Page 77 of Hunting Pretty

I sagged against the cabinets, my growing pile of files at my feet. It must have been someone closing a drawer a little too enthusiastically.

I turned back to my findings, to the three certificates I’d laid out across the top of the open drawer.

All three missing girls were adopted.

That wasn’t the only connection though.

Liath had been stalked.

I’d spoken to Sarah and Keela’s friends. Sarah and Keela had both mentioned feeling like someone was watching them before they disappeared.

My skin prickled. Something was going on. Something sinister. Something no one else saw or perhaps pretended not to see.

Could the police be covering this up? Wouldn’t they need to be involved somehow to deem all these missing girls as “runaways” and their missing persons file closed.

Or was the person who took them all just so good at covering their tracks that they’d fooled Ireland’s law enforcement.

I scanned the missing girls’ public records, searching for another connection.

There wasn’t a link between the birth places, dates, or name changes between Liath, Sarah, and Keela.

All three girls had been born in different places to different parents and names changed at different dates and ages to different surnames.

But they’d all ended up at Darkmoor college.

This couldn’t be a coincidence.

Perhaps they would all be linked to something in their adoptions.

The monotone voice of the woman upstairs echoed in my head,“Adoption records are confidential to anyone other than the adoptee.”

I had no way to access their records.

Then something struck me.

I slammed against the help desk counter at the very front of the library, dumping my pile of files beside me, now all marked with my pink Post-it notes.

“I was adopted,” I said, my breath coming out in a rush.

The thin woman in a flouncy floral blouse behind the counter looked at me over her half-moon glasses. “Congratulations?”

“No, what I mean is,” I explained as I rooted around inmy purse for my wallet, “I’d like to access my own adoption records. I can do that, right?”

I pulled out my ID and slapped it on the counter.

Then I pulled out a file from my pile and opened it up to show her my name change certificate.

The woman slid both items toward her and I got a whiff of her powdery scent.

Her eyes moved back and forth between me and the picture on my ID.

I found myself grinning, my heart beating wildly in my chest.

I knew from Ebony that my surname was Carey before she had it changed to McKinsey when she took me in.

She hadn’t been able to tell me anything about my life before she adopted me.

I’d been searching the blank spaces in my memory for so long and coming up empty, I’d never thought to investigatemyself.

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