Page 106 of The Unraveling of Julia

“I bring my food. The cafeteria’s too expensive.”

“May I show you? Maybe you’ll know?”

“No, I can’t leave the desk.”

Julia tried another tack. “Do you know the elementary schools in the area?”

“No. Call the office during the day. You can ask them. They will know.”

“Thank you.” Julia left the desk and hurried back down the hallway. She was already getting another idea. She wanted to take photographs of the drawing. It was as good as any police composite, and it could help her find her biological mother.

Julia hustled down the hallway, but stopped, shocked.

The wall was completely white. The drawings were gone, all of them.

What?Julia whirled around. The pictures had beenrighthere.

Julia realized she could be in the wrong hallway. She tried to reorient herself, double-checking. The cafeteria was to the left, and the information desk was to the right. She was in the correct hallway. The drawings had been on the wall only minutes before, but they had vanished, including the one of her biological mother.

Courtney was walking toward her, holding two coffees.

Julia looked at her, unable to speak.

Courtney stopped, her lips parting. “What’d I miss?”

57

They sped home in the dark with Julia watching the outside mirror to make sure they weren’t being followed. Traffic was light, and she updated Courtney on her vision in Gianluca’s hospital room and the drawing of her biological mother, which she’d seen in the hallway.

Julia was trying to process what happened. “So the drawings must’ve been a vision, too. But who sent it to me? Who’s trying to communicate with me?”

“Your bio mom?” Courtney sipped her coffee, holding it since the car had no cupholders.

“Maybe. Do you think shewantsme to find her?” Julia felt old emotions coming back, darker ones she hadn’t had in a long time. “I mean, she did give me up. She didn’t want me.”

“Correction, she didn’t want a baby.” Courtney looked over, her expression sympathetic in the soft light from the dashboard. “You know it’s not a rejection ofyou, right?”

“I know it, in theory.”

“You know it. It’s the truth.”

Julia let it go. “I got a tingling, so it has to be my birth mother.”

“It’s confirmation enough for me.”

“Do you think Rossi’s daughter Patrizia is my biological mother?”

“Did the drawing in the hospital look like the self-portrait in the underground cell? Or like the baby picture on the passport?”

Julia tried to remember. She’d been so stunned that the drawing looked like her. “A little, but mostly it looked like me. I wish I’d taken pictures.” She thought a minute. “Then again, I doubt an iPhone can take a picture of a vision. Not even Apple can do that.”

Courtney shook her head. “Girl, you hadtwovisions tonight. Maybe you should lay off the espresso.”

“Wait, I got an idea.” Julia went to her phone, opened Google Maps, and typedelementary schools near me,with a wide search radius. The screen showed nine schools around the hospital, each with a little red droplet that reminded her of blood, a little too on the nose. “So, there are nine elementary schools around the hospital. The next step is to research them online, then visit them first thing in the morning. It can’t be hard to find where she teaches.”

“Maybe you should let the family investigator take it from here? You hired her.”

“No, I want to do it myself. I’ll fill her in tomorrow. Maybe she’ll have some ideas or records she can help with.”

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