Free See Jane Run by Hannah Jayne Page B

Carla said, “Hmm. Now that’s odd.” She picked up the paper and squinted at it, pulled a pair of cheater eyeglasses up her nose, and typed again. She threw herself back in her chair and it squeaked a few inches backward. “Hmm.”
    â€œIs everything OK?”
    Carla folded up the birth certificate and handed it back to Riley. “I’m sorry, honey, but there is no record of this birth in our system.”
    There was a tightness in Riley’s chest that spread slowly, heavily, through her whole body. “What?”
    Carla shook her head. “Birth certificate says the baby was born here, but no, I don’t have any record of it at all. Kind of like a phantom.”
    Riley leaned forward, rolling up on her tiptoes, her fingers gripping Carla’s counter so hard they were white. “But what about the parents? Did you look them up?”
    Carla clucked and shook her head some more. “Tried ’em all. Even different spellings, you know, ’cuz a lot of times people get nervous just after they get their babies. But nothing.” She shrugged, her big shoulders hugging her ears. “Nada.”
    â€œWell, maybe your records just don’t go back far enough.”
    â€œNope. I’ve got records of births seven years before this one. I’m sorry, honey, but maybe you weren’t born here after all.”
    â€œWell, is there another Granite Cay Hospital? Maybe it happened there and they got the—the addresses mixed up.” Even as Riley said it, she knew how thin and desperate her explanation was. Carla knew too, and she patted Riley’s hand again gently.
    â€œI wish I could help you, honey, I really do, but there’s nothing here.”
    Riley nodded slowly, her whole body feeling numb. The room was enormous but the walls started to creep toward her. She stepped away from Carla’s counter and sat down hard on the closest chair she could find. It was grossly stained but she didn’t care.
    The baby wasn’t born here. The parents didn’t exist.
    If it was a regular adoption, Riley reasoned, there would be a paper trail. Unless her parents didn’t want anyone to know…
    Her throat constricted. Her parents wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t just steal a baby—or adopt one and hide the records. They were rule followers, a by-the-book family. They would have told her if she were adopted.
    Riley unfolded the birth certificate again, scrutinizing it, just as she had nearly every hour since she’d found it. If it were true—if her parents stole her—would the hospital have no record? Did the hospital destroy her record in an effort to protect itself? Riley felt sick and sweaty, but she didn’t want to be in that hospital for one minute longer.
    She made a beeline for the automated glass doors and gulped greedily at the lukewarm, non-germ-infested air outside. She edged away from some smokers, and her heart seized when she saw a man peering at her. I know him—I know him—I know him, Riley thought, trying to shake her brain from its fog.
    The train!
    The second she remembered where she knew him from, he was gone, zigzagging across the hospital’s well-manicured lawn and into the parking lot. He threw a glance over her shoulder and caught Riley’s eye, his gaze so icy that she felt it zing through her.
    Why was he here?
    Riley considered flipping on her heel and asking Carla for a bed in the psych ward when her cell phone rang and nearly gave her a heart attack.
    â€œAre you going to stand there all day or are you coming into the coffee place?”
    Riley licked her lips, trying to pull her scattered thoughts back together. “Um, yeah. I mean, no. I’ll be right over.”
    She crossed the street without looking and thanked God that her stupidity didn’t turn her into a hood ornament. She took several deep breaths before yanking open the coffeehouse door. She chanced a glance over