Forgive Me(79)

“I look old,” Carolyn said to Nadine. “You aged me.”

Will you let up on her, Angie thought. She held back, though she planned on sharing her concerns with the NCMEC team that was facilitating Nadine’s reentry.

Nadine, who was good at ignoring her mother’s jabs, returned her gaze to the photographs hanging on the wall behind Angie’s desk. “Who is that?” she asked, approaching for a closer look.

Angie saw Nadine was examining one photograph in particular. “That’s my friend from college. She disappeared years ago.”

Nadine got even closer. “She’s pretty. What’s her name?”

“Sarah Winter.”

Nadine kept her gaze locked on Sarah’s picture. “Sarah Winter,” she repeated. “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” Angie said. “She went missing my senior year of college. I’m keeping her picture up on the wall until I find her. She’ll be the only picture I’ll ever take down.”

“I’m glad I’m going to be on the wall now,” Nadine said.

Angie took hold of Nadine’s hand. “So am I, Nadine. So am I.”





CHAPTER 41



It was a four-hour drive from Alexandria to Basking Ridge, New Jersey where Sarah Winter once lived with her mother, Jean. Madeline Hartsock did most of the driving. Her SUV was roomy, and it allowed Angie to spread out and do her work.

The work involved searching (or at least trying to search) social security records for people with the initials I.C. who had been born on January 2, 1984 and who’d died on March 4, 1988. The database Angie used for her search, a product called ConnectXP, was the best on the market for locating people and researching connections.

It was an expensive tool, but one Angie had used countless times for her business. She was hoping it would solve a mystery that had begun some thirty-two years before the advent of electronic records. She wasn’t having much luck. Her 4G LTE adapter gave Angie access to ConnectXP’s online database, but the result set returned was too broad for the search function. It would obviously help if she had a first and last name. She had checked with Bao, but there were too many combinations for him to sift through programmatically. Angie needed more information, and was deeply frustrated by her lack of progress.

Maddy, hidden beneath her oversized sunglasses and looking cute in a scoop neck T-shirt and jeans, tried to lift Angie from her sullen mood. “How about some music?” she suggested, turning on the radio to let a pop tune blare out from the car speakers.

Angie gave a stern look. Off went the music.

“Aaaand we’ll just cruise along in silence,” Madeline said.

“Thank you,” Angie said.

“What is the issue, if I may ask?”

Angie explained all her roadblocks.

“What about looking up I.C.’s birth certificate?”

“I looked into that,” Angie said. “In New York, the physical archives start before 1910. For anything after that, I need more information—a first and last name, specifically.”

“So I’m guessing Ancestary.com is out.”

“Yeah,” Angie said, feeling her frustration bubble once more.

“How about we let it go for now,” Maddy said. “Let’s focus on Jean. We’re here for her and Sarah.”

Angie agreed in principle, but she couldn’t let it go.





The front door opened almost the same instant Madeline pulled into the driveway. Jean was waiting for the girls to show up, as she had waited for them once a year for thirteen years. Her ranch-style home was lovely, nothing too fancy, just right for a single woman who had divorced when Sarah was in high school and never remarried. For all Angie knew, Jean had never dated, either. She was very private. Happy to discuss most any topic so long as it didn’t pertain to her personal life.

The home had a living room instead of a family room, a kitchen with hardwood floors instead of tile, a cat instead of a dog. Nothing about Sarah Winter’s childhood home was notable, except for the absence of Sarah.

Jean had short dark hair and a kind, round face. She looked marvelous for a woman of any age, let alone someone in her late sixties. The wrinkles were there, along with other pesky signs of aging, but a Zen quality and a peacefulness from a deeper place radiated from her, making those years seem less taxing.

The women played catch up as drinks were made—vodka tonics, as was the tradition. It was also tradition for Madeline and Angie to spend the night. Jean had two guest rooms now. The room where Sarah Winter once slept wasn’t a shrine to a missing daughter anymore. Sarah’s belongings had been boxed up and stowed away long ago.

In some ways—many ways, perhaps—dead was easier. At least it came with closure.

Conversation turned to talk of Angie’s mother. Jean apologized for not being at the service. She’d had a funeral for a relative that unfortunately fell on the same day.

“It must have been very well attended,” Jean said. “Your mother was so involved with her community.”

The three women were seated in the living room, snacking on spinach and artichoke dip and White Trash Puff Balls, as Jean called them—pepperoni and cream cheese wrapped up by a Pillsbury crescent dinner roll. Years ago, Angie had been too skeptical to try it. One bite, and any apprehension fell away. There was a time for healthy eating, and it wasn’t when she visited Jean Winter.