Chapter 15 Maddy
MADDY
Iwas in the kitchen, wiping down the counters.
I was going stir-crazy not working and decided to help clean up Nico’s place, though it was surprisingly clean for a bachelor.
Sitting at home for days on end was grating on my nerves, so I had to do something to keep myself occupied.
I’d already binge-watched everything I’d ever wanted to see and had read six books that had been on my to-be-read list. I was starting to see how the guy from The Shining had gone bonkers.
While I rinsed the rag I’d used to wipe the counters, my phone rang. It was Nico. He was at work, so it must have been important.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hey, I just heard from Luis. He’s almost back home.”
A tremor of excitement went through my chest. Luis had been in Tampa for a week. I’d been anxious to hear what he’d learned, and now it seemed like I was finally going to find out. “What did he say?”
“He wants to tell us in person. He’s on the interstate right now and said he’d be at my house in about two hours. I’m going to finish up what I need to here, then I’ll be there. Are you good with that?”
I’d have preferred if he came home now because the waiting would be torture, but he still had a business to run. I’d have to busy myself and try to keep my mind off whatever Luis was going to say. I nodded to myself. “Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll be okay. Felipe is here, so it’s not like I’m alone.”
Felipe raised his can of Coke. He was sitting on the couch watching a baseball game. He was much quieter than Sebastian, but still a nice guy. I liked all of Nico’s friends, which was good.
“Okay, cool,” Nico said. “I’ll try to finish as soon as I can. Call me if you need me.”
“I will. See you soon.”
“See you.”
I set my phone on the counter and stared at it.
In a couple hours, I might have some information.
The thing I’ve hungered for my entire life.
Since the moment my parents had told me I was adopted, all I’d wanted was to know where I’d come from, but then I’d come to terms with being adopted.
The DNA test had stirred that hunger for knowledge again, and now… could today be the day?
It took a second to realize I was chewing my nails. Pulling my hand from my face, I started wiping again, cleaning the same things I’d already gone over.
Felipe turned and peered over the couch. “Was that Nico?”
I nodded, unable to make my mouth work.
“What did he say?”
Pulling in a steadying breath, I tried to compose myself. “Luis is on the way. He has information.”
“Oh wow. Okay. Uh…are you all right?”
I nodded. “I’ll be fine. It’s just that this place is filthy and needs a good cleaning.”
Felipe raised an eyebrow. “You realize you’re cleaning the kitchen island for, like, the third time today. And that’s only the times I’ve seen.”
Flicking my arm, I sent the rag flying into the sink. “You’re right. I’m going to try to take a nap. That will kill some time.”
“Naps are good. Naps are really good,” Felipe said, turning back to his ball game.
But all I could do was stare at the ceiling.
My hands twitched and twined together, and I couldn’t stop fidgeting.
I lay there for a solid thirty minutes. My mind kept spinning, and I envisioned a thousand different ways this could play out.
After what felt like years, my eyes finally drifted closed.
I didn’t wake up until I heard the front door open over an hour later.
My eyes snapped open, and I was out the bedroom door before I’d even fully awoken. Making my way downstairs, I could hear Nico and Luis talking to Felipe. By the time I made it to the landing, Felipe was heading out the front door. Luis looked over and saw me, nudging Nico.
“Maddy, hey. Felipe said you went to sleep. Feel better?” Nico asked.
“I’ll feel better when I hear what Luis has to say.”
“Fair enough,” Luis said. He had a file folder and a laptop under his arm.
I sat on the couch and Nico sat beside me, taking my hand in his.
He squeezed my hand reassuringly. Luis sat opposite us and shifted his things onto his lap.
“Okay. We’ll start simple first. Once I arrived in Tampa, I did some initial digging.
I stopped by a couple group homes, adoption centers, few churches.
I asked about social workers who dealt with babies, specifically men, since that was the only lead I had from what your mom told us,” Luis said, nodding toward me.
I nodded back. “Yeah, she said all they knew was a guy had dropped me off at the adoption agency.”
“Right. That little tidbit helped a lot actually. Apparently less than fifteen percent of all social workers in the country are male. That means a guy should probably stick out and be memorable, right? Well, he was. The story gets a little sticky, though.”
“Sticky how?” Nico asked.
“Well, there are social workers who specialize in shifter babies. Not every shifter clan is as well off as we are. Lots of them are poor. For richer packs, there are always mated couples who can’t seem to conceive. There’s an undercurrent of—for want of a better word—sold children.”
“What?” I was horrified.
Luis made an apologetic face and shrugged.
“It’s difficult. The parents have no money and no way of providing for their child.
They sell the kid to a family who they know will give the child everything they can’t, and they get a nice chunk of change to try and better themselves. I see both sides of it.”
“Does this happen with humans?” I asked.
“Not usually. Shifter communities are way more insular. We have our own doctors, our own internal laws and ways of policing ourselves. It’s much easier for a shifter child to change hands than a human child simply because there’s more red tape in the human world.
Anyway, as I was saying, I think I found the guy your mom was talking about. ”
Nico and I both leaned forward, drawn into the story. It was interesting on multiple levels. One, because it dealt directly with me. Two, hearing about all this was like learning a big secret about the world. As awful as some of it was, it was exciting to learn.
“There was apparently a social worker in the Tampa area named Kenneth Reid. He was the go-to guy for handling shifter babies. He had lots of contacts with local shifter clans and was pretty well-liked in his agency, so no one ever looked into his shady dealings. I found these…” He pulled two documents out of his file folder and handed them over.
“In that one, there are some descriptions of an unborn baby girl. No name, just a due date and the address of a shifter clinic. The due date is about nine days before your birthday, Maddy.”
I stared at the paper. It was basically an email with almost no information on it. “What is this supposed to be?”
“I found it in an ancient filing cabinet in the bowels of the agency Reid worked for. There were two dozen more for different babies. I think this was a simple description that he could use to find takers for the babies when they came. The other paper is the one that’s even more interesting.”
I glanced at the other document. It looked like a contract. I read it twice to be sure I understood what it was saying. It more or less promised the unborn baby girl to Kenneth Reid.
Luis pointed at the paper. “That is the very last thing I found from Kenneth Reid. No other papers, no other documents. His employment record ended not long afterward. Once this transaction was completed, he vanished. I think this contract is about you, Maddy. If you are who we believe you are, it must have been incredibly dangerous for this guy to do what he did.” He pulled a third sheet of paper out and handed it over. “This is your birth certificate.”
I pulled the paper from his hand greedily, desperate to see it.
At the top was my name, Maddison, but the last name was different.
It said Samuels. Maddison Samuels? That was my real name?
On the line with the mother’s name were two words.
My breath caught in my throat as I read the name.
My birth mother. The woman who had carried me for nine months and birthed me. Gabriella Karson.
Luis pointed to the top of the paper. “This is a shifter clinic, which is weird, because your birth mother wasn’t a shifter.
” He pulled yet another sheet of paper out.
“This is your biological mother’s birth certificate.
Human. And this clinic? It shut down and all staff members disappeared less than a week after you were born. ”
A chill ran up my spine. It was like something out of a movie. This couldn’t be real life, could it? I turned the birth certificate around. “I don’t see a father on this.”
Luis nodded. “I think she knew you were going to be targeted, so she didn’t put anything on the certificate. It looks like she had good reason to be afraid.” He opened his laptop. “I used her name and the area to find out where she went to high school, which led me to finding these.”
He turned the computer around and clicked to expand an image. It was the smiling face of a beautiful girl. It looked like a senior picture from a yearbook. I looked into her face and felt a twinge in my chest. My birth mother. I had her eyes.
“This is her. I got the school to let me in and scanned some images from the library where I found the yearbooks. It gets more interesting.” He started clicking through more images.
They showed the woman and another boy. My jaw fell open, and Nico whispered a curse.
The guy looked just like me. The resemblance was uncanny.
There was no way he wasn’t my birth father.
One of the images was of the two of them embracing and laughing.
Above the picture were block letters that read Cutest Couple.
Luis pointed at him. “This is David Samuels. Four months before you were born, this happened.”