“So you cook?”
“I eat out.” He smiled. “Come to New York with me tomorrow. We’ve been in this whole ordeal together, it doesn’t seem right if I go alone, especially if I end up getting some answers from Dr. Miles. You deserve to be the first to know.”
“Dr. Jamison, I’m so sorry. We’re both so sorry.” Mr. and Mrs. Younger raced into the dining room half-breathless. “I must have left the back doors open. I can’t believe it.”
Abby put down her fork. “What is it? You both look pale as sheets.”
“I was just going in to give you fresh towels for the night and turn down your bed....” Mrs. Younger shook her head. “You’re so meticulously neat. I knew you couldn’t have left your room like that.”
“Someone’s been in my room?” Blake stood.
Mr. and Mrs. Younger both looked down, nodding their heads nervously.
“It’s terrible.” Mrs. Younger looked as if she might cry. “They’ve ruined everything. I’m so sorry.”
FIFTEEN
Blake stood at the doorway of his hotel room and scanned the wreckage. Every word the Youngers had said was true. Clothes had been strewn everywhere. Anything and everything of value had been taken—his watch, his computer, and the precious file containing the newly found birth records and the letter from his mother.
Chief McClendon and Detective Langer shook their heads as they surveyed the space. As with the hospital, Abby’s car wreck and the break-in at her clinic, the FBI investigative team, headed by Agent Day, took pictures and asked lots of questions.
Blake was not just tired this evening; this event had made him angry.
“How can we end this?” he heard Abby murmuring to one of the agents. He couldn’t have agreed more. And he realized that everything she’d been saying at dinner was right. He needed to go to New York to see if they could connect the dots. At least it was worth a try.
He pulled Detective Langer aside and told him that he planned to go to the city in the morning and that he hoped Abby would go with him. Langer explained that he or someone from the FBI might accompany them. He would look into it and get back to Blake as soon as possible. In any case, they weren’t to go anywhere for the night. Langer and Day wanted them both to stay at the bed-and-breakfast.
“It’s safe to have you in one place, where we can be certain you’re protected,” Agent Day explained. “The Youngers have rooms for each of you. One of the FBI agents is going to take one of the other rooms. You should both sleep well.”
Abby wrapped her arms around her chest. He supposed it was to stop her shivering. She looked on the verge of tears. She was clearly not happy about having to stay the night there. “You’ll have to get word to my brother. He’s expecting me.”
“Should I tell him you’re going to New York tomorrow?” Langer asked her.
Her eyes shot a surprised look to Blake and he nodded. “You were right. I thought we could go up for the day...talk to Granger and Miles and someone at the magazine. Maybe we’ll learn something.”
Abby nodded to Langer. Blake was glad. He wanted her to be with him when he talked to the people in New York. Somehow he felt it would be helpful—or maybe he just liked the idea of her being by his side. Although tonight, she looked so weak and frail—she was not the spunky woman who was just having a nice dinner with him. Part of him wanted to put an arm around her and pull her close. It was getting harder for him to look at her and not feel the strong pull of the attraction and admiration for her that had developed over the past few days.
Ignoring those feelings, as he knew he had to do, Blake took hold of her hurt arm and lifted one of the bandages. “I need to change this dressing. Come on.”
She looked up at him with her dark blue eyes, which began to smile back at him. “I’m sorry about all your things getting stolen. Especially the letter from your mother.”
The understanding in her words touched him deeply and caused a lump to form in his throat. He had to look away as he swallowed it down and led her away to tend to her burn.
* * *
“Is this truly your first trip to the city?” Blake asked as he steered his Land Rover through the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan.
“First time out of Pennsylvania.” Abby couldn’t believe she’d slept almost the entire way to New York. But at least she was feeling better. The lump on her head was gone. The burns on her arms had stopped hurting. Her energy was returning. “I’ve been to Philly once but other than that I haven’t been outside of Lancaster. I guess that’s hard for you to imagine. You’ve been all over the world.”
Blake shrugged and grinned at her. He looked well rested and extremely handsome in a pair of gray dress slacks with a yellow oxford. She liked how he rolled the sleeves up, making it easy to see the strong muscles of his forearms.
“What about high school and college? You must have left home for that.”
“But I didn’t go far. I was homeschooled with a Mennonite family that lives close to my parents. My dad gave me until I was twenty for education, which was very generous. So I finished high school at sixteen and commuted to a small college. I was a registered nurse by age nineteen.”
“That’s impressive,” Blake said. “And it’s great your parents gave you and your brother choices and opportunities.”
“I think now my dat wishes he hadn’t. He thinks he failed as a father—as an Amish father, that is.”
“It’s ironic, actually, that my parents weren’t as liberal with me as yours were with you and your brother. I wasn’t given choices. I had to have what they thought was the best whether it was what I wanted or not.”
There was sadness not bitterness in his voice.
“Do you think that you would have chosen differently?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it until they died. It was then I realized that I had everything. Always, I’ve had everything—and yet, no peace.”
“We find our peace in God,” Abby said.
“That I know, thanks to my nanny. She made sure I understood the love of God. I do get that, Abby.” Blake pressed his lips together. “I have spiritual peace. I just don’t always like who I am, what I do, where I live, my friends.”
Abby didn’t have time to consider his words too much as they drove down an elegant street lined with designer shops and fancy restaurants.
“This is the Upper East Side. I grew up here.”
“You don’t like this?” she asked rhetorically. “Really?”
Such beautiful homes and stylish apartment buildings. Even the well-dressed and coiffed pedestrians looked as if they’d come straight out of a magazine—a magazine like the one Blake had shown her the other day. Abby grew more and more uncomfortable by the minute. “I guess I see what you mean by having the best. Poor you....”
“I know. That’s why I’ve never said to anyone what I just said to you. I should be nothing but grateful. And I am. But I sometimes wonder what I would have been or what I would have done if I had made more of my own choices. That’s all. I’m not ungrateful. Or disappointed. I just want to find that peace inside again and know I’m exactly where God wants me to be.”
There was a struggle in his expression Abby had never seen before. Blake wasn’t merely looking for his birth parents. He was looking for himself. He just didn’t know it yet.
“Dr. Granger’s office is just around the corner. We’ll park here. I called ahead to let them know I’d be coming in today.”
“Is this your office here?”
“No, but my apartment is. I thought we’d park here and take cabs.” Blake turned down an alley and stopped in front of a hidden garage door. He pressed a button on his dash and the door disappeared slowly into the wall. Inside was underground parking. An armed guard sat in a small glassed-in office. He looked up and waved to Blake, w
ho smiled back and drove straight to a corner spot, crowned with a sign on the wall that read Dr. Jamison in large black letters. Almost every other spot was occupied—occupied by cars that Abby knew cost more than she could earn in two years.
Blake gave a half laugh. “Funny. It feels like I’ve been away for ages. Not a week.”
He turned off the car and looked over at her. He reached across the console and touched her forearm. “Thank you.”
“For what?” She slid her arm away and glanced in another direction. He had no idea how uncomfortable he made her.
He smiled. “I don’t know. For being here. For being you.”
She looked back at him. “I just want us both to be able to get on with our lives.”
“Abby, are you ever afraid you’re going to let everyone down?”
“Sure. All the time. And I have. Look at my father. I couldn’t have let him any more down if I’d tried.”
“Do you think you’ll go back to what he wants for you? Get married? Be what your father thinks you should be?” His eyes were warm like chocolate and the meaning behind his question went beyond her conflict with her father. He was asking her what she saw for her future. Would it be Amish? Or Englisch?
She shook her head, filled with sad emotions. She didn’t want to care about Blake the way she was starting to. Nothing could be more stupid. But he felt it, too. She could see it in his eyes. She had to put an end to his hope once and for all.
“No. I won’t go back. And I won’t get married. I’ll keep living the life I have now—the one I’ve chosen. That’s where I belong. But I hope one day my father will want me just the way I am.”
There was silence as she followed Blake out of the parking garage and down 73rd Street.
* * *
“Dr. Granger, thank you so much for taking the time to see us this morning on such short notice.” Blake shook the elderly doctor’s hand and introduced him to Abigail.
“Your parents were such dear friends to Stella and me. You know you are welcome anytime.” He motioned for them to take a seat in the chairs on the other side of his desk. “Would you like a coffee or tea?”
After they declined, he excused his assistant and took a seat in a big leather chair behind his desk. “How can I help you, Blake? Miss Miller?”
Blake first explained about his sabbatical to Lancaster, which Dr. Granger had little reaction to. “Abigail and I both saw this patient and his paperwork. His name was Hancock, Nicolas Hancock. His file indicated that he’d been your patient at Norcross Hospital before being transferred to Fairview. Then Mr. Hancock died, and some...irregularities were found in his information. Enough to make the police believe he might have a different identity completely. It’s put me in a bit of a situation with Fairview. I thought if you had any particular information you could pass on about him, it might be helpful.”
Dr. Granger leaned forward, his expression flat as he made a steeple with his fingertips over the desk in front of him. “A police detective was here just a few days ago, asking similar questions. I’ll have to tell you the same thing I told him. Any client information is privileged, as you both know. I can’t divulge anything to any of you. I’m very sorry.”
“I don’t think that confidentiality applies here.” Blake was ready for his response, even though he’d hoped to hear a different one. “You were his physician and so was I, according to the transfer chart. Any information you pass on to me is a consultation over a common patient. That is completely legal.”
Dr. Granger frowned. He sat upright and shifted his weight, again clearly thinking over his answer before speaking. He raised a hand and pressed a speaker button on his phone. “Mrs. Timmons, could you please bring me the Nicolas Hancock file?”
Almost instantly, Mrs. Timmons rushed in with a thin patient file. She passed it over the desk to Dr. Granger. He opened it, looked inside and closed it again before smiling at Mrs. Timmons. “Thank you. Please close the door on your way out.”
Mrs. Timmons left the room and Dr. Granger passed over the file to Blake. “I’ll let you thumb through it. I’m afraid I can’t give you a copy without consulting my lawyer. I’m sorry, Blake. I wish I could be more forthcoming, especially to you, but as you know with malpractice suits running rampant, I just can’t be too cautious.”
“I understand. I appreciate this.” Blake reached a nervous hand over and took the file. He opened it and began to scan the first page.
“Well, then...I hope that helps you both. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have patients waiting. Please take your time. Mrs. Timmons will see you out and you can leave the folder with her.” He shook Blake’s hand as he passed on his way out of the office. “A pleasure to see you again, Blake. I hope this situation at Fairview is resolved quickly. Miss Miller, lovely to meet you.”
“Dr. Granger?” Blake stood and turned to the door. The old friend of his parents’ looked back over his shoulder. “Did my parents ever tell you that I was adopted?”
Dr. Granger stopped fast. His shoulders rose up as he took in a quick breath. He turned his head back slowly. He was still smiling but the expression was different than it had been earlier. “No. I didn’t know that. In fact, I find that hard to believe. How did you find out about this?”
“My mother told me.”
“Well...as I said, that surprises me, Blake.” Granger was frowning now. “If I were you, I’d be careful who I shared that with.”
“Oh, I am, Doctor. I am very careful.” Blake watched Granger leave the room. Then he tossed the Hancock file on the desk and turned to Abby. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Don’t you want to read the file?”
“No, it’s a phony. Dr. Granger was lying about almost everything.”
SIXTEEN
“How do you know he was lying?” Abby asked as they sped along in a cab toward the magazine office. She didn’t question for a moment whether Blake was right or not. She hadn’t liked Dr. Granger. There was something slightly snaky about his expressions. And she didn’t appreciate how he’d added that ominous warning to Blake after he inquired about the adoption.
“It was obvious that he was lying about not knowing I was adopted. Dr. Granger used to work with my mother. How could he not have known? All of a sudden his colleague has a baby and was never pregnant?”
“So why lie about it to you now that you already know?”
Blake shrugged. “I can’t imagine why he was lying at all. Just like I can’t imagine why he would go to all the trouble to create a phony Hancock folder. It was so generic—and the specifics were dead wrong. Said the man was six feet tall and had blond hair.”
“He was bald and maybe five foot eight.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s like he was expecting us or expecting the detective to return with a warrant for the file.” Abby sighed. “Maybe the visit to the magazine publishing offices will be more productive.”
“I’m not so sure that this visit wasn’t advantageous. The clock has been ticking ever since we saw Hancock and now it’s ticking double-time. I think we are closing in on things. Just one little missing piece will have it all make sense.”
“Or one big piece,” Abby said with a teasing tone.
“Yes. And here we are. This is what they call midtown.”
Abby could hardly believe the size of the buildings. It hurt her neck to look up at them. They exited the cab and stood together in front of the giant publishing company.
“Wow. You know, you can’t really fathom how so many people can be on one little island until you get here and see it for yourself. Are you sure Langer is still behind us? I don’t see how he can keep up with all this traffic and people. It’s amazing.”
“He’s right there.” Blake nodded his head in the direction of the other side of the street. The Lancaster detective was lean
ing against a park bench with a newspaper rolled up under his arm—his eyes on the two of them.
Blake opened the front doors of the fifty-plus-story building on Avenue of the Americas. “New York Ways offices are on the twenty-eighth floor.”
After passing through a tight security check, a bellman ushered them up to the magazine offices and helped to buzz them inside. Blake told the receptionist who he was and that he wanted to see the managing editor, Mitchell Bain.
For ten minutes, Abby and Blake pretended to look through back issues. As fate would have it, Abby picked up an issue containing the same photo she’d seen of Blake and Natalie, with the caption about their upcoming engagement. She turned the magazine around and showed him, hoping her expression was pleasant, hiding the lump that had lodged in her throat.
Blake groaned, taking the magazine from her hands. “I remember that. That’s the day Daveux practically accosted me.”
“And your fiancée?” Abby bit her lip at her own catty remark. Way to hide the feelings, Abigail.
“She’s not my fiancée. She was,” Blake said, passing the photo back to her with an annoyed expression. He stared her square in the eyes. “But I called it off because it would have been the biggest mistake of my life.”
Who was he trying to convince—her or himself?
“It’s none of my business,” Abby said.
Blake had just opened his mouth to reply when Mr. Bain walked into the reception area.
“Dr. Jamison! I hope you’re here to say that you’re finally agreeing to a cover story.” Bain’s voice was overbearingly loud and almost comical coming from such a small man. His suit was made of expensive material but in a very loud pattern, and his tie had been loosened at the neck with the top few buttons of his shirt open, revealing a thick gold chain.
“Not exactly.” Blake stood and motioned to Abby. “This is Abigail Miller. We work together at the hospital.”
“Ms. Miller, nice to meet you.” Bain looked tense and his speech was hurried. “Well, then...if you’re not here about a cover story, then what can I do for you today?”
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