The Wrong Girl

12

“Can we go now? Please?” Kellianne Sessions gripped both hands over the back of the front seat, pleading with her older brother as he got into their van. Kev had joined the group of neighbors who arrived to check out the reporters while Keefer had stayed in the front seat, obliv, glued to his iPod. She’d sat through the whole news conference, sulking, sinking into her parka. Trapped, totally, by this whole thing. People had to die for them to get paid. How sick was that?

She’d probably wind up with some disease from all the junk they had to use to clean up after somebody who died. Whatever got rid of the stench and the crud, had to, like, eat away at your lungs and blood when you breathed it in. Sometimes the death smell stuck in her nose no matter what she did. She knew people looked at her funny. The smell was always part of her.

“What’s the prob, Kel?” Kevin slammed the driver’s side door. “You got a big date or something? He can wait. Then you can tell him all about your latest cleanup job. Bet the guys go nuts over that. You’re the queen-a-death.”

Jerk. She kicked the front seat with her boot for punctuation.

“Huh?” Keefer turned around, eyes wide, yanking out one earbud.

“Ignore her,” Kevin told him. “Here’s the drill. We’ll wait till the cops leave, then go in and scope out the place. The landlord’s guy got a key for us. We gotta see what there is, what we need to bring. We gotta call the landlord and give him the estimate-he’s got insurance, so we’re golden.”

“Oh, right.” Kellianne rolled her eyes. The estimate. Like that was reality.

“Then we’ll book. And you can head off to meet Prince Charming.”

Kellianne ignored him, counting the minutes. All the reporters were leaving, the news trucks pulling out of their parking spaces and heading off to their cool jobs at the TV stations. Funny, though, they had to show up for death, too. The cops, the really cute one in the leather jacket and the geeky tall one, were going back inside. Weird, now that she thought about it. Cops also had to show up for dead people.

She pulled out her phone, punched up her favorite game app, Killerwatt. Fun with death, right? That was her whole life.

Ella Gavin stared at the phone she’d dropped beside her on her living room couch. She had to think. She’d already called Miss Cameron, no taking that back. They’d arranged a meeting for tomorrow morning, Monday, before work. What could she do now? Probably stay up the whole night worrying. But it would be okay. Whatever was true was good.

She’d moved her knitting bag off the coffee table to make room for the stack of paperwork. It made her stomach twist to look at the sort-of-stolen documents. Was there a way the Brannigan people could discover who’d made copies?

Whiskers chose that moment to jump onto her lap, purring and nudging.

“I know, kitty. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. But it’s my responsibility to help make sure things are all in order. These are people’s lives, after all. And if Miss Finch made a mistake, somehow, and sent… poof.”

The cat had brushed her tail across Ella’s mouth. She plucked the cat hair from her lips, then cuddled her pet closer, comforted by the rumbling purr. “We’re happy, right, Whiskey-roo? Everyone should be happy, and with those they love. That’s what we do. And… and…”

A peculiar beep from the phone beside her startled them both. The cat jumped off Ella’s lap onto the twisty brown throw rug.

“It’s only out of batteries,” Ella reassured herself as much as the cat. Why did this whole Brannigan thing make her such a scaredy? She was barely thirty years old, good at her job. She paid her rent, paid her bills, went to church, and someday would find the One.

“I’m not a wimp, kitty.” She picked up the first page of her copied files. Easy to tell she’d been in a hurry-each page was skewed and off center. But the facts were clear. An infant called Audrey Rose Beerman had been left in Brannigan custody, then adopted by Brian and Deirdre Cameron. More than twenty years later, a grown-up Tucker Cameron had been informed that “Audrey Rose Beerman” was her first identity and Carlyn Parker Beerman her biological mother.

The paperwork looked perfectly in order. Lillian Finch did not make mistakes. But Tucker Cameron insisted it was wrong. Why?

Maybe she didn’t get along with Carlyn Beerman? Maybe her adoptive mother was pressuring her? Ella had seen that often enough. Adoptive mothers got possessive, demanding, jealous. Wanted to keep up the illusion. Being someone’s “mother” could be defined in a lot of different ways.

“You can’t choose your family, Whiskers. We are who we are.”

Had she missed something? Should she look at the records again? She was tired. Confused. And she had to admit-frightened a little bit. She wasn’t used to taking matters into her own hands. Too late now.

Beyond her living room curtains a frosty twinkle of stars emerged behind wisps of gathering clouds. Was Tucker Cameron the same person as Audrey Rose Beerman? If not-well, if not, what?

Tomorrow morning, she’d find out. Whatever was true was good.