The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(14)
“That’s so sad. So she has no idea who her parents are?” I took a large bite of the purple goat doughnut, hoping it would push down the lump in my throat. My mother had left me when I was six, and I’d been raised by an alcoholic father. For my entire childhood, I’d felt abandoned, but at least I’d known who my people were, had known the house on Legare where generations of my mother’s family had lived. And I’d always had my grandmother, who’d loved me unconditionally. It seemed unfathomable to have no history, no prologue to the story of your life.
“No. I did a little digging into Button Pinckney, too, since it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that she might have had a baby and secretly gave it up. Lucky for us, Ms. Pinckney was very active in various social clubs, so her photo appears in the society pages pretty much every month during the year Jayne was born—apparently not pregnant and with no gaps in time. In addition, she was her sister-in-law’s companion after her niece’s long illness and death, and, according to everyone who knew Button, never left her side.”
“So she’s just a generous philanthropist who decided to give her entire estate to a deserving orphan.”
“Apparently. And Jayne certainly fits that description, considering how she started out. It’s really incredible that she turned out as well as she did. She was a straight-A student, never got into trouble, and although she had a succession of foster parents, they all had good things to say about her.”
“But she was never adopted.”
Thomas shook his head. “Sadly, no. She came close several times, but it always fell through.”
“Does the paperwork mention why?” I took a long drink of my coffee, unable to forget the image of a small baby abandoned on the steps of a church. I wanted to think that it was because I was a mother now, with my own small babies who needed me. But there was something else, too. Something I couldn’t identify.
His eyes met mine. “This is where it really gets interesting. Every single one of the foster families said practically the same thing: that she was a wonderful child but in the end wasn’t adoptable because”—he paused and opened a manila folder on the corner of the table to riffle through several pages before pulling one to the top—“things always seemed to happen around her. Little ‘disturbances.’” Thomas made little quote marks with his fingers. He looked down at the page and continued reading. “She was never named as the exact cause, but all events seemed to occur when she was in the vicinity, making her guilty by association.”
I sat back in my seat. “That’s odd.”
“Yep. And there’s one more thing I think you might find interesting.” He paused, drumming his fingers on top of the folder as if trying to decide how much he should say.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “If she’ll be watching my children, I need to know all of it.”
“True.” He took a deep breath. “She’s afraid of the dark. Has to have all the lights on when she sleeps.”
“Many children are. She didn’t outgrow it?”
After a brief pause, he said, “Apparently not. I got the references from her last two employers sent over, and it’s mentioned in both reports. Which are all glowing, by the way. The first called her ‘Mary Poppins’ and considered having another baby just to keep her with their family now that their other children are too old for a nanny.”
I perked up. “Which is the important part—that she’s a good nanny. I’m okay with her keeping the lights on in her room all night. That’s pretty minor, really.” I took a long sip of my coffee, thinking. “Anything more specific about those ‘disturbances’?”
“No, but from everything I read, I’ve gathered that it was regular occurrences of breakages—lamps, dishes, that kind of thing.”
“So she’s a little clumsy,” I said, feeling relieved. “As long as she’s never dropped a child, of course.”
“Nope, nothing like that. As I said, her former employers can’t say enough good things about her. Heck, just reading these reports makes me want to have children just so I can hire her.”
He reached for his wallet to place a generous tip on the table before standing and pulling my chair back for me. “How’s the real estate business these days?”
“Hopping, I’m happy to say,” I said as he helped me into my coat. “Made it easy to step back into my job.”
“So no time to help with any cold cases, huh?”
I thought for a moment, recalling how happy I’d been in the last year with no spirits staring back at me in a mirror. No disembodied knocks on my door. “How cold?” I asked.
“Twenty years. A nineteen-year-old College of Charleston student was murdered, and the case was never solved. Her sister recently found something that made her think it would make it worthwhile to reopen the case.”
Despite my reluctance, my curiosity was piqued. “What did she find?”
“Half of a gold charm—like those old BFF necklaces where each friend gets half. Except this one had the first letter of the dead sister’s sorority, so it looks like the other half had other Greek letters on it. Perhaps spelling out another fraternity or sorority with a coinciding letter, but the other half is missing.”