Run Away(83)

“But you—”

“—got the better of you, yes I know.”

Raoul was still cradling his crotch as if he’d found a wounded bird.

“But you assaulted me first,” Elena said.

“What? How do you figure?”

“Raoul, you’re new at this. I’m not. The surveillance tape will show that you reached out and touched me first.”

“You were running after my friend!”

“And you assaulted me to stop that, so I defended myself. That’s how this will play. And worse. I mean, look at me, Raoul.” Elena spread her arms. “I’m short, I’m chubby, and even though I’m sure you’re very in touch with your feminine side and all kumbaya on feminism, that tape of a small albeit round middle-aged woman kneeing you in the balls will go viral.”

Raoul’s eyes widened. He hadn’t considered that, though maybe his man bun had.

“Do you want to roll those dice, Raoul?”

He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Raoul?”

“Fine,” he said in the most petulant tone imaginable. “I won’t press charges.”

“Yeah, but now that I start thinking about it, I might.”

“What?”

Elena made the trade. Alison Mayflower’s “real” name—Allie Mason—and current address in exchange for letting bygones be bygones. Alison lived on a farm outside of Buxton. Elena made the drive up. No one was home. She debated sitting outside the house for a bit, but it didn’t look as though anyone had been home in a long time.

Back at the Howard Johnson’s, Elena sat in a room that couldn’t be more motel generic and tried to plot her next move. Lou from her home office had discovered that Allie Mason lived in that farmhouse with another woman named Stephanie Mars.

Was Stephanie Mars a friend? A relative? A partner? Did it matter?

Should Elena drive the half hour to Buxton and try again?

There was no reason to think Alison Mayflower would be more cooperative this time, but then again, trying doggedly was why Elena made the big bucks. Literally. And it wasn’t as though the first meeting hadn’t borne fruit. It had. There was clearly something shady going on with those adoptions. Elena had strongly suspected that before, but after her encounter with Alison Mayflower, she knew for sure. She also knew that at least in Alison Mayflower’s mind, the children had needed saving. And the big new piece of this cockamamy puzzle, though Elena had zero idea how it fit: All the adopted babies were boys.

Why? Why not girls?

Elena took out a pad and pen and charted out the ages. Damien Gorse was the oldest, Henry Thorpe the youngest. Still, they were almost ten years apart in age. Ten years. That was a long time for Alison Mayflower to be involved in all this.

That meant her involvement was deep. Super deep.

Her phone rang. It was Lou from the home office on some special app he’d installed on her phone. The app made all calls untraceable or something like that. “The leakers in the White House use it,” Lou had told her. “That’s why they never get caught.”

Lou didn’t use it very often.

“You alone?” he asked when she picked up.

“You didn’t call for phone sex, did you?”

“Uh, yeah no. Open up your laptop, wiseass.”

She could hear the excitement in his voice. “Okay.”

“I emailed you a link. Click on it.”

Elena opened her browser and started to sign into her email.

“You click it yet?”

“Give me a second, will you? I’m typing in my password.”

“Seriously? You don’t have it saved?”

“How do you save it?”

“Ugh, never mind. Tell me when you have the link up.”

Elena found Lou’s email and clicked the link. A website called Ance-Story came up.

“Bingo,” she said.

“What, why?”

“Let me just double-check something.”

Elena grabbed her phone and checked her texts. There was one from Simon Greene, who’d informed her that his daughter Paige had no charges on her credit card for DNAYourStory, but that he had found one for $79 to: Ance-Story.

She filled Lou in on Simon’s text. “Okay,” Lou said, “so this is going to be even bigger news than I thought.”

Elena’s eyes traveled down the home page. No doubt about it—this was definitely one of those DNA genealogy sites. There were all kinds of photographs of people embracing and cute catchphrases like “Discover Who You Really Are” or “Only You Are You—Uncover Your Unique Ethnic Origins.” There were other links that could help the potential customer—like the thrilled people in the embracing photographs—“find new relatives.”

Below that, the packages the potential customer could purchase were displayed. The first option, priced at $79, offered you a breakdown of your ancestry and the chance to connect with DNA relatives. The second option was called “For Your Health Too.” It offered the same as package one, but for an extra eighty dollars, you’d receive a “full medical report that could make you healthier.”

The word RECOMMENDED was stamped in flashing letters above the more expensive package. What a surprise. The company itself was suggesting you spend more money on their products. Gasp.