Page 76 of Hunting Pretty

I wonder if even she knew her real name.

I used that name to track down her birth certificate.

There she was… born Liath Daugherty to mother: Kathleen Daugherty; father: unknown.

I wonder what had happened to her mother to make her give Liath up?

The woman from the desk upstairs informed me, adoption records were confidential to anyone other than the adoptee.

But, she said, birth and death records were public.

So I went searching for Kathleen’s records in an even older section of the library. Here it was darker thanks to some of the lights being broken and the musty smell was even thicker.

I found Kathleen Daughterty’s records and slipped them onto my growing pile of files to study. And I wondered about the other missing girls.

I looked up the birth records for Sarah Hickey and Keela Hawkins.

But to my utter surprise, neither of them had birth records.

At first, I’d thought that perhaps I’d made a mistake. That I’d somehow missed their records. So I double-checked them.

But their birth records didn’t exist.

How could that be possible?

They existed. Even if everyone stopped caring after they’d “run away.”

What if… a growing thought began to make my heart drum harder… what if they weren’t Sarah Hickey and Keela Hawkins when they were born?

What if they’d also had their names changed?

I practically ran through the aisles, my blood pumping with that familiar exhilaration. I was onto something.

My hands were shaking as I poured through record after record to find their names.

I ended up with several thin files in my hands.

They confirmed what I had suspected.

Sarah Hickey and Keela Hawkins had both had their names changed.

Three missing girls.

All students at Darkmoor college.

All deemed as “runaways.”

All of them had their names changed after their birth parents died.

All of them had beenadopted.

A loud bang had me jumping, my heart banging in my ears like a warning bell.

Was that my stalker? Was he coming for me here?

Moments seemed to drag as I listened for creaking footsteps, for his heavy breathing, or the sing of a knife being unsheathed.

But moments later, I heard the rattle of a drawer being opened in a distant aisle.

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