Run Away(71)

“I don’t know. But maybe.”

“Two of them have been murdered,” Simon said. “And the third—your client—is missing.”

“Yes.”

“Which leads to the obvious question.”

Elena nodded. “Paige.”

“Right. How would my daughter fit into your hypothesis?”

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Elena said.

“And?”

“There have been cases where law enforcement has used these DNA tests to solve crimes. So maybe, don’t ask me how, Paige stumbled across a crime.”

“What kind of crime?”

Elena shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“And why would she track down Aaron Corval?”

“We don’t know that she did. We only know Paige drove to see him in Connecticut.”

Simon nodded. “So maybe Aaron Corval reached out to her first.”

“Maybe. The thing is, it’s hard to figure out the connections. My tech guy, Lou, is working on it. He figures Henry was using an encrypted messaging app like WhatsApp or Viber, so he can’t see it all. But now Lou’s thinking that maybe Henry was messaging through the ancestry site—they have their own messaging capabilities—and it just looked like a messaging app.”

Simon gave her a blank look.

“Yeah, I don’t get it either,” Elena said, waving it away. “The important thing is, Lou is still searching for names. I also have my office looking into Aaron Corval’s background—his birth certificate, anything—so we can get a handle on that. Which brings me to the big thing.”

Elena stopped and let loose a deep breath.

“What?” he said.

“I found another connection.”

There was something odd in her voice. “Between all of them?”

“No. Between Henry Thorpe and Damien Gorse.”

“What’s that?”

“They were both adopted.”

“That we know.”

“They were both adopted from the same agency.”

Boom.

“The agency is called Hope Faith.”

“Where’s it located?”

“Maine. A small town called Windham.”

“I don’t get it. Your client lives in Chicago. Damien Gorse lived in New Jersey. Yet they were both adopted out of Maine?”

“Yes.”

Simon shook his head in amazement. “So what do we do next?”

“You stay here with your wife,” she said. “I’m flying up to Maine.”





Chapter

Twenty-Four



The last time Elena had landed at the Portland International Jetport in Maine, she’d been traveling with Joel. Joel’s niece/goddaughter was having a weekend “theme wedding” at a rustic kids’ sleepaway camp with a native American name—Camp Manu-something, Elena couldn’t remember now—and Elena had not been looking forward to it.

For one thing, Joel’s ex-wife Marlene, a gorgeous, lithe beauty, would be there, so Elena would have to deal with the odd looks from a family who could never understand what six-two, handsome, and charismatic Joel saw in the maybe-five-foot, squat-built, and seemingly charmless Elena.

Elena didn’t quite get it either.

“It’ll be fun,” Joel had assured her.

“It’ll suck.”

“We have our own private cabin by the water.”

“We do?”

“Okay, it’s not private,” he admitted. “Or by the water. And we are in bunk beds.”

“Wow, sounds great.”

Even under the best of circumstances, the trip sounded like a nightmare. Elena didn’t like camping or nature or insects or archery or kayaking or any of the activities listed on “Jack and Nancy’s Wedding Itinerary.” It was early June. Summer camps in Maine rent themselves out for retreats and events to make a little extra cash before school is out and the children descend upon them for the summer.

But to her surprise, the weekend had been fun, after all. Elena’s side had won something called Color Wars, and her law enforcement background came in handy for her team during the day-long Capture the Flag battle. At night—and this was the memory that still haunted her, would always haunt her—Joel would procure a bottle of wine and two glasses from whatever festivities were on the agenda. He would wrap the glasses and bottle in one extra-large sleeping bag. When lights went out—again, like a real camp, someone actually blew retreat on a trumpet—Joel would slip down from the top bunk, take Elena by the hand to the soccer field, and make love to her under a crisp-blue, star-filled Maine sky.

Why was sex so good with Joel?

Why was he able to reach a place deep within her body and soul no other man had ever come close to finding? She had tried to analyze it a thousand times, and realized that sex, great sex, is about trust and vulnerability. She trusted Joel completely. She let herself open up and be completely vulnerable with him. There was never any judgment, any hesitation, any doubt. She wanted to please him, and he wanted to please her, and she wanted to be selfish and he wanted to be selfish. There was never any agenda other than that.

You don’t get that often in life. Maybe once or twice. Most likely, never.