Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green Page 0,32

had a chance to live.”

“And now? Why are you telling us now?”

“Because I need to know before I do. Before I die, I mean. I need to know if my baby is alive.”

CHAPTER

11

Impossible! That was the thought that kept running through her mind. From the beginning it had been impossible. What had possessed her to accept this case? No DNA remained in the police kit from the child in the woods. Why would it? The science had been so new that it was rarely used back then. She should have known the police wouldn’t keep a strand of hair, a fingernail, anything that might have been used to show it wasn’t Angelina Calhoun who had been found in the woods. If George had been honest with them, how would Dani ever be able to prove it? Impossible! It was too late to back out. The case was inside her now. She’d never be able to walk away without attempting to confirm what was true and what was a lie.

They walked in silence back to their hotel. A week ago, Dani had fervently hoped she’d get answers from Sallie or George. She’d imagined all sorts of explanations for Angelina’s disappearance, all sorts of excuses for George’s silence. But not this. They entered the hotel lobby and headed to the dining room. Dani and Melanie ordered coffee, while Tommy ordered a scotch.

“He’s telling the truth, I’m convinced of it,” Dani said to the others after the waitress left.

Tommy looked at her skeptically. “I hate to burst your bubble, Dani, but he’s been incarcerated seventeen years now. If he didn’t know how to spin a yarn before being sent inside, he certainly learned the ropes over the years. It’s a work of art among the inmates. They take bets on who’ll come up with the biggest lie and carry it off.”

“That man was too broken up to be lying,” Melanie said. “I agree with Dani. Maybe he did an awful thing abandoning his daughter, but I’ll bet anything that body they found in Orland wasn’t Angelina.”

Was it a despicable act to leave his child, sick and alone, in a hospital? Abandoning Jonah, leaving him behind, scared and unable to comprehend the loss of his parents, seemed inconceivable. No matter what, Dani would want to be by his side, to soothe him, to reassure him, even if her words were hollow. She’d keep fighting the system that withheld treatment from him, fight with every fiber of her being. But she recognized that the tools she had in her arsenal were more powerful than those available to George and Sallie. She was educated, trained to be an advocate. If the first answer was no, she had the know-how to keep fighting until the answer was yes, keep going up the ladder of command until she reached the person able to look beyond standard procedure. She wasn’t saying that, in the end, she would have been able to obtain medical treatment, only that fighting for it would have provided a semblance of hope, eased the feeling of powerlessness that must have overwhelmed George and Sallie.

Tommy leaned back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. “It’s a good thing you gals have me along. One of us has got to be tethered to reality. Face it—there’s absolutely no evidence to support his fairy tale. I guarantee we won’t find doctors’ records or hospital records. And let’s not forget Sallie. Don’t you think she would have thought to mention that they had a dying daughter? Not a word!”

“There’s no evidence because no one looked for medical records.” Dani’s body was flushed from the anger she felt. Whether it was Tommy’s dismissiveness that had raised her ire or a system that would turn away a deathly ill child, she didn’t know. She only knew she wanted to throttle someone. “Why would they, if neither George nor Sallie talked about it? And as for Sallie, she could be so consumed with guilt that to her it feels like they did kill their daughter, that leaving her alone and sick was like a death.”

“Or,” said Tommy, “maybe she truly was sick and they couldn’t handle it, so they killed her.”

Now Dani knew. She wanted to throttle Tommy. She forced herself to calm down. There were still unanswered questions and she’d chosen Tommy for her team because he was the best at ferreting out answers. “Either way, we have to check out George’s story. You’ll need to stay behind and