“Yeah, I’m not going to do that. You worked here back then — when these adoptions took place.”
“I started this place.”
“Yes, I know. It’s a lovely backstory, yours, all about how you wanted to save children and unite them with loving families because of your own paternity issues. I know all about it. I know all about you. You seem like a decent guy, a guy who has tried his best, but if there is anything amiss in any of your adoption paperwork—”
“There’s not.”
“But if there is, I’m going to find it. I’m going to dig into everything you’ve ever done and if I find one mistake, honest or not, I’m going to use it as leverage. Look at me, Mr. Isaacson.”
He raised his eyes and tried to hold hers.
“You know something.”
“I don’t.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Every adoption here is above board. If one of my employees committed a fraud on us...”
Now they were getting somewhere. Elena leaned forward. “If that’s the case, Mr. Isaacson, I’m your best friend. I’m here to help. Let me see the files. Your files. Not the legal ones. Let me track down the fraud and put it right.”
He said nothing.
“Mr. Isaacson?”
“I can’t show you the files.”
“Why not?”
“They’re gone.”
She waited.
“Five years ago, there was a fire. All of our records were lost. That wasn’t really an issue. Everything of relevance is kept with the county clerk’s office. Like I said. But even if I wanted to show you the files — which I can’t do legally anyway — they only exist at the county clerk’s office. That’s where you have to go.”
She stared at him.
“You’re not telling me something, Mr. Isaacson.”
“Nothing illegal was done.”
“Okay.”
“And I think whatever was, well, it was best for the children. That’s always been my concern. The children.”
“I’m sure that’s true. But now those children are being targeted and even killed.”
“I can’t see how it involves us.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” she said, not reminding him that the only link so far was the Hope Faith Adoption Agency. “Maybe I’ll be able to clear you. Do you remember these cases at all?”
“In a way, yes. In a way, no.”
“What do you mean?”
“These cases required a little extra privacy.”
“In what way?”
“They were unwed mothers.”
“Aren’t a lot of your mothers unwed? I mean, even back then.”
“Yes,” he said, a little too slowly. He stroked his beard. “But these girls came from a fairly orthodox branch of Christianity.”
“What brand?”
“I never knew. But I also think... they didn’t like men.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. But I wasn’t allowed to know the mothers’ names.”
“You’re the owner here.”
“Yes.”
“So you had to sign off.”
“I did. That was the only time I saw the mothers’ names. But I don’t remember any.”
He did. Of course he did.
“What about the fathers’ names?”
“They were always listed as unknown.”
He was stroking his beard so hard, hairs were coming off in his hand.
“You mentioned an employee before,” she said.
“What?”
“You said, ‘If one of my employees committed a fraud on us.’” Elena tried hard to meet his eye, but he was having none of it. “Did someone work on these cases?”
He moved his head. It may have been a nod, she wasn’t sure, but she treated it as though it was.
“Who?”
“Her name,” he said, “is Alison Mayflower.”
“She was a case worker?”
“Yes.” Then thinking more about it, he added, “Sort of.”
“And this Alison Mayflower, she was the one who brought in these cases?”
His voice was low, far off. “Alison came to me in the strictest confidence. She said there were children in need. I offered my help, and it was accepted under conditions.”
“What kind of conditions?”
“For one thing, I had to be kept in the dark. I couldn’t ask any questions.”
Elena took her time, thought it over. When she was with the FBI, her team had busted several seemingly above-board churches and agencies for illegal adoptions. In some cases, white babies were in such demand that macroeconomic reality in a capitalist society took over — supply and demand — and so they commanded a higher price. In other cases, one of the potential adoptive parents had something in their history that made legally adopting difficult. So again, money changed hands.
Big money sometimes.
Elena had to be careful here. She wasn’t here to bust Isaacson for selling babies or whatever he’d maybe done twenty or thirty years ago. She wanted information.
As if reading her mind, he said, “I really don’t know anything that can help you.”
“But this Alison Mayflower. She might?”
Isaacson nodded slowly.
“Do you know where she is now?”
“She hasn’t worked with me for twenty years. Moved away.”
“To where?”
He shrugged. “I hadn’t seen her in years. Lost touch.”
“Hadn’t.”
“What?”
“You said ‘hadn’t,’ not ‘haven’t.’”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” He ran his hand through his hair and let loose a deep breath. “She must have moved back, I don’t know. But I saw her last year working at a café in Portland. One of those weird vegan places. But when she saw me...” He stopped.
Elena prompted him. “But when she saw you?”
“She slipped out the back. I went out to follow her, just to say hi, but by the time I got there...” He shrugged it off. “Anyway, it might not have been Alison. I mean, she looked different — her hair used to be long and black as night. This woman’s was super short and totally white, so...” He thought about it some more. “No, it was Alison. I’m sure of it.”
“Mr. Isaacson?”
He looked up at her.
“Where is this café?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The first thing Ash saw when he opened his eyes was Dee Dee’s beautiful face.
He might have thought that he’d died or he was hallucinating or something like that, except if that was the case, Dee Dee would have had her normal blonde braid back, not the short auburn-dyed locks she’d been forced to adopt.
Or maybe not. Maybe in death you saw the last vision, not your favorite one.
“It’s okay,” Dee Dee said in the soothing voice of something still confusingly celestial. “Just stay still.”
He glanced past her as he swam back to full consciousness. Yep, he was still in the cult compound. The decor in the room was closer to nonexistent than austere. Nothing on the walls, no furniture in view. The walls were that same inescapable gray.
There were other people in the room. Dee Dee tried to stop him from sitting up, but he was having none of it. In the far corner, Ash saw Mother Adiona, her eyes on the floor, her hands clasped in front of her. Closer to him, on either end of the bed, stood two men he recognized from the triangle of portraits he’d seen in that other room — the Visitor and the Volunteer.
One of Carter Vartage’s sons — the Visitor maybe? — spun and walked out the door without a word. The other turned to Mother Adiona and snapped, “You’re lucky.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What were you thinking?”
“He was an outsider and an intruder,” Mother Adiona said, her eyes still on the ground. “I was defending the Truth.”
“That’s a lie,” Dee Dee said.
The son silenced Dee Dee with a wave of his hand, his eyes still boring into the older woman.