Chapter Sixteen

"Cecilia Kirk," the nurse said, reading from the computer screen.

"Do you have an address or phone number?" Joe asked.

"We don't collect that information."

"How am I supposed to find her, then?"

"Maybe she's in the phone directory, but I can't help you with anything like that. Even if we had that information, it would be considered confidential."

"So that's all you can tell me?"

Before the nurse could answer, Brent tugged at his sleeve. "We can find her, especially since we also have the name Elise is going by."

Joe jerked his arm away. "Ellen James? Maybe it's the right name, more likely it's not."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you don't have to show ID in a public hospital. Why would she use a name that could endanger everything she's done so far to cover her tracks?" He gave Brent a contemptuous glance, then turned back to the nurse. "Have you got a phone book I can look at?"

Brent pulled out his smart phone. "That won't be necessary." He tapped his phone while Joe paced the floor, arms folded tightly across his chest. "Here she is," Brent finally said. "215 Rowan. I'm not familiar with that street. Judging from the telephone prefix, though, it's inner-city." He looked up. "Joe?"

"What?" Joe refused to look at him.

"Never mind," Brent turned to the nurse with a forced smile. "Could I get a piece of paper and something to write with?" When the nurse handed him a ballpoint and a post-it pad with the St. Jude Thaddeus logo on it, he thanked her and scribbled down Cecilia's phone number and address. He folded up the scrap of paper, put it in his wallet and thanked the nurse again. He turned to Joe. "What do you want to do? We could try calling, but that might not be as good a plan as just showing up. I have no idea where this street is, though."

"Neither do I," Joe said testily. He shoved his hands in his pockets and headed toward the exit without looking to see if Brent was following him.

Brent hurried to catch up. "We'll use my GPS," he offered. He pulled his coat tightly around himself as the wind blew trash, debris and other hazards across the parking lot. He tried to keep up with Joe, but couldn't follow his rapid, random weaving through the sea of parked cars. When they finally got to the truck, Brent was out of breath.

It took Joe several minutes to unlock the passenger door, then he started the engine and fiddled with the knobs controlling the heater and radio before unlocking Brent's door almost as an afterthought. When Brent finally got into the car, he was chilled and his nails were faintly blue. "Why are you being like this?"

Joe pretended to be absorbed in the mechanics of pulling out of the parking space. "As if you didn't know."

"What do you mean, 'as if I didn't know?'" Brent's voice was steady, but his hands shook. "I had no idea Elise was pregnant. I would've told you if I did."

"Like hell you would've."

"What do you mean? This makes everything make sense. Why would I have tried to hide it from you?"

"You know why."

Brent's eyes widened. "You think this is my baby? How do you know it's not yours?"

Joe pulled the truck out onto the street, picking a direction at random. "Why would she have left if it was mine?" He shook his head. "No, that's your kid. Any idea what you're going to name it? I wonder what your wife will say? Maybe she'll want to help raise it, do you think?"

Brent slammed a fist against the side of the door. "Man, you don't know it's not your kid. She probably doesn't know, herself. That's why she left-- I'm sure of it. To her way of thinking, this solves everything. Now it's no one's baby, and she doesn't have to explain anything to anyone. She can get an abortion, adopt it out, raise it herself, anything she wants, and there's no one she has to justify it to."

"She's not getting out of it that easy," Joe said, braking for a light. "She still has to explain it to me."

"Not if you don't know where you're going," Brent pointed out. "Do you even know where Rowan Street is?"

The light changed, and Joe stepped on the gas. "No."

"Then pull over while I look us up on GPS."

Joe cut the wheel and pulled into a gas station where he waited sullenly while Brent toyed with his phone. "Here it is," he finally said. "No wonder I never heard of it. Looks like it's only a couple blocks long."

"Let me see that." Joe jerked the phone out of Brent's hands. "Nice neighborhood," he observed. "That's over in Delphi Grove. I had no idea Elise had any friends rich enough to live there. What else don't I know about her?"

Brent sighed. "Maybe it's one of her dancer friends, made good. She has all kinds of friends. I don't know everything."

"Could've fooled me." Joe glared at Brent out of the corner of his eye as he pulled back out onto the street. "She has all kinds of friends, though, I'll grant you that. Drug dealers, woodcarvers, marketing directors...she seems willing to even make babies with marketing directors."

Brent turned around sharply in his seat. "Dammit, Joe! Stop it, okay? Just stop it. You and I have no idea whose baby this is, or even if she's really pregnant, for Christ's sake. What does that doctor know--those tests aren't always accurate. And like you said, she's not supposed to even be able to have a baby. So let's just forget the whole damn thing, okay? When we find her, if she's got something to tell us, let's let her do the telling, because I'm sure as hell not going to sit here arguing over who fathered a child that we don't even know exists."

"Oh, Elise is pregnant. I'm sure of it now. It's the only thing that makes sense. Explains why she was so moody and strange in the weeks before she left, asking me funny questions about whether I regretted never having kids. It explains why she left at all. Yeah, one of us is going to be a father."

"What makes you so sure it's not going to be you?"

"What makes you so sure it is?" Joe countered. When Brent didn't answer, he fell silent, his jaw clenched, his hands gripping the wheel tightly as he drove. As they were driving, the scenery had been changing from the tenements and run-down liquor stores near St. Jude's to more upscale shopping centers and apartment complexes. Now these gave way to tree-shaded museums, elegant tall churches, and stone-hewn private schools surrounded by crested iron fences and manicured shrubbery.

They turned onto a tree-lined boulevard shaded by oaks so tall the branches had woven together over the road. The sun was just beginning to turn the sky pink through the interlaced branches as they passed mansions of all description-- white-columned Georgians, red-tiled palazzos, and even a tiny castle of gray stone. After a few twists and turns, Joe found Rowan Street, a spur off a secondary street branching off the main road through Delphi Grove.

Brent leaned against the door, checking the street numbers. "There it is," he said. "The Gothic Revival up there on the left."

"The what?"

"The dark one with the pointy windows," Brent said testily.

Joe pulled into the circular driveway. "It would help if you spoke regular English."

"Gothic Revival is an architectural style."

"I never studied architecture, and you know it." Joe shut off the engine and rested his hands on the steering wheel, staring up at the twisting iron columns, casting gloomy shadows on the entryway in the pale morning light. "I hope they let us in, but at least we've found her."

Brent tried to smooth his hair. "I sure hope so, or that we can at least get some breakfast." He opened the door and jumped down, waiting on the steps for Joe to join him. Together they approached the ornately carved double door and after only a moment's hesitation, Brent rang the bell.