The Girl With No Name

Chapter Thirty-Three

Josie and Noah met Gretchen at Misty’s house. The top desk drawer stood open and Gretchen had spread several papers across the surface. She shifted from foot to foot as Josie looked them over.

“Misty was using a fertility clinic?” Josie said. She picked up a discharge summary from Forest Hills Fertility Clinic in Philadelphia. It was dated December of the previous year.

Over Josie’s shoulder, Noah let out a low whistle. “I didn’t see that coming,” he said.

“Me either,” Josie muttered. Her eyes scanned over the page. “In vitro fertilization. Why would she keep this a secret?”

Noah said, “Maybe she felt funny about using a sperm donor?”

Gretchen’s fingers tapped against her thigh. “No,” Gretchen said. “It’s not that.”

Both Josie and Noah looked up at her. With a grimace, she picked up a packet of pages and handed them to Josie. “It’s the identity of the sperm donor.”

“I thought those were anonymous,” Noah said.

“Well mostly they are, but a lot of sperm banks require photos of the donors as children. They don’t release their names or address or anything, but the photos help prospective mothers choose the donor. Apparently, a lot of mothers like to have a donor who looks like them.”

Josie looked up from the pages Gretchen had handed her which, so far, looked like the profile for a twenty-something blond Caucasian male. Donor number G8492. “How do you know all this?” she asked.

“I called the sperm bank while you were on your way. They wouldn’t tell me much without a warrant, but they were able to give me ‘general’ information—and when I say general, I mean all of this is on their website, which I went onto after I hung up with them.”

Josie read over the profile. Blood type: B-positive. Shoe size: 10. Right handed. Athletic. College student with an interest in criminal justice. “What’s so special about donor G8492?” she asked.

“Turn the page,” said Gretchen.

A photo of the donor was centered on the next page. Josie stared at it for a long moment as the walls around her closed in. She felt like she was falling. Maybe she was, because the next thing she knew, Noah’s hand was on the small of her back. “Boss?” he said. “You okay?”

She stared at the photo. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. “I don’t understand,” she mumbled.

But she did understand. Josie couldn’t bring herself to have children knowing that she carried her mother’s genes, knowing that she had the potential to pass on that same evil to any child she and Ray might bear. What if Josie herself carried the same evil inside her that her mother had? Would becoming a mother bring it out? Josie couldn’t risk that. Ray had always argued nurture over nature, but it was not a chance Josie had ever been willing to take. Ray had been fine with that, but he had joked that when they were old, they might end up with a child they never had to raise. It was then that, nervously, he admitted to Josie that he had donated sperm while he was in college. He’d done it to earn a few extra dollars. He’d done it on a whim. He’d done it because he’d always had an inflated sense of his own importance.

Now a photo of her dead husband as a ten-year-old boy stared back at her from the donor report. It was his nervous smile. The one where the corners of his mouth didn’t quite go up all the way and there was the slightest furrow in the crease above his nose. Josie knew it well. It was the same smile he’d given her right before he proposed and the same one he’d used the time he’d booked them a super-expensive trip to Disney World for their first wedding anniversary without discussing it with her first. It was the look he got whenever he wasn’t quite sure if what he was doing was right, but he was going for it anyway.

“Oh, Ray,” she murmured.

They’d been so stupid. She could have asked him to contact the sperm bank and have his samples destroyed, but she had only half-believed him when he told her in the first place. But he hadn’t been lying, hadn’t made it up to get a rise out of her; he’d really done it. He’d donated his sperm, and somehow Misty had tracked it down. Little Victor Raymond Derossi was Ray’s son.

“Holy shit,” Noah said. His eyes, too, were glued to Ray’s photograph. “Is this right?”

Josie tore her gaze from the photo and looked at Noah. His face had turned an alarming shade of gray. She looked to Gretchen. “How did you know this was my husband?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I put that together. He looked so familiar. Then I realized it was the sergeant who died during the missing girls case. His photo was on the news a lot. There’s a photo of him and some of the other officers in the break room. Plus, you have that photo in your office of the two of you as children. His name was Sergeant Quinn, you’re Chief Quinn. Not hard to figure. He knew, right? He knew what was going on in this town, and he didn’t say anything? That’s what was reported. So, I was thinking if I was Misty, would I want people to know that that cop was the father of my baby? Even if we were engaged and in love? Don’t you think she’d face backlash in a city this small? All those victims?”

Instinctually, Josie opened her mouth to defend Ray but clamped it shut again. There was no defending what he had done. Or not done. Gretchen was right. As much as Josie had tried to keep it out of the press, tried to keep her late, estranged husband’s name from being dragged through the mud, people knew. People knew, and they talked. There were almost a hundred victims. A hundred families looking for justice and a place to direct their rage.

“A lot of people knew Ray,” Noah agreed. “People remember. I can see the sense in her wanting to keep it under wraps.”

“This doesn’t explain why Kim Conway and Denny Twitch were here,” Josie said. “So what? She used a sperm donor.” Never mind that it was my dead husband. “That doesn’t help us find her baby. What did Conway and Twitch want with her?”

“Maybe Conway was hiding here, and Twitch came for her,” Noah suggested.

“Why would Misty hide Kim Conway?” Josie said. “They didn’t know each other.”

“Well, we know Misty had an affair with Brady, Kim’s older brother,” Noah said. “Also, they both knew Luke.”

“How’s that?” Gretchen asked.

Noah told her what they’d found at the Conway house as well as their theory that both Kim and Kavolis had been there the night of the shooting; that Kavolis had been killed there but moved to Luke’s property to be buried; and also that Kim Conway might have been pregnant.

Gretchen raised a brow. “That’s interesting stuff, but you’re right, none of it helps us find the baby or Luke. Dunn is all over this.”

“But what’s Dunn’s connection to Misty?” Josie asked.

Ray’s photo continued to pull on her heartstrings. She moved to flip the page, but another page was caught on the back of it, held by a paper clip. Josie disentangled the sheet, tearing the corner of it as she did. The letterhead was from Atlantic East Cryobank. Its headquarters were in a town about an hour east of Denton—between Denton and Philadelphia.

It was dated six weeks earlier. Dear Ms. Derossi, it read. We regret to inform you that it has come to our attention that the sample which was forwarded to Forest Hills Fertility Clinic in December of last year for your in vitro procedure may not have been the sample which you had originally chosen. Unfortunately, due to a clerical error, the incorrect sample may have been forwarded to the clinic on your behalf. As you know, you had chosen donor G8492. We believe that due to a series of computer and clerical issues in our storage facility, you were actually given samples for donor number G8491. We can provide a copy of donor G8491’s profile upon request. Donor G8491’s sample was significantly older than the sample you had chosen. It had been slated for destruction. Due to the age of this sample, there is a possibility that any child produced as a result of the use of this sample may have health issues or birth defects. Due to this risk, it was agreed we should immediately bring this potential error to your attention. We are also enclosing a check for a full refund of our fee. Please rest assured that we have launched an internal investigation into this matter. Once we have concluded the same, we will contact you immediately to let you know of our findings. We deeply apologize for any inconvenience which this may cause.

“Sorry for the inconvenience?” Josie said incredulously. She handed the letter to Noah. Gretchen came to stand beside him so they could both read it.

“I didn’t even see this,” Gretchen said, her face pinched. “I looked through everything.”

“It was stuck to the profile,” Josie said. “I had a hard time getting it separated.”

“Jesus,” Noah said. He motioned toward the desk. “Is there anything else from the cryobank? Did they figure out which sample she got?”

Josie riffled through the remaining pages on the desk. She pulled out the drawers one by one and paged through everything in them. “I don’t see anything,” she said.

“I’ll call them,” Gretchen said.

“We need to know who donor G8491 is,” Josie said. “They probably won’t tell you anything without a warrant. Keep me posted. I still want to pay Eric Dunn a visit. This is all very enlightening, but I’ve still got three missing persons, and everything now leads back to Dunn.”