She dropped her purse in the chair behind her desk and tossed her jacket over the back. She sat, pressed her palms to her cheeks, which now felt as if they were on fire.
The halls were quiet, the daily hum of activity gone, and five pink message slips lay in the middle of her desk. Her phone’s message light was blinking. It never stopped.
But more questions cascaded into her thoughts. Had Macy simply been dealing with her father’s death when she got that drink at the bar? Or had Crow told her something that had put her on a dangerous quest?
Dirk’s spotty knowledge of Macy’s adoption reminded her of all the information swept under the carpet or just plain hidden by her parents. Why don’t I look like my cousins? What was it like the day I was born? Was I a difficult delivery? Her mother had not come clean about the adoption until Faith was eleven. She remembered how stunned and then angry she’d been. Her mother had assured her it made no difference. Faith had wanted to believe that, but she realized now she had never fully released her anger.
Her phone buzzed, and she answered it absently. “Dr. McIntyre.”
“Doc, this is Tina. Just confirming you’re taking Kat to her appointment today. You’re always early, and she’s convinced you’ve forgotten.”
She glanced at the clock on the wall. She had. “I was held up. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Can you let the doctor’s office know we’re on the way?”
“Will do.”
The walk down the hallway, touching base with Nancy, and the drive to the shelter were a blur. She wasn’t even truly processing when she walked up to the shelter and pushed through the front door.
Faith wove through the shelter’s cobbled rooms searching for Kat, who had promised to be in the lobby waiting. She had to have the girl at the ob-gyn by six forty-five. She’d wanted to leave extra time so she could talk to Kat’s doctor.
She found the girl sitting in the game room, a beanbag chair molded around her body as she frowned into the screen of the two-year-old laptop Faith had given her. It was now covered in dozens of stickers, including ones that read THINK DIFFERENT, GIRL POWER, and DO NOT DISTURB.
Kat lumbered up from the beanbag chair and closed her laptop. “Where have you been?”
“Dead people run my life.” The words could have passed as a dry quip, but no truer words were spoken. What she would give right now for five minutes of living, breathing parents willing to answer questions.
Kat picked up her backpack and shoved her computer inside. “That’s the best excuse I’ve ever had when someone flakes on me.”
As they walked to the car, Faith cut her eyes to the kid who was acting like her tardiness was no big deal, when it was a big deal. “I didn’t flake.”
“Whatever.”
“Ready to see your doctor?”
“No.” Kat had had no prenatal care until her twenty-fourth week, when her foster mother had realized the kid wasn’t getting fat but was pregnant. Her foster mother had no desire to deal with the pregnancy, so she’d turned Kat over to the shelter. Almost as soon as Kat had arrived, Faith had had her figured out. Though the kid seemed hell-bent on screwing up her life, Faith had taken her under her wing.
In the car, Kat buckled her seat belt and began immediately fiddling with the radio. She selected another station that made Faith’s ears hurt and reminded her that as young as Kat still thought Faith was, Faith had aged out of the latest music playlist.
“So I’ve been doing a little detective work,” Kat said.
“Looking into colleges?”
“God, no. Might as well be chasing unicorns.”
More glibness. Had she been this difficult as a teenager? Faith found herself struggling to stay positive in the face of so much hormonal negativity and understood now why her father had sent her on so many lavish excursions during her high school summer vacations. “That’s not true, Kat. I’ve told you that there are options if you want it.”
The girl held up her hand with flair to silence Faith as with the other hand she rummaged in her pocket for a rumpled piece of paper. “I looked up your Josie Jones.”
Faith was completely derailed by Kat’s comment and swiveled her head around toward the kid, staring until she heard, “Watch out!”
Faith hit her brakes and stopped seconds before she rear-ended the car in front of her. She pulled into a gas station parking lot. It was several deep breaths before she attempted to speak.
“You did what?” Faith asked.
“I did a search for Josie Jones while I was killing time this afternoon.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Faith said. “It’s really personal.”
“You’re always up in my face about superpersonal things. Turnabout is fair play.”
“It’s different.”
Kat looked ahead carefully, making a show of folding her piece of paper. “So you don’t want to hear about what I found?”
Faith tapped her hands on the wheel. She was supposed to be the adult in this situation. She should remind Kat to mind her own business, but she knew the kid could find things on the Web that most could not, and her curiosity was stronger than her indignation. “I want to know.”
Kat waved the piece of paper in front of her face like a fan. “Maybe I don’t want to tell you now.”
“You’re killing me, kid.”
The girl’s laugh rang with a genuine brightness she’d never heard before. Carefully, Kat unfolded her paper. “I found out that Josie wasn’t much different than me.”
“What do you mean?”
“She had been in foster care on and off for several years before the system cut her loose when she turned eighteen. A couple of days before her nineteenth birthday, she was arrested for shoplifting, but the charges were dropped. Do you want to see a picture of her?”
“I’ve seen her mug shot.”
“It’s another one.”
Faith’s heart leapt. “How did you find it?”
Kat looked almost offended. “What kind of detective would I be if I couldn’t find a basic picture?”
“Detective. Cute. More like a hacker.”
“Such a harsh term.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out a picture printed on regular paper. “This picture is from a Dallas paper. When Josie was fifteen, she won a science competition.”
Faith held the picture, amazed at how already she was starved for details about this woman she’d only just learned about. The image wasn’t high quality, but she could see the young girl standing next to the mayor and the secondary school principal. The headline read “Foster Child Wins Science Award.”
A surge of outrage shot through her as she wondered why the reporter had defined Josie by her place in the social services system.
“Check out the headline,” Kat said.
“I see it.”
“She was pegged like me.”
“You aren’t pegged.” Faith’s attention shifted to the girl’s bright smile, her blond hair, and tall, lean frame. Grateful there was no trace of the sullenness found in Josie’s mug shot, she kept dissecting the girl’s features, searching for any clues about her.
“The second I saw Josie’s picture, I saw a resemblance to you,” Kat said.
“Do you think so?”
“Oh, yeah.”
She wrestled the excitement and sadness from her voice. “I wonder how she ended up in Austin.”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, but I will. I’m also searching for siblings, aunts, uncles, etcetera. I want to find out where she ended up.”
Faith was surprised by how much she needed to believe that everything had worked out for Josie. “Any traces of her yet?”
“No, which is odd. Even back in the eighties, a.k.a. the Stone Age, people left some footprints. She left none. The world swallowed her up just like it’s trying to do to me.”
As quickly as Faith’s hopes for information rose, they fell. “Kat, you’re not going to be like Josie. The world is not going to devour you.”
Kat looked up with tears glistening in her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because whether you like it or not, I’m not going to let it happen.” She drove across the gas station parking lot to the entrance, looked both ways, and pulled back onto the main road. She drove the car toward the medical park on the west side of the city.
“Why are you nice to me?” Kat asked.
Faith had never stopped to ask herself that question. “I guess I’ve always liked your spirit. You’re smart. A hard worker, when you care.”
Kat fumbled with the zipper on her jacket, flipping it up and down. “And I threw it all away when I got knocked up.”
“You haven’t thrown anything away. But we can’t ignore the baby. He or she deserves to be taken care of just like any other baby.”
“I didn’t say that it shouldn’t have a good home.” She continued to flip the zipper up and down. “The social services lady called again today. She wants to know what my plan is for the baby.”
“It’s a fair question. Babies are a lot of work, and you do need a plan.”
“I don’t want to give it to strangers.”
“Then you won’t. If you decide to find adoptive parents for the baby, you can meet them.”
“What if adoption screws up my kid?”
Faith arched a brow but kept her gaze on the road. “Do I look screwed up?”
“No. You’re pretty together.” Kat seemed to chew on their conversation. “How old were you when you were given away?”
Given away. It sounded harsh when Kat said it. “Days, maybe hours old, I think. I don’t know for certain.”
This new puzzle sparked interest in the girl’s eyes. “Why don’t you know your own story?”
“My mother didn’t tell me until I was eleven, and whenever I had questions, she made it clear she hated talking about it,” Faith said.