The Wrong Girl (35 page)

“What?” Jane tried to process this. “Why would anyone—”

“I’m outside Lillian Finch’s house right now,” Ella interrupted, talking even faster. “With a key she gave me. There was nothing in her office that proved anything. So I think the proof must be in her house.”

Was this flake planning to go
inside
? Into the home of a possible murder victim? Jane tried to concentrate on the road, on the increasing sputter of snow, and on how to keep Ella from making the dumbest move imaginable.

“Ella? I’m so glad you called. Very wise of you. We can talk. But listen, don’t do that. Don’t go inside. I know you have a key, and I know she gave it to you.” No harm in letting Ella think she believed it. “Let me ask you. Is there crime scene tape on the door? That would mean the house is sealed, and there’s no way for you to go inside. It would be illegal.”

Silence. The traffic was molasses, headlights and streetlights struggling to illuminate the way.

“I can’t tell about any tape from here,” Ella said. “There’s trees. I’m across the street, in my car, and it’s kind of snowing. I’ve been sitting here kind of a long time. But I don’t care. I’m going in.”

Jane hit her forehead with the heel of her hand.
Colossally dumb.
Insane. But it wasn’t Jane’s responsibility to—Fine. “Ella? You called to ask me what to do, right?”

“Right. But now I’ve decided. On my own. I’m not leaving. I’m going in.” Her voice sounded taut, almost petulant. Or determined. “With you, or without you. It’s my responsibility. There are families who think they—”

“Ella? Ella? Okay. Stay there. But do
not
go inside. Wait for me.” If she could stall this girl, she could convince her to drop this ridiculous idea. “It’ll take me a little while to get there, the snow’s getting worse out here. But I’ll come, we’ll talk. But only if you promise.”

Silence.

“Ella?” She imagined Ella breaking through the crime scene tape, the police finding out—
Jake!
—and poor Ella would wind up needing a very good lawyer. Jane was going to
kill
Tuck.

“I promise,” Ella whispered. “But hurry.”

The baby’s eyes fluttered. Maggie was beginning to fidget on the couch. Jake needed to decide what to do. Now.

“Maggie? Is Diane Marie supposed to be in foster care?” Another thought. “Was she Brianna’s foster child?”

Maybe this was the wrong baby. Maybe not the one from Callaberry Street.

“There are so many unloved children.” Maggie looked down at the infant in her arms, her eyes softening. “It’s not their fault, and there’s no way the system can save them all. I’m supposed to send them to new homes, but how can I be sure they’ll thrive and flourish? They … so often don’t. It began to feel like we could never do enough.”

DeLuca returned. “Clear.”

“Watch the front,” Jake said. Why hadn’t Maggie just run out when she heard them come in? Probably figured they’d never find the connecting door. Safer to stay put. “Did you call anyone, Maggie?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Gotcha, Jake. I’m on it,” DeLuca said.

For now, at least, they were alone. Unless Maggie actually did have reinforcements on the way, no one would get hurt. And possibly he’d get some answers. Jake briefly envisioned the front door he’d smashed through outside. Apparently no neighbors had noticed. You’d think someone would have called 911 by now.

Called 911.
The blood drained from Jake’s face. He felt his skin go cold.

“Where were you last Sunday afternoon?” Jake asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know Brianna Tillson?” He paused. “Let me put it another way. How do you know Brianna Tillson?”

“I don’t—”

“Be very careful, now, Maggie. I know you’re a good person. Doing what you think is right. But whatever it is—is over. You know that, don’t you? Little Diane Marie is counting on you to protect her. Relying on you. You’re all she has.
You,
Maggie. Her only hope.”

Jake could hear the baby breathing, a little snuffly sound.

“I just went to the drugstore,” Maggie said.

“Drugstore?” Did his words not register with her?
The drugstore?

“I asked Brianna to come over and babysit at Callaberry Street, only for that one hour. No one really lives there, you know. Like, over there.”

She pointed toward the other side of the Edgeworth duplex. Then put her hand back on the baby’s flannel, twisting her fingers into the fabric.

Jake took out his cell.
Here we go.
“I’m recording this, okay, Maggie?” Risky to interrupt. But if she agreed, it could be kickass evidence.

Maggie nodded.

“Okay?” Jake had to get her to say it out loud, so it was on the recording. In Massachusetts, the law prohibited secretly recording audio, even by cops. Jake couldn’t risk losing this potential evidence.

“Okay, you can record,” Maggie said.

“So you were saying about no one living there. In Brianna’s apartment.”

“It wasn’t Brianna’s. Len just uses his vacant apartments as, I don’t know, way stations. Anyway, Len wasn’t
supposed
to come to pick up baby Diane until later that evening. Brianna didn’t know, of course. She was a registered foster mother, so she sometimes filled in as a babysitter if we needed help. She was good with kids. I was supposed to be there, watching the kids until Len came, but I
had
to get my stuff for Anguilla. You know? I couldn’t take them with me.”

She stopped, then started again. “I was only gone for an hour. An
hour.
”

Jake thought back, thought of the fragrance in the kitchen. He’d thought it was cleaning solution. But it was really—“Sunscreen,” he said. “You went to get sunscreen.”

“Yeah. But the bottle cracked open when I threw the drugstore bag. After I saw what Len had done. It was horrible. So horrible.”

Jake watched her face as she remembered. Decided to let her fill the silence. Let her explain what this was all about. Once they started, the ones who felt guilty always kept talking. They’d held it in for so long, sometimes getting to tell was their only solace.

Maggie took a deep breath, her arms tightening around the baby. “Len told me Brianna had tried to keep Diane from him. Said she didn’t believe it was … arranged, and she thought he was trying to steal the baby. Hurt her. A four-month-old baby! She threatened to call the cops. She died, protecting Diane.”

Jake stared at her, imagining the scene. Brianna, somehow in the wrong place at the wrong time. About the rest, he still had no idea. But he’d act as if he did. “So Brianna didn’t know about your plan.”
Whatever it was.

“No. Of course not. I tried to see if she was still alive, you know? But it was … too late. And Len was bleeding, too. Phillip and Phoebe, they were asleep, with their teddies, in the other room. They were all set with their new family, and I was going to stay over with them, drop them off the next morning on my way to the airport. But Len had arranged for Diane’s potential new parents to meet her that afternoon. At the lawyer’s. He had come to get her. But he was early. And—”

“Diane’s new foster family, you mean?”

“Oh, no. No. Not foster family.”

Her expression said—
don’t you get it?
And no, he didn’t. “Then—?”

“Adoption. Private adoption,” Maggie said. “I mean, it all takes
so long.
The red tape is horrendous for foster care, and adoption is even worse, and there are so many foster kids, and so many files, no one can possibly keep track of them all. No one’s counting. No one but me. All I had to do was find kids with no relatives, fix the paperwork, and poof. One at a time, I saved them. One at a time, they disappeared from the nightmare. And they lived happily ever after. As they should.”

“So you were taking kids
out
of the foster system and—”

“For their own good! Len arranged it all. And it worked perfectly, every time. Until Brianna. He said she was freaking out, that she grabbed a pan from the stove to keep him away from Diane. Keep him from taking her. There was nothing he could do, Len said. He had to grab the other pan. And…” Her voice trailed off.

“Leonard Perl,” Jake said. The landlord. The landlord here, and on Callaberry Street. No wonder he hadn’t answered their phone calls to Florida. He’d been right here in Boston. “Leonard Perl. Correct?”

“Yes,” Maggie whispered. “Finn’s uncle. Well, foster uncle. So then we—”

“Called nine-one-one,” Jake said.
Finn? Who was that?

Maggie nodded. “Yes. We had to get out, of course. But we knew police would come, and they’d make sure Phillip and Phoebe were taken care of. Len’s lawyer told
their
new parents some story, the kids’ birth mother reneged, claimed parental rights or something. It happens. We knew they’d be returned to the system, poor things. All I had to do was quickly restore their records, you know? Those were the files I gave you. But at least we saved the baby. I gave up my vacation to stay with her. Her adoption arrangement is almost final.”

“Brianna’s purse.” Jake understood now. Why there’d been no stuff. Brianna Tillson didn’t live there. Neither did Maggie. “You took that, too.”

Maggie nodded.

“Yes?” Jake remembered the recording. “I need you to say it.”

“The purse. Yes.” A tear trickled down Maggie’s face. She made no gesture to wipe it away, and it landed on the baby’s fuzzy blanket. “She lived alone. Wasn’t fostering a child. There was no one to miss her.”

Jake paused, watching this poor misguided woman. Seeing how she cradled that little girl. The baby she had stolen from the system—and how many others?—convinced she was doing a good deed. Convinced she was saving lives.

Not what the law would call it. The law would call it falsifying official records and abducting children from the legal protection of state custody.

“Margaret Gunnison, it is now seven thirty-two
P.M
. on Wednesday. You’re under arrest for the kidnapping of Diane Marie Weaver, for the attempted kidnapping of Phillip and Phoebe Lussier, and for being accessory to the murder of Brianna Tillson. You have the right to remain—”

“Will you take care of Diane?” Maggie said. She stood, touching the baby’s wisp of colorless hair with a finger, then leaned down and kissed Diane on the forehead. She handed Jake the pink bundle, not trying to hide the quiet tears now coursing down her cheeks. “Will you? Nothing that’s happened is her fault. There’s a loving family still waiting for her. You can’t keep her from that. You
can’t.
”

Ella clicked off her phone, regretting, instantly, her promise to Jane Ryland. She felt the muscles in her back go stiff, the ones in her neck, too. Her car was impossible. With the heat on it was too hot. With the heat off it was too cold. She’d finally decided to take steps. Important steps, on her own, but then she’d blown it by calling Jane.

She banged her hands against the steering wheel. The horn gave a little beep. She jumped, stomach clenching, and waited in the heart-pounding silence to see if any lights went on in the homes nearby.

Nothing.

Snowflakes sparkled through the streetlights, blowing almost sideways at times, hypnotic and relentless. The weather was about to get hideous, dark and hideous, but maybe that would make her plan easier. Because she was going in.

She was.

She felt the hard edges of Lillian’s keys in her hand. If she didn’t do this now, she’d lose her nerve. She’d get in, look quickly, get out. How would she know where to look? Lillian’s office, certainly. She’d been there before. Not like she was invading anyone’s privacy. Not like Lillian was going to catch her. She laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

Calm down.
Okay. It would be okay.

If all went well, by the time Jane arrived, she’d be out and back in her car. It would all be over and all would be fine and she could show Jane what she’d found. If she found anything.

She was going in.

She was.

Maybe.

*

“I already said, I’ll tell you when we get there.” Kev was being horrible. Bossy. Kept refusing to tell her what he was going to do. Kellianne, relegated to the backseat of the Afterwards van a-
gain,
yanked her seat belt over the front of her puffer jacket.
Hate
this. But know-it-all Kev ordered her to stay home, and she had to prove he wasn’t the boss of her. So here she was.

Only fifteen minutes to Margolin Street, usually. When the weather wasn’t this crappy.
Hmm.
Maybe she should snake a couple more items. Since the TV said their cop guy was, like, out of commission, who knew when her next opportunity would be?

She braced herself against the headrest as Kev ignored a stop sign and barely missed a guy in a Jeep. The radio was blaring. The boys whispered as they smoked a blunt in the front seat, but she wasn’t about to ask for a hit. Not while she needed her brain to figure this out. She hadn’t put two and two together before, but now she could do the math. The cop plus the shooting equaled shit for Kellianne. Would her supply and demand dry up?

So, okay. She’d held off on the valuable stuff before, but this time she wouldn’t hesitate. Who cared about a dead person?

She smiled, thinking of something funny. She was always cleaning up after dead people, right? Now she would just clean up.

They were passing downtown, the familiar jaggedy skyline almost blotted out by the snow. The row of weather lights on the top of the Hancock Building flashed blue, which meant snow.
Duh.
The van turned toward Margolin Street.

What were Kev and Keefer gonna do? Probably make sure all their equipment was out of there. She knew they’d left disinfectant and alcohol and cleaning supplies. While they did whatever, she’d find what she was looking for, and get out. They never made her a part of anything, and this time she was happy about that.
Morons.
When it was over, she’d be another step closer to getting out for good.

Life was short.