emme waited for Hayley to finish with the syrup.

“No.” Hayley shook her head, then a moment later, her eyes widened slightly. “Oh. Well, there was this guy in the restaurant when we went downstairs to have lunch who was kind of flirting with her.”

“What did he look like?”

“Tall, kind of thin. Real, real light blond hair.” Hayley shrugged. “I didn't pay much attention to him. I just remember that much because she sat across the table from me, and Henry said something like, ‘Hey, Belle, your boyfriend's back,’ and I turned around and saw him sit down at a table behind us.”

“What did he mean, he's back? Had he been hanging around her, following her?”

“I don't know. I hadn't noticed if he did.” She bit her bottom lip. “I guess I should have been more observant. I should have noticed-”

“No, no,” Emme assured her. “It's probably nothing. But just for the record, after lunch, where did you go? Did you go back to the exhibits?”

“Lori, Henry, and I went upstairs to the second floor, because he wanted to see the arms and armor display. He's all into that Knights of the Round Table thing. Ali and Belle wanted to look at the photography exhibit on the ground floor. We all met up later outside, on the front steps. Then everyone sort of went their own way.”

“How did everyone travel that day, do you know?” Emme continued to make notes.

“Lori, Henry, and I all came in by train, so we shared a cab back to Thirtieth Street Station. My train was already there, so I left as soon as we got there. Ali and Belle both had cars.”

“Do you know where Ali and Belle parked?”

“Ali got to park in the museum parking lot because she was early, but Belle was parked on some street somewhere.” Hayley nodded. “I remember that because Ali said she'd drive Belle to her car but Belle said it was okay, she'd walk, ′cause it was such a nice day.”

“Have you heard from Belle since the day at the museum, Hayley?”

Hayley stared into space, as if trying to recall.

“Maybe… but I'm not really sure. Maybe I did… but maybe not. I don't know when I last heard from her. I didn't really pay attention.” She shook her head. “I… I don't remember. But you said that was the day she disappeared, right?”

Emme nodded.

“So whatever happened to her, it must have happened to her there, right?” Horrified, Hayley looked up at Emme. “Something bad happened to her right there, that day, and none of us even knew.”

“There's no way you could have known.” Emme put her arm around Hayley in an attempt to comfort her. “And there's no way to prove that whatever happened, happened there and then. Something could have happened on her way back to school, or once she got there.”

“Or someone could have kidnapped her after she left us!” she sobbed softly.

“Hayley, I'd like to have the email addresses and phone numbers of the other donor siblings,” Emme told her, while making a mental note to find out if the art museum has surveillance cameras in the restaurant. “Can you give me those? I think it's time we spoke directly with them.”

“They might not like it.”

Tough.

Aloud, Emme said, “I think they'd like it far less if they knew that something really bad could have happened to Belle, and that any one of them might know something that could lead us to her.”

“All right.” Hayley found a tissue in her bag and wiped her face. “I have the list at home. I can email it to you.”

“That would be great. Can you do it tonight?”

Clearly reluctant, Hayley nodded, and Emme suspected she might be worried what the others were going to say when they found out she was the one who gave out their information.

“Hayley, did Belle get along with all of the others?” Emme asked, an attempt to find out if all was well among the siblings.

Hayley nodded. “Everyone liked Belle. She's the best.”

“We spoke with Dr. Drake at the fertility clinic,” Nick told her. “She mentioned that Belle had been there, hoping to find some information on Donor 1735. She said Belle had described herself as the spokesperson for the group.”

“When we started talking about maybe trying to find a way to figure out who Donor 1735 is-maybe even meet him-Belle volunteered to go to the clinic and see if they'd let her look at her mother's file.” Hayley smiled weakly. “Which we all figured they wouldn't let her do, but she wanted to give it a shot.”

“There was interest in finding Donor 1735?” Emme asked.

“Sure. There's a kid, Aaron? He actually did it, and he started out with only the little bit of description the clinic gave his mother, and the donor number,” Hayley replied. “There was a whole magazine article about him. It was pretty cool.”

“How complete was the description?” Emme asked.

“I don't know, but my mom said they told her that our donor was tall, blond, of Slovak and Irish background, athletic build, and that he was born in Philly Just that kind of stuff.”

“Someone was able to trace a donor with nothing more than that type of information?” Nick appeared impressed. “This Aaron must be one determined kid. How did he do it?”

Hayley shrugged. “I don't know. He did almost all of it on the Internet, but we all talked about how cool it would be if we could find 1735. Have a big reunion, you know?” She played with a strand of her hair. “Of course, it wouldn't really be a reunion, you know, ′cause we'd never met him before.”

“Hayley, do you remember when this discussion took place?” Emme asked.

The girl thought for a moment. “I'm pretty sure it was sometime last year.” She paused as if trying to remember. “Yeah, it would have been. Because Jessie said she was going to do what Aaron did, but then her dad got transferred, like I said, and she pretty much forgot about it, I guess. Then it all came up again in the fall, and we were all still talking about it when we got together.”

“You talked about this when you were at the museum?” Emme asked.

“Yeah. Someone said how cool it was that we were in Philly and that he had been born in Philly, you know, back then. And how maybe he could even have been there, at the museum, right then. And then someone else said that maybe he'd been going out when we were coming in and we'd walked right past him and didn't know him and he didn't know us. Stuff like that.”

“Was anyone in your group thinking about tracking down Donor 1735, besides Jessie?” Nick's fingers closed around his coffee cup.

“Belle was. She'd already gotten in touch with this kid, Aaron, the one who found his donor? She said he told her what he did, and how he did it, and she was pretty sure she could do it, so we were all pretty psyched about that.”

“Do you know how far she got? Was she able to identify him?” Emme asked.

“I don't know, but I kinda think she might have been getting close.” Hayley sucked the rest of her drink through her straw in a loud whoosh. “When we asked her about it, she just smiled and said ‘Stay tuned.’”

“Stay tuned.” Nick repeated flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Hayley, was Belle particularly close to any one of your siblings? Someone she might have confided in?”

“Ali, maybe. But she was pretty friendly with all of us.”

“So everyone knew she was looking for Donor 1735.”

Hayley nodded. “Sure. It wasn't a secret. And Belle was scary smart. If she said she'd find him, we all knew it was only a matter of time until she did.”