The Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland)
Page 36
Munson stared at the camera, his disdain apparent. “Detective. There was no investigator. I took their money. I chose a family. Et voilà.”
Jane pushed pause. “Holy—”
“Yeah. It’s almost over.” Jake pushed play.
“So as I asked, Mr. Munson,” Jake said on the tape. “How many times? And you’ll need to provide the records of the instances where you sent—”
“You really want that, Detective?” Munson asked. “All those happy families we created. You think it’s best to ruin their lives?”
Jane pushed stop. The screen went black.
“Yeah, you know? Tuck thought she was the wrong girl because of the bracelet. But she was the right girl, in the end. And they’re so happy. But this means there are other adults out there, living with people they’ve been deceived into believing are their families.”
Jake shook his head. “I know. It’s sick, really. We’re trying to figure out what’s illegal about it.”
“Can you just leave them? With the people they love?” Jane sat in one of Jake’s office chairs, leaned back, stared at the ceiling. Medical histories. Genetics. Inheritance. Truth. Would she want to know?
“All those families,” she said. “It puts their whole lives into question.”
She clacked the chair upright again. “What are you going to do?”
EPILOGUE
Jane propped her feet on the low wooden coffee table in Jake’s living room. Took a sip of her wine, leaned back into the couch cushions. Jake’s feet were next to hers. Their socks touched. This was perfect. But she couldn’t allow herself to get used to it.
Diva had flattened her golden retriever self on the floor against the couch, stretched out, from nose to plumy tail, under their legs.
“Diva would probably eat Coda,” Jane said. “No way that’d work.”
“We could figure it out.” Jake took a swig of his beer.
They sat in silence, listening to the evening street sounds, a car or two, the buzz of an airplane.
“Ella’s gonna be okay,” Jake said. “She’s talking—well, writing—the District Attorney. They’ll decide what to do about the Brannigan ‘families.’ Good thing we don’t have to. You know Ella said—wrote—that Munson had offered to find Ella her birth mother. Imagine if they had? And gave her an impostor family?”
“It’s incredibly sad,” Jane said. She’d been promised the scoop on the Brannigan story. Alex had insisted she send it to him in Washington. His office was empty now. There was already buzz about the new city editor. “People. Families, you know. Everyone’s is crazy, some of the time at least. But still—”
She touched Jake’s toe with hers. Thought about her mom, and her father, and home. Thought about families. Maybe she should go visit. Her father meant well. He just wasn’t good at showing it. People weren’t perfect. Life was short.
“—that’s all this whole Brannigan thing was about, you know? Families. People would do anything to find theirs. So Munson took their money, and sold them one. Sold them a family. He actually believed he was doing a good thing?”
“Yeah, so he insists,” Jake said. “Not killing Lillian, of course. Or taking Ardith. But by then he was trapped. Maggie Gunnison thought she was helping, too. No good deed, you know? The DA is considering probation for her, though, now that she’s promised to help untangle that paperwork.”
“Leonard Perl,” Jane said. “What a complete slime. Stealing kids and selling them. Using Maggie. Profiting from desperation.”
“Yup. There the DA’s going for the max. Even though Perl ratted out poor Finn, who is now a very unhappy camper. It was him who was tailgating you, Jane.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
“And turns out fricking Hennessey set up Perl as your surveillance guy. Jerk.”
Jane took another sip of wine, remembering. “Happy to hear he’s toast,” she said. “But Jake?”
“Yeah?
“Remember in the elevator? At Maggie Gunnison’s that day?”
“Sure.”
“When you got into the elevator, you acted like—” Jane demonstrated with her thumbs. “Were you saying ‘text me’?”
“Yeah. I was.”
“I did, you know, but you never answered.”
“I was a little busy.” Jake took a swig of beer. “I wondered if you’d remember.”
“Well?” Jane said. “I do. What was it about?”
Silence.
“Jake?”
“I was thinking about … going undercover,” he said. “You and me. Someplace where no one knows us. Somewhere we don’t have to hide. Just … hang out. Be together. See what happens.”
Jane looked into the red of her wine, not sure whether to laugh, or cry. Or both.
“You know what’ll happen,” Jane said.
“Yup,” Jake said. “I do.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the investigative reporter for Boston’s NBC affiliate. She has won twenty-eight Emmys and ten Edward R. Murrow Awards for her groundbreaking journalism. The bestselling author of four mystery novels as well as The Other Woman, the first book to feature reporter Jane Ryland and Detective Jake Brogan, Ryan has won two Agatha Awards, as well as the Anthony and Macavity. She is on the national board of directors of Mystery Writers of America and is 2013 president of national Sisters in Crime. Visit her on the Web at www.HankPhillippiRyan.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE WRONG GIRL
Copyright © 2013 by Hank Phillippi Ryan All rights reserved.
Cover photograph © Andy and Michelle Kerry/Trevillion Images Cover design by Seth Lerner A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3258-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-46680087-8 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466800878
First Edition: September 2013
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EPILOGUE
175 Fifth Avenue
Hank Phillippi Ryan, The Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland)