Tides of the Heart (20 page)

The three or four weeks Phillip’s message had promised evolved into five. As Jess tried to busy herself with work, the crocuses turned to daffodils, the daffodils to lilacs. It was May—precariously close to Maura’s return from school for the summer. Jess would have preferred to have learned the information without her daughter anywhere around. Then again, she reminded herself on her more realistic days, there might not be any information.

She had not spoken with Ginny; Ginny seemed to have enough of her own problems right now. Besides, there was nothing to say.

She thought about calling Phillip, but each time she lifted the receiver, she quickly hung up. And waited.

There was little Jess could do except wait impatiently for the mail delivery every day, then carefully examine each envelope, searching in vain for another blue envelope postmarked Martha’s Vineyard. At night she went directly to the answering machine at home, but there had been no more calls, no more contact to make her believe that this had been anything but a dream.

She wondered. She waited. And slowly, on the calendar
on the wall over the small desk at her shop, Jess marked off the days in thick black X’s.

Lisa hadn’t called. Damn her, she hadn’t even called. Not that Ginny wanted her to. Not that she wanted to learn anything more than she already knew from the covers of the tabloids at the supermarket checkouts, that with every mile and every stop, Lisa became more hooked to Brad’s hip.

The headlines said it all:

It was enough to make her gag. Ginny flung the latest issue onto the seat of the car, her twice-weekly vigil to the market complete. As in the past few weeks, she was determined not to read the crap printed inside, determined not to look at the photos of Lisa and Brad vamping in Vegas, dancing in Denver, and ogling one another in Oklahoma. As in the past few weeks, however, she would break down and do it.

She would read the articles recounting the couple’s overland escapade that was “better than flying”; she would learn about the shops they visited (“could the trinkets they purchased be to furnish an impending home?”); she would study the speculations that they might soon be married (“Brad was seen spending a very long time at a jeweler’s in Baltimore”). And with each word and each photo, Ginny felt increasingly ill.

Not that it mattered. Because Lisa Andrews was out of her life, gonzo, kaput.

Besides, who needed her, anyway?

•  •  •

Phillip removed the poster of the New York City Marathon from the wall of his cubicle office and wrapped it in brown paper for the movers. He could not believe the day had finally arrived: Archambault and Archambault was going uptown, this time for more than a racquetball game.

He looked around the room and decided he was grateful for his brother, Joseph, who had pushed them to change along with the times, and had probably saved them from the ambulance-chasing, no-fees-unless-you-collect gutter. The world, after all, was different from when their father had practiced law: faster, bloodier, different.

Joseph’s wife, Camille, poked her head into the cubicle. “Phillip, is Nicole all set for tonight?”

Camille’s short hair was off her face in a headband, her denim shirt large and out of character for the usually tailored, conservative woman. But Camille was pregnant now—the last in vitro had worked—and in a burst of prenatal energy, she’d taken on the responsibility of the moving details, right down to making certain the post office would begin delivering their mail to Seventy-third and Park today, right down to badgering the telephone company into switching the lines by noon. Included in her plans was dinner for four at the White Rose, a small, neighborhood Italian restaurant—in their
new
neighborhood—Camille and Joseph, Nicole and Phillip. A celebration for the new address of success.

Phillip smiled. “She has a late class, but she promised to be there by eight.”
Nicole
, he thought, her musk scent coming to mind. Nicole signified one more example of the importance of moving ahead: No woman like her would be content with a man who spent his days out of the loop.

Camille nodded just as the phone rang. She raised her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. “Doesn’t anyone know this is moving day?”

“I’ll get it.” Phillip laughed, stepped over a carton and reached for the phone, because their new receptionist—
their full-time-with-benefits receptionist—would not begin work until tomorrow.

“Phillip Archambault, please,” a woman’s voice asked.

“Speaking.”

“Phillip, this is Marsha Brown. About your adoption search.”

Brown. Marsha Brown.
Oh, God
, he thought, shoving aside a box and sitting in his chair. It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten about Jess or about Amy. But he’d been so busy … “Yes, Marsha,” he said into the phone, “how are you making out?”

“I have an answer for you. Do you have a pen and paper?”

Phillip scanned the mess of papers and files strewn across his desk. He rifled through the drawer, but came up empty. It had already been packed. “Ah,” he said, “could you hold on a minute?” He set down the receiver. “Joseph?” he called, walking from his desk, gingerly stepping over cartons. “Hey. Does anybody have a pen?”

Joseph emerged from the hall, a Mont Blanc in hand. “Always ready for business, little brother,” he said with a smile.

Not without guilt, Phillip grabbed the pen and returned to the phone, wishing that Joseph would go away. Instead, his brother leaned against the woodwork of the doorway and folded his arms. Phillip tried to turn his head as he said into the phone, “Okay, Marsha. Go ahead.” He plucked an old notepad from the trash and scrawled
Marsha Brown
in a corner.

“The infant daughter of Jessica Bates was adopted by a family in Stamford. A Jonathan and Beverly Hawthorne.”

Hawthorne.
Shit.
“That’s not right,” Phillip said, conscious of Joseph watching and listening. “There was some sort of mix-up.…” Joseph scowled. Phillip turned his back on his brother. “Can you keep searching?”

“I’m sorry. This is what we learned. The child’s name
was Amy. I have her social security number if you’d like that.…”

“No. That won’t be necessary. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”

He hung up the phone, trying to mask his disappointment.

“What’s up?” Joseph asked.

“Nothing important.”

“You don’t seem too pleased for something so unimportant.”

“Look, I said it’s nothing.” He tossed the notepad back into the trash and handed Joseph the pen without meeting his brother’s eyes. So the state records had confirmed Miss Taylor’s file, which meant that she and Dr. Larribee had indeed covered their tracks, their crime, and their lying asses well. The letter and call to Jess might have been hoaxes, but Dr. Larribee would not have made it up: He’d admitted that they’d switched the newborns; what he claimed he didn’t know was why. Or who had paid Miss Taylor fifty thousand dollars. Or where Jess’s baby was today.

“Sorry I’m late,” Nicole said as she swept into the White Rose, slid her backpack from her shoulders and sat on the chair beside Phillip. “You guys look exhausted.”

She was right; she was late. Forty minutes late, to be exact, an irritating habit that seemed to happen more often than not. Phillip had decided it must have something to do with the fact that Nicole had been raised in California, where being late must be as expected as being on time in the East. She was also right in saying that Phillip was exhausted, but he was not too tired to be pleased that she had at least shown up. He had only been seeing her once a week as she geared up for finals, and he was finding it difficult to build a relationship based solely on time confined to the law library or spent between the rumpled sheets of her bed.
But as glad as he was to see her, Phillip found himself wondering if she owned anything that wasn’t black. Tonight it was a black jersey and jeans, an outfit he’d seen so often it could be a uniform. She also, as usual, wore no makeup. But, damn, there was that smile. That so-sexy smile and that man-teasing scent.

“We’re so glad you could join us,” Camille said, bypassing the Chianti for mineral water. This was the first she and Joseph had seen of Nicole since that night at Mom’s, and Phillip sensed that Camille was excited about the “match.” “Phillip was just telling us how busy you are with final exams.”

Nicole smiled that smile. “Boring, boring,” she said. “Not nearly as exciting as the big move. How did everything go?”

Joseph took over the conversation, telling her about the computer consultant who was still at the new office wiring the system, about the movers who dropped the old oak credenza that had been their father’s and taken a chunk out of the side, and about how, thanks to his wife, the phone lines were switched, no problem. Then he added that Smith had not only sent over a huge ficus tree for the foyer, but that Ron McGinnis himself had stopped by to wish them well. Phillip couldn’t tell whether Nicole’s look of interest was sincere or not—even after all these weeks, he didn’t know her well enough.

“Best of all,” Joseph continued, as the waiter arrived to take their order, “the mail arrived on time, so Archambault and Archambault will not be considered missing in action. Thanks to the about-to-be-new mother,” he added, brushing a discreet kiss across Camille’s glowing cheek.

They ordered antipasti and fusilli with basil and fresh mozzarella.

“Speaking of mothers,” Nicole said, watching the waiter pour Chianti into her glass, “have you heard anything, Phillip? About that adoption search case you’re working on?”

Phillip gulped down a swift drink of wine. His eyes flickered around the room, at the soft fresco paintings that lined the walls, at the plaster statues of children who held bowls of plastic grapes. He sensed Joseph’s eyes boring into him. “Ah, well,” he said quietly. “It was a dead end. No problem.” Hopefully Joseph would let it go. Hopefully …

“What adoption search?” The question did not come from his brother, but from well-meaning Camille, whose antennae quivered lately around any conversation remotely connected to babies.

The flush of wine crept into his cheeks. “Just part of a case I was working on. No big deal.” He reached for the basket of garlic bread. “Try some,” he said, handing it to Nicole, “it’s really terrific.”

“What case?” Joseph asked.

Phillip shrugged. “Nothing. Forget it, okay?” He ripped off a chunk of bread for himself, and took a large bite. Strains of mandolins and violins drifted across the room.

“I thought we went through this a few years ago,” Joseph said flatly, not forgetting it, not caring that Nicole was there and that perhaps Phillip might not want to discuss this in front of her.

“It’s not about me,” he said. “It was for a friend.”

The sigh that Joseph emitted must have been heard all the way downtown, down to their old office, to the place where Phillip probably belonged instead of uptown with the racquetball players. “Why can’t people just leave well enough alone.” It was a statement, not a question.

Nicole decided to speak up. “Children have rights. They are entitled to know about their history if it’s something they choose to do.”

Phillip wanted to lean over and kiss her smack on her unlipsticked lips. He neither knew nor asked if her opinion extended to birth parents as well.

“I disagree,” Joseph said. “It opens up too large a can of worms. It invades privacy, and our privacy is invaded
enough these days. It also invites pain and distress and too much emotional blackmail.”

Nicole laughed. “I doubt if Phillip’s friend is interested in blackmail.”

Blackmail
Jess would never blackmail anyone. Her father, of course, had been different. The man apparently had been cold enough, unfeeling enough, to pay off the family of the father of Jess’s baby so they would leave town and not contact Jess again.
That
, Phillip reflected,
was blackmail.
He broke off another piece of bread.

Two hundred thousand dollars
, he thought, half listening to the civilized quarrel now taking place between Joseph and Nicole. Two hundred thousand dollars was what Jess’s father had paid Richard’s family; and someone had paid Miss Taylor fifty thousand for who-knew-what. An enormous amount of money for back then.

“I’m not saying anyone is to blame,” Joseph was saying, his voice growing louder. “But it seems to me no good can come out of a child meeting his or her parents—people who never wanted to raise him or her in the first place.”

Raise them?
Suddenly, Phillip sat up straight in his chair.

Blackmail?
he wondered again.

And then, he had an idea. An idea so outrageous, yet so clear, he could not stop it from forming. “We can find anyone’s social security number,” Marsha Brown had said. “Believe it or not, that’s the easy part.”

He stood up quickly. “Excuse me,” he said. “I have to make a phone call.”