“That’s the shredder!” Ellin said.
Then, thorough to the end, he lifted the shredder off the trash can and pulled out the shredded paper, stuffing it into a small plastic bag he’d pulled out of his pocket. He put the shredder back in place, restored Ellin’s desk to order, then left as quietly as he’d entered.
Pain expanded in Milla’s chest, smothering her. Rage followed, and she had to clench her fists to hold herself in.
The man was Diaz.
* * *
No wonder he’d had his phone turned off. No wonder he’d slipped out in the middle of the night. There wasn’t any possibility he’d gotten the list to search for Justin himself, to do this for Milla, because he’d destroyed the paper. For whatever reason in his convoluted brain, he didn’t want Milla to find her son.
Jesus wanted to call the sheriff, but Ellin said no, it was a personal paper she was missing and not anything she wanted to pursue. Milla pulled herself together and shoved everything she was feeling to the back burner. There were still things to do.
The small community bank closed for lunch from one until two, after everyone else’s lunch hour, so people could do their banking then if needed. Promptly at two, Ellin was there with Milla and Rip to get into her safe-deposit box.
There it was, a single sheet of paper with three rows of single-spaced names. They returned to the car and looked over the list. Each name had a numerical code next to it. “Is that the birth certificate number?” Milla asked.
“No, that’s the date, so I know exactly where to look. Only I wrote the date backward. See, December 13, 1992, is 29913121. Easy.”
Milla told her the date Justin was stolen and that she’d found he was flown out of Mexico right away.
“Huh,” said Ellin, running her finger down the list of dates. “That narrows it down, because there’s only one Caucasian male name during the next week. The babies were moved fast, you know. The adoptions went through almost right away. Anyway, there are two Hispanic male names, and three females. That’s gotta be your boy. The name I gave him was Michael Grady, ‘Michael’ because it’s the most popular boy’s name. That’s the name he was adopted under, though of course the adoptive parents would rename him.”
They returned to the courthouse basement, where Ellin looked through the microfiche files and came up with the birth certificate for Michael Grady. “There. The father is listed as unknown. I made up the mother’s name, too.”
“What about the mother’s social security number?” Rip asked, staring at the microfiche screen.
“You think that’s actually checked out? Especially in a private adoption, ten years ago? Things like that may be checked now, but as long as the mother’s signed and notarized consent is provided, who’s going to check if that’s her correct social security number? Besides, the adoptive parents get the baby’s social security number for him.”
Hoping against hope, Milla asked, “Do you have any idea where the babies went? What attorney handled the private adoptions? Anything?” Without that information, she wasn’t in a much better position than she’d been in before.
Ellin grinned. “Well, now. For that list to be much good, you gotta have some backup information, don’t you? There’s a lawyer here in town who handled the legal stuff on this end. He knew there were a lot of adoptions, but he didn’t ask a lot of questions as long as he got paid, and he was told an adoption service was working with poor Hispanic families to ease their burden, plus you know Hispanics frown on their unmarried girls messing around. It’s a real social no-no for them, so any Hispanic girl who got pregnant was likely to give up her baby. At least, that’s what we told Harden. We’ll go see him now; at the very least, he should have the name of the lawyers on the other end of the adoptions.”
Two hours later, Rip drove them back to Roswell, because Milla was crying too hard to see. She was holding a copy of Justin’s fake birth certificate, as well as a copy of everything Harden Sims had had in his file concerning that particular adoption. The attorney on the other end practiced in Charlotte, North Carolina.
As everyone had kept telling her, the adoption records were probably sealed, and she would have to get a court order to unseal them. But she’d get the information she needed from the attorney in North Carolina, even if she had to sue him to get it, and then she’d get that court order. Considering the circumstances and how well publicized her own case had been, she knew she’d win.
The future wasn’t a fog of heartbreak now. She’d done it. A lot of legwork remained, but at the end of it she knew she’d find her son.
When they got to Roswell, they decided to drive straight through. It was a long drive, they wouldn’t get home until late, but both of them wanted to get home.
“What are you going to do?” Rip asked soberly. He was talking about Diaz.
“I don’t know.” She couldn’t let herself think about it too much, or she would break down. His betrayal sliced through her, so much more painful than the sense of betrayal she’d felt about Susanna. She had trusted Diaz more than she’d ever trusted anyone, trusted him with her life and her body and her heart. Why would he do such a thing, knowing how long and hard she’d searched for Justin? He might as well have stabbed her in the back himself. Looking back, she examined their times together, looking for some clue, but there was nothing. He’d either gone absolutely crazy during the last night they’d spent together, or he’d had a different agenda the entire time.