Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion #7) - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,15

birth mother had been nervous about placing Johnny with a family Father Horrigan knew directly, in case they discovered her identity from him, but Marcy and Andrew had assured Father Horrigan repeatedly that they would respect the biological mother’s request for anonymity and never ask him to disclose her identity.

“Please—I just need to make sure. If we can confirm that she’s nowhere near Long Island, I promise that we’ll never bother her again.”

The silence that followed was so long that she began to wonder whether she had lost the connection.

“Do the police believe that this woman is responsible for Johnny’s being missing?” Father Horrigan asked.

“They don’t believe anything yet. They’re investigating every possible explanation—looking at local criminals, searching surveillance tapes. We’re grasping at straws because we can’t find him and have absolutely no idea where he might be.”

“I’m sorry, Marcy. I gave my word, don’t you see? Just as I would never break a promise I made to you, I cannot violate my obligations toward her.”

“Please, Father. I’m begging you.”

“I can’t even begin to know how scared you are right now, Marcy, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think this is a straw you need to grasp. I’ve never gotten any indication that Johnny’s birth mother regretted her decision to give him up, and why would she follow you all the way to New York when she knows exactly who you are and that you live right here in D.C. How would she even know where to find you up there? It doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

Marcy took a deep breath. Father Horrigan had a good point. Laurie had been the one to suggest the possibility that Johnny’s disappearance was connected to his adoption, but the theory had been total conjecture. Unlike Laurie, Father Horrigan had a connection to Johnny’s birth mother and could speak from firsthand knowledge.

“I understand you made a promise to her,” she said softly, “but there must be an exception if she has my son. You really don’t think it’s possible she came for him?”

“I don’t. Honestly. She was a good young woman, despite her problems. I don’t think she’d have anything to do with this. I’ll say a prayer Johnny will be walking right back to you before you know it.”

As she hung up the phone, Marcy found herself praying that Father Horrigan was right.

Chapter 11

By the time Leo Farley arrived at the South Shore Resort, hotel guests were gathered on the beach deck overlooking the ocean, prepared with champagne glasses and martinis to take in one of the south fork’s famous summer sunsets. That is where we should all be right now, he thought, as a family.

It had been a long time since their family had felt complete. Of course, when Eileen was alive and they were raising Laurie together, the three of them were as close as a family could be. Eileen used to say she married the first boy she ever kissed, and Leo never questioned for a minute if she might be exaggerating. They were the kind of couple who held hands whenever they were beside each other, without even thinking about it. Leo never thought he could be any happier, and then Laurie was born. Even when he worked swing shifts, Leo joked it meant that he needed to find time to “swing” by their apartment to see his little girl before her bedtime. Then before he knew it, his little girl was a grown woman breaking into the television news business.

When he and Eileen got the call from Mount Sinai that Laurie had been hit by a cab, it felt as if their family might be gutted. But instead, what could have been a tragedy led to a new addition to the clan. Dr. Greg Moran was Laurie’s physician in the emergency room. The two of them were engaged only three months later, and Eileen and Leo loved their son-in-law as if he were their own.

He still smiled sometimes at the memory of Eileen leaning into him, as Laurie and Greg exchanged vows, and whispering, “We’re going to have the sweetest little grandbabies, and you are going to be the best granddaddy.” She died of a heart attack a year later, before she had a chance to meet Timmy or to even know he would be born. And then, three years after Timmy was born, they lost Greg, too.

For the last seven years, “family” had been just Laurie, Timmy, and him—a widow, a widower, and a little