Because, of all the things she was preparing to leave behind, he was the most difficult. Knowing he was just across town in his office was torture. She’d avoided Main Street Mocha in case she saw him, instead opting for French press coffee in the bed-and-breakfast kitchen. She caught sight of him out the window one day, walking Fitz by the house, and dropped the curtain when he glanced up to her room. Probably just a coincidence, not an indication he was looking for her. She had to believe that was the case. It was too difficult to leave him behind otherwise.
She half thought he would show up to see her off when she checked out of the B and B the next morning, but it was only his grandfather who met her when she hauled her duffel bag down the stairs.
“What do I owe you?” she asked.
He waved a hand and wouldn’t meet her eye. “Pshaw. It was a pleasure having you. Especially after all you’ve done for Gabe and the town.”
It seemed like overstating something she’d done mostly for her own benefit. She reached into her purse and counted out a handful of hundred-dollar bills, what she estimated the room would be worth back home, and Mr. Brandt’s eyes widened. “That’s far too much.”
Kendall removed one hundred from the stack to placate him and then pushed the money into the man’s hand. “Please. It’s my pleasure. I appreciate the place to stay. And the coffee and breakfast.” She gave the innkeeper a rueful smile, knowing that he understood the true reason she hadn’t been venturing out lately for her morning cup of joe. She would have to stop by Main Street Mocha and say goodbye to Delia before she left. It was a shame that she wouldn’t be sticking around permanently. She had a feeling the owner could turn out to be as much of a friend as she’d been an impromptu mentor.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Brandt gave Kendall a hug, and she had to escape before tears pricked her eyes again. Surely she could get out of this town without crying. Or without seeing Gabe. She had to.
When she walked out to her rental vehicle parked at the curb, however, there was a thick package sitting on her windshield. She shoved her duffel in the back of the SUV before carefully removing the package and bringing it into the driver’s seat with her. It appeared to be a hardboard file folder, at least an inch thick, wrapped in heavy clear plastic. She frowned and unwrapped it.
A note was paper-clipped to the front of it, written in blocky, masculine writing that she somehow knew was Gabe’s even before she saw the signature. Kendall, I’m sorry if I overstepped, but there are some things you need to know before you leave.
Fear struck her heart without her really knowing why. She flipped it open and found a cover letter from Alvarez Private Investigation.
Dear Gabriel,
Please find enclosed the information requested regarding Kendall Green and her mother, Caroline Green. I feel confident that had this occurred today, with integrated computer systems, Ms. Green would have been reunited with her grandmother shortly after she was found. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, local law enforcement and social services used independent systems. This is both a failure of technology and of manpower to reunite a child with her family. I hope the enclosed police reports can give Ms. Green some closure on her situation.
Kendall’s heart pounded so hard she felt dizzy. The words blurred on the page. Had Gabe actually hired a private investigator to look into her past? It took several minutes of breathing in and out, staring through the windshield, before she could find the courage to look past the cover letter.
And what she found there was unbelievable. She had to read through it multiple times to understand what the reports were saying, to piece together the significance of what had happened.
On April 21, 1997, a woman matching Caroline Green’s description, identified only as Jane Doe, had been struck and killed in a crosswalk on a street in Golden, Colorado. She hadn’t been carrying a purse or identification, though police speculated that a witness to the hit-and-run had stolen her possessions since she was dressed nicely and likely would have had a handbag. After scouring missing persons reports and running her fingerprints, no matches were found. No one ever came forward, and she was cremated in accordance with the city laws for unclaimed bodies.
Far south in Littleton, Colorado, on that same day, a five-year-old child identified as Kendall Green was left at a drop-in day care and unclaimed at closing time. The employees hadn’t noticed anything suspicious about the woman who dropped her off and only became concerned when she hadn’t returned for hours after she’d said she would. The child had been well cared for and was left with a backpack with her name inked on the inside. Police suspected she had been abandoned by a parent or perhaps even kidnapped and then dropped off. When no matching missing person report was turned up nationwide for a five-year-old girl of her description and no one came forward to claim the child, she was handed off to child protection services, where she entered the foster care system. A new birth certificate and Social Security number were issued, and without an exact date of birth, no one made the connection to a Kendall Green born in Clear Creek County.
Kendall sat there in frozen disbelief, unable to process what she was reading. Her mother hadn’t abandoned her after all. She’d never come home because she couldn’t. She’d been killed—doing what, Kendall couldn’t possibly guess. Maybe meeting with a lawyer. Maybe looking for a job. Maybe just shopping for a used car or any other possibility. And because of bad luck and a failure of governmental communication, no one had ever connected a hit-and-run with an abandoned child a single county away.
Kendall expected tears to come, but she couldn’t even cry through her shock. Deep down, some part of her had hoped that her mother was still alive. That she would be able to ask her what happened. That her mother could say something to explain everything she’d been through, to somehow take away the hurt.
That hope was over.
The words on the page blurred, and she shoved them away. She wasn’t denying the pain that would come. There was time for that later. There were still pages in the file.
She flipped past the police reports and found a transcript of an interview with Bill and Nancy Novak, her foster parents. She scanned the basic questions that established who they were and then found these words:
JA: How did Kendall Green come to live with you?
NN: We were on the list to foster to adopt. We couldn’t have children, and we were determined that we would adopt a child who needed a family. When the agency came to us with a girl who had already been in four homes and been returned to social services because she kept running away, we wanted to refuse the placement.
JA: Why didn’t you, then?
NN: God. It’s the only explanation. I was on the phone, ready to tell them we wouldn’t take the placement because she had refused to be adopted by her previous families, and instead I asked when she would be here. [laughs] I got off the phone and looked at Bill and asked, “What just happened?” He shrugged and said the situation had been taken out of our hands.
JA: And how did Kendall settle into the placement?
BN: It was rough. She was defiant and distant by turns. And then one night she ran away. We didn’t know where she was for six hours. My wife was in a panic. All we could think about were all the things that could happen to a little girl out there and how badly we’d failed her. We drove all around the city and eventually found her in the park next to her old elementary school. We were so relieved. Nancy just held on to her and cried for what felt like an hour.
NN: When I went to tuck her in that night, she was sitting on the edge of her bed with her bags packed, fully dressed. She thought she was going back. I unpacked her clothes and gave her pajamas and told her she needed to go to bed if she didn’t want to be late for school the next morning. [NN wipes away tears] She might not have softened much, but she never tried to run away after that.
Kendall paused, the pressure in her chest almost unbearable. She’d remembered that moment when Nancy had clutched her and cried, but until now she hadn’t remembered her mise
ry all the way home. How she’d sat up for hours while her foster parents talked about what to do with her, thinking it was only a matter of time until she was sent back again. She’d finally gone one step too far, screwed up the only good thing she might ever have in her life. The memory of that sick feeling hit her so hard she had to swallow her nausea down several times before she continued.
JA: You mentioned earlier that you wanted to adopt. Did you change your mind after that?
NN: No! We still wanted to adopt. But Kendall made it very clear that she believed her mother would be coming back for her someday. She refused.
BN: It was hard for us. We wanted her to be part of our family, but we decided ultimately it was more important to do what she needed than what we wanted. She needed a stable home and we could provide that for her. It was the least we could do after what she’d been through.
Kendall blinked at the words. What were they talking about? She didn’t remember having said that. She had only a vague recollection of her teen years, feeling like an outsider because she was a foster kid, because they’d never taken the step of giving her their last name.
Was it possible she’d blocked that out? Was it possible she’d had it wrong the whole time?
Had she been letting an erroneous assumption affect her whole life without realizing it?
She glanced at the SUV’s clock. She still had five hours until her flight. She looked back at the page, where the address for Bill and Nancy Novak was written.
She had no choice. She had to know the truth. The whole truth.
Chapter Thirty-Four
KENDALL SAT OUTSIDE the 1960s ranch-style house on a quiet street in Littleton, studying the front like she was on a surveillance detail. She’d put the address of her last foster home into her phone’s GPS, thinking she probably wouldn’t recognize it after a decade, but the minute she drove onto the street, she locked onto the home like she was following a beacon. Memories flooded back, ones she could fully understand repressing: the nights crying in her new room, wanting to go back to the last foster home because it was familiar even if it was unhappy. Being the new girl at school yet again and trying to hide her foster kid status for as long as possible. The day that everyone found out anyway and the whispers began about why her parents had abandoned her.
But that wasn’t all. There were also memories that shouldn’t need forgetting: riding a bike up and down the street on Christmas Day, her foster father Bill running beside to steady it until she got the hang of it. Sitting out on the front porch drinking hot chocolate with Nancy after a hard day at school. Backing down the driveway in the Novaks’ station wagon on her sixteenth birthday, right after she’d gotten her driver’s license.
And the day she’d packed up one suitcase full of stuff, the clothes and shoes that she’d bought herself with money from a part-time job, and walked away from this place without a second look.
Kendall swallowed hard, tears pricking her eyes. She should probably have called ahead. There was no guarantee they’d even want to see her, and her flight back to Burbank left in three hours. She didn’t really have time to be making this unplanned stop.
And yet she knew this was something she should have done long ago, that she would never be able to move on with her life until she dealt with her past. Now that she had some of the answers, maybe Bill and Nancy Novak could fill her in on the rest.
There were two cars parked in the driveway, the old station wagon and a newer SUV, so she knew they were probably home when she left her rental vehicle and crossed the street to the house. She braced herself for an uncertain reception. With the way she’d left without another word, not even a card or a phone call to say how she was doing, they might not even want to see her. They might have spent the last decade thinking about how ungrateful she’d been for their help when she’d had nowhere else to go.
They wouldn’t be totally wrong.
Kendall took one more deep breath and then shook off her hesitation and rapped sharply on the door. For good measure, she pressed the doorbell too.
From deep inside the house, a dog barked twice and then a woman’s voice shushed it. Kendall’s heart rose into her throat. Bill and Nancy had never had a dog; if it hadn’t been for the familiar station wagon with the same small dent in the bumper from where she’d accidentally backed into a trash can, she might think they’d moved.
And then the door swung open, revealing Nancy Novak, holding on to the collar of a panting, smiling golden retriever. She looked older than Kendall remembered, of course, a touch more silver woven into her blonde hair, but she looked as trim and healthy as ever. She straightened with a smile for whoever she thought was at the door, and then it slowly slipped off her face. “Kendall?”
Her name on her foster mom’s lips struck a pang into her heart. For a second, she’d wondered if she would even recognize her. “Hi, Nancy. I didn’t mean to drop by without notice, but I was in Colorado . . .”
Nancy’s eyes welled with tears, shimmering in a film. She turned away and yelled, “Bill! Come here! You won’t believe who’s here!” Kendall was still standing there, but Nancy seemed momentarily unable to figure out what to do.
“Can I come in?” Kendall asked tentatively.
Nancy shook herself. “Come in, come in. I was just surprised. I didn’t expect . . . I never thought . . .” She snapped her mouth shut and stood aside for Kendall to enter. The instant she let go of the dog’s collar, he started dancing around Kendall’s legs, sniffing her and nudging her hand.
“You probably smell Fitz on my boots still,” Kendall murmured, kneeling down to scratch the dog. She was aware she was really just delaying the inevitable, but it was much easier to face the friendly dog than the unknown expression of her foster mom.
Bill came around the corner from the back of the house and froze. “Kendall?”
Kendall straightened. “Hi, Bill. I’m sorry to drop in on you two so unexpectedly. I was in town and . . .” She broke off, aware she was bungling this reunion, but right now she wasn’t even sure if it was welcome or not. “Could we sit down and talk for a minute?”
Bill recovered faster than his wife and smiled. “Of course, Kendall. You know you’re always welcome here. You just surprised us. Although not as much as getting a visit from a private investigator.” He held his hand out toward the adjacent living room, and Kendall took tentative steps toward one of the chairs placed near the front window.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t hire him. A . . . friend of mine . . . took it on himself to get some answers for me. I had no idea he was even doing it.”
Bill and Nancy took seats on the leather sofa opposite her, Nancy automatically reaching for Bill’s hand. The gesture instantly made Kendall nervous. She recognized it from nearly a decade with this couple; Nancy always reached for him when she was uncertain about what came next. They were as unsettled as she was.
“It’s no problem, Kendall,” Bill said. “We weren’t sure if we should even talk to him. But his questions weren’t that intrusive . . . or at least it didn’t seem like it was anything that could hurt you or make you susceptible to identity theft or something like that.”
That was Bill, the practical one. Nancy was still staring at Kendall like she was a ghost, almost shaking.
“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Kendall said finally. “I just got the report this morning and . . .” She tried to order her thoughts. How could she have lived with Bill and Nancy for eight years and feel like they were strangers now? Maybe because she’d been away for longer than she’d known them. She’d lived two-thirds of her life without them.
“My mother didn’t abandon me. She was killed. Actually, both my parents were, at different times.”
Nancy’s hand flew to her mouth, tears coming to her eyes again. Kendall had forgotten how tenderhearted she was. “I’m so sorry, Kendall. That must have been difficult to learn.”
“It was. Kind of. And to be honest, it was kind of a relief.” Kendall swa
llowed hard, feeling guilty even thinking the words, let alone saying them aloud. “I didn’t realize how much I hoped my mom was still out there, that I would find her someday and she could give me an explanation.”
“That’s absolutely understandable,” Nancy said. “It’s why . . .” She broke off and glanced at Bill, who gave her a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.
“No, what were you going to say? ‘It’s why’ what?” Kendall looked between the two of them. “Please. Tell me.”
Bill cleared his throat. “It’s why we never pushed to adopt you after the first time you refused.”
Kendall blinked. “You asked to adopt me?” She’d read it in the investigator’s report, but she also hadn’t completely believed it. She would remember something like that, wouldn’t she?
“About a year after you came to live with us,” Nancy said. “You seemed like you were settling in. Making friends. You seemed happy here.”
Kendall hadn’t really remembered being happy there, but now that she said the words, there were flashes, recollections of stretches where things were peaceful. She had settled in. But it felt less about being happy than having finally accepted her fate.
Aloud she said, “I think I must have been. What did I say when you asked me?”
Nancy chewed her lip. “You said that your mom was still out there somewhere, and you were going to find her someday. You said that we’d never be your family.” Tears glistened on her foster mom’s lower lashes, and she swiped them away quickly. “We didn’t blame you, of course. But after that, you pulled away. Stayed in your room. Wouldn’t see your friends. We thought . . . well, we thought it was better to let it go than to push you. To unsettle you.”
Provenance Page 28