She grabbed the phone again and studied the picture, her brow furrowed in concentration. “He might be familiar, but I can’t swear to it.” She gave the phone back to him in defeat. “I’m not much help, am I?”
“You’ve been plenty helpful. I’d like to speak to Teresa now, if I may.”
Reed knew the way by now. He walked briskly across the foyer but halted in the doorway, catching himself on the threshold because the living room gave off an otherworldly force of sadness. Teresa Lockhart sat unmoving on the sofa, staring at her hands. Conroy sat next to her, grim faced and not speaking. A handful of uniformed officers tried to blend into the furniture near the back. Reed stuck a tentative foot into the room and signaled for Conroy’s attention.
The captain murmured something to Teresa, who didn’t look up. He joined Reed near the door. “She took the news that it wasn’t Chloe on that video really hard,” he said. “I think everyone did.”
“Have you told her about Jenna Desmond’s claims?”
“Not yet.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’ve had to give people awful news. Murdered kids. Deaths from a traffic accident. But this stuff bends my mind. Are you saying she gave birth to Chloe, but this Desmond woman is the biological mother?”
“Egg donation, yes. It’s the same thing as a sperm donor, just from the female.”
“Two mothers. I swear, the handbook doesn’t prepare you for this.”
Reed smiled for the first time in ages. His recent quest to discover who killed his birth mother had given him an unexpected second chance to know the woman, as well as surprising insight into Marianne Markham, the woman he still called Mama. “No, sir, it surely doesn’t,” he agreed. “You just muddle through as best you can.”
“Are we sure this other woman is legit?”
“We’re investigating her claims. Obviously, Mrs. Lockhart could confirm if Chloe was conceived via egg donation, but a DNA sample from Chloe would remove all doubt.”
The big man’s shoulders rose and fell with his heavy sigh. “Let’s get on with it, then.” He returned to his seat on the couch next to Teresa Lockhart, while Reed took the armchair to her right.
“Mrs. Lockhart,” he said kindly, “how are you doing?”
She jerked her head up to look him in the eyes. “Better than Martin. That’s all you can say right now. He’s upstairs under a blanket of sedatives. Also, he shot his lawyer, so we have to find a new one. Not that I’m sorry he did it. I don’t think anyone is sorry, which is why Martin’s upstairs and not locked in a jail somewhere.”
Reed had seen the headlines. Public opinion was divided between calling Martin a justified hero for shooting Stephen Wintour and feeling outrage that Martin hadn’t been charged merely because he was rich and white. Privately, Reed felt both sides were correct in their assessment. “All the same, I’m sure it’s an extra burden you didn’t need right now.”
“I need Chloe back, but I can’t have that. I need to work, but I can’t do that, either. Look at me.” She held out her hand and Reed saw her fingers tremble. “The hospital is juggling the surgical calendar as best they can, but there are only a handful of doctors who perform the operations that I do. It’s not like they can call up a temp agency. Someone has to help these patients or they will get sicker. They will die.”
“The someone doesn’t always have to be you.” Reed heard the words come out of his mouth and realized they sounded familiar. Sarit had told him the same thing many times.
“It has to be someone. If not me, then who? I feel it all the time. When I’m here, I feel like I should be there. When I’m at the hospital, I feel like I am missing at home. No matter where I am or what I do, it’s never enough.” She held up her phone, clutching it so hard her knuckles turned white. “They’re right—whoever is sending these messages. They’re right. I’ve failed.”
“You can’t let those messages be the voice in your head. They’re from a sick individual.”
“That doesn’t make them wrong.”
Reed looked to Conroy, who looked away. “We need you to stay strong right now. Chloe needs it. You can help us right now by finding her hairbrush or toothbrush so that we can do some testing.”
“Oh God.” A deep, guttural moan wrenched from Teresa, and she doubled over as if in physical pain. “You’ve found her. You’ve found her body.”
“No, no. That’s not it at all.” Reed rushed to reassure her.
“You want her DNA for identification purposes. Why else would you need it?”
Reed decided to be direct. “We have a woman claiming to be Chloe’s biological mother.”
Teresa sat up, her cheeks wet. “What?”
“The woman from the Target video, the one with the daughter who so looks like Chloe. She said she’s Chloe’s genetic mother through egg donation. We need to know from you: Is this possible?”
He saw on her face that it was. “I—I … Where did she come from?”
“She lives in Providence with her family. She saw Chloe on a news program last year and decided that they were related.”
“I couldn’t get pregnant on my own,” Teresa murmured as if in a daze. “Martin desperately wanted a child, and he was willing to do anything. The doctors said egg donation was the only way. My eggs were too old. I imagined them dried up, like they all turned to ash the day Trevor died.”
“So, this woman could be your egg donor.”
“The information said she was a college student with no medical issues. She had blond hair like mine, and blue eyes, like mine and Martin’s. But it’s not the same blue. My eyes are blue but a washed-out faded-jeans kind of blue. You have to get close to see the color. Chloe’s eyes are like the Caribbean Sea. Strangers used to ask sometimes when we pushed her in the carriage, where did she get those eyes? We’d say they came from my great-aunt Hope. Because that’s what we called Chloe before she was born, when we barely believed she could be real—Hope. It’s her middle name now.”
“We’d like to have Chloe’s DNA tested to see if she’s a match.”
“Why? Do you think this woman took her?”
“It doesn’t look that way,” Conroy interjected. “Obviously, we’re still checking.”
Teresa drew herself up and pursed her lips. “Then it shouldn’t matter.”
Reed had spent years wondering about his birth mother and his origins. Like Chloe, he had a talent for the piano. Had he inherited it from his mother? Did she have brown eyes like him or share his love of spicy food? Where did he get the shape of his hands or his funny toes or his allergy to strawberries? “If she’s Chloe’s mother,” he began, but Teresa cut him off.
“I’m her mother! Me. You know how I know? Because I’m the one getting tormented with these messages. Not her. I’m the one who has to go on television and say I’m unfit, that I don’t deserve my child.” She hurled the phone at the wall, where it hit with a hard slap and landed facedown on the floor.
She covered her face with both hands. Hear no evil, see no evil, Reed thought.