An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,92

many times have I told you, I don’t want to see you doing your nails behind the desk? It’s not professional.”

The file was quickly shoved in a drawer. “But there is, like, nothing to do down here.”

“Then you find something to do. Go through the filing system. Develop a better system of organization. Clean your desk of the seven different coffee cups you have half filled with cold coffee. That’s something.”

The girl said nothing but dutifully got out of her chair and started to fuss about her desk. As far as Mark could tell she was simply moving the half-filled coffee cups from one side of the desk to the other.

“Oh, and this guy is here.”

The woman turned and immediately Mark knew he was working with a veteran. The woman had the serious expression of someone who knew this basement was her fiefdom and knew how to run it well.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here about a birth certificate.” Mark gave a brief description of his job and why he was interested in the information.

“I know the names are fake, and I know the hospital typically files the information so I’m interested in discovering how something like that could happen.”

The older woman, who had introduced herself as Marge Berry, took the copy of the certificate Mark had brought with him.

“Yes, normally we will handle the filing of the birth certificate. The information for the parents’ names comes from their admission paperwork most of the time.”

“There is no confirmation with the parents first? An ID check, that sort of thing?”

If Anna’s parents had official-looking fake IDs, it would suggest that they had been living underground for some time. Whereas if they decided only at the last minute to change their names, he might be able to find out their real identities here. And that might lead him to locating them now and possibly discovering why they’d lied.

Perhaps they’d been considering leaving Anna at the hospital at birth. They could have left her and disappeared into the city. The fake names would have made it difficult to trace them. Of course, a simpler option would have been to decide to let her be formally adopted, but that required rational thought. And, based on their actions, the couple weren’t very rational.

He wondered how young they might have been. Anna didn’t have any recollection of how old her mother was. At the age of six all adults probably looked the same. But if the parents had been two scared kids, who also happened to be addicts, it might explain their strange behavior when Anna was born.

Obviously Anna’s mother—and possibly her father, too—wanted to keep her and thought they could handle raising her. So why lie about who they were?

Mark considered how different Anna’s life might have been had she been adopted by a stable couple who wanted her. Then he considered how different things might be for Ben if that were the case. They might already be married, her abandonment issues nonexistent. Then again, if her life had been altered so radically, maybe she wouldn’t have been the person Ben wanted in his life.

It was crazy to think about it.

“I have to say we don’t check ID. It’s not really needed. After all, we have their insurance cards as ID.”

Interesting. “So if someone was admitted without insurance, you wouldn’t have any way of validating whatever information they gave for the certificate.”

Marge seemed to bristle at that. “Well, I can’t say we did, but we should have. If anything, we would require more information from the admitting patient since without insurance we would have to determine alternative methods of payment. Unless it was an emergency—a life-or-death delivery. In those cases the paperwork doesn’t get completed until the dust settles.”

Mark was grateful to know that if there had been a life-or-death issue, the mother, and more importantly child, would be attended to before the paperwork.

“You know what is odd about this...” She took out a pair of bifocals she kept in the front pocket of her button-down shirt and perched them on the edge of her nose.

“What?”

“These names. They ring a bell. It’s funny, too, because the questions you’re asking...I feel like I’ve been down this road before.”

Mark silently groaned. Of course she had. Ben had, no doubt, followed the same path and had gotten here first. Typical.

But why hadn’t he told Anna what he’d learned?

As far as Mark could see the path was pretty clear. Anna’s parents hadn’t had insurance. If they’d had legitimate cards,