She pressed her lips together as if in need of control. “I do know you can’t imagine what it’s like to have everything you’ve believed about yourself suddenly in question. Not until you experience it.”
For an instant she looked lost, and Trey winced. He didn’t want to be the one who caused that feeling.
“Sorry,” he said again. He tried to think objectively about her situation. “Was there ever a time that you suspected the truth? Or questioned your mother?”
“Not really.” Amanda seemed to look into the past. “Juliet always made me feel so secure. Even when someone kidded me about not inheriting her looks or her artistic talent, she laughed it off. I looked like my father, she said, and everyone had unique talents.” She slanted a sideways look at him. “But I suppose you always wanted to be an attorney, like your dad.”
“And my grandfather,” he added, relieved that the ice had melted between them. “I don’t know that I ever considered any other option. I was born to go into the family firm.”
And it had nearly faltered on his watch. He could never forget how close they’d come. And how close they still were, for that matter.
“No siblings to take your place?” she asked.
“One sister. Shelley flirted with the idea of law school, but then a guy came along, and she decided she didn’t want to spend that many more years in school.”
“Married?”
“Yes, she’s married and lives about an hour’s drive from here. Three kids, so at least my mother’s stopped expecting me to produce grandchildren for her.”
“That must be a relief.” Her lips curved, showing her dimple.
“It is,” he said with emphasis. There was also the matter of his father’s health to keep Mom occupied, so she’d stopped worrying about Trey’s single status. Not that that would stop her from putting in her two cents’ worth if he so much as went to a movie with a female.
“Here we are.” He nodded at the mellowed brick building that had been the police station for a hundred years. Its classic lines were a bit distorted by the one-story, three-bay garage with its metal roof, providing space for emergency vehicles.
He considered asking her to exercise a little discretion with Chief Carmichaels, but feared doing so would have the opposite effect. At least she was in a better mood than when they’d left the café.
Chief Mike Carmichaels was in and willing, albeit reluctantly, to see them. Once they were seated in the chief’s minuscule office, Carmichaels leaned back in his creaking desk chair and surveyed Amanda with a speculative look on his square, honest face.
“So you claim you might be the Winthrop girl’s child, I hear from Trey.”
Amanda perched on the edge of her chair, looking wired enough to dart from it at any instant. “I’m not making any claims, Chief Carmichaels. I just want to know the truth. It came as such a shock to learn that I wasn’t who I thought. There must have been some relationship between my mother—between Juliet Curtiss—and Melanie Winthrop. I’d have been two months old when Melanie died. You can see why I might wonder if that’s the answer to who I am.”
Mike’s expression softened, and Trey saw he’d been moved by Amanda’s words. So maybe it hadn’t been a mistake for her to talk to him.
Carmichaels cleared his throat. “I get that. Trouble is, I don’t see any way of proving it one way or another—not unless someone from the family agreed to DNA testing.”
Amanda slid back on the chair, sending Trey a look that might have contained a little triumph. “That would be the only definitive answer to my parentage, but I’d want to feel more sure of the facts myself before I’d even ask them to do that. So I hoped you might help me.”
“How?” The chief’s gray eyes became guarded. He might be sympathetic to Amanda, but he wouldn’t be eager to alienate Elizabeth Winthrop.
She hadn’t mentioned the need to find out whether or not she’d been legally adopted, but Carmichaels didn’t need to know the importance of determining that. He couldn’t know anything.
“Just tell me anything you remember about what happened when Melanie died. For instance, were you able to find out when Melanie had arrived back in town?”
He seemed to look at that question from every angle before deciding to answer it. “No, we weren’t. That was odd. We couldn’t even find out how. She hadn’t come on the bus, and there was no abandoned car that might have belonged to her.”
So the police had been more thorough than Trey had thought. Mike would have been a patrolman then, and Clifford Barnes the chief. Too bad Clifford wasn’t around any longer to answer any questions.
“Strange,” Trey said while Amanda seemed to digest the chief’s words, sifting them for anything useful. “It almost sounds as if someone drove her to town and dropped her off. But if so, you’d expect them to come forward when she died.”
Carmichaels moved as if he’d suddenly found his chair uncomfortable. “Unless she’d been hitchhiking and was dropped off by a stranger. That was what Chief Barnes decided must have happened.”
“You didn’t agree?” Amanda was onto the doubt in his voice in an instant.
But he stiffened. “It wasn’t my business to disagree with the chief.” He shrugged. “Besides, I wasn’t in on any of the decision-making. Too high up for me at that stage.”
To forestall Amanda making another remark about toadying to the powerful, Trey broke in with a question. “What about the person who found her? I never did hear who that was.”
“An Amish kid from one of the nearby farms, it was. Course there weren’t any cell phones then, even if he’d been allowed to have one. Way he told it, she was partly in the water at the base of the falls. He pulled her out.”
“She was dead already?” Trey asked.
Carmichaels nodded, his face grave. “As I recall, he realized pretty quick it was too late, but he ran all the way to the nearest place with a phone. You can imagine how long it was until we actually got on scene.” The chief fell silent, staring down at the green blotter on his desk as if he saw again that tragic image. “The chief and I got there first, but the rescue crew wasn’t far behind. I could hear them crashing through the woods with their gear while we were standing there looking down at her, all broken...”
He stopped abruptly, probably realizing he might be talking to Melanie’s daughter.
Amanda drew a shaky breath. She was probably trying to think what else to ask. “Do you know his name? The boy who found her, I mean.”
“Let me think a minute. It was one of the Miller kids, I believe, but I don’t remember which one.” He shook his head. “It’ll come to me. I’ll let you know when I think of it.”
“Why wasn’t there a postmortem?” Obviously that was still bothering Amanda.
“Like I say, that wasn’t my decision. Besides, it was obvious what caused her death.” His face tightened. “If you’d seen her...well, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. That’s a long way down, and nothing but rocks and water at the bottom.”
That shook Amanda visibly. He suspected she was finding it impossible to hold on to the detachment she’d had initially. It was probably coming home to her just what kind of Pandora’s box she was opening with her search.
The silence that fell was his cue to get her out before she had a chance to push too hard with Chief Carmichaels. He stood, holding out his hand.
“Thanks, Chief. It was good of you to answer my client’s questions.”
He shrugged it off. “No problem. After all these years, I’d think it’s impossible to find out much of anything, but I can understand why Ms. Curtiss wants