She nodded. “Yes, I did.”
“Well,” he continued, “we got a match in our database to your results. To your son, who we need to talk to.”
“I don’t have a son,” she insisted. “I’ve never had any children.”
Agent McCoy raised an eyebrow. “You just said you have three daughters. Or do they not exist anymore?”
Claire let out a sigh. “They’re my adopted daughters. I mean I don’t have anybiologicalchildren. I’ve never had a son, adopted or otherwise.”
It was a point that one of the moms in Lucy’s kindergarten liked to harp on back in the day. “You’ll never understand,” she once told Claire, “until you have arealchild, one of your own.”
Claire’s stomach churned at the memory. The girlswereher real children, and she was a real mom. Comments like that had haunted her for years, though, and made her question herself more than she wanted to admit.
“Okay.” Agent McCoy sat back, nodding. “So you adopted three girls, but no boys?”
She didn’t like the tone of his voice, but he was clearly wrong and would feel silly when he realized his mistake. “Yes. Three girls, my sister’s daughters. She died in a plane crash twenty-nine years ago this March. It was in Colorado. I’m sure you can find it, in the papers maybe, or –”
“We’ll get right on that,” Agent McCoy said with a smile. “What I want to focus on right now is that your son is in trouble. But you know that, don’t you? Has he tried to contact you?”
Her eyes darted between them. “I’m sorry, but you have the wrong person. The company must have made a mistake with the results.”
“The company assured us that they don’t make mistakes.”
She let out a sigh. “I’m pretty sure I would remember being pregnant and having a son.”
Agent Alvarez smiled before he spoke, his voice soft. “When did he come to see you? Is he staying here?”
It was like talking to a wall! Maybe thiswasa prank, an especially cruel one. Why hadn’t she asked to see their badges?
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Claire said.
Agent McCoy shook his head. “We know that he was last seen nearby, in Anacortes. We think that he wanted to meet you.”
“Meetme?”
“He knows that you’re his birth mother,” Agent Alvarez added. “We assumed he came to meet you.”
She raised her eyebrows. Birth mother? This was perhaps the cruelest trick anyone had ever pulled on her. She couldn’t even form a response.
Agent McCoy let out a dramatic sigh and stood up. “DNA doesn’t lie, Claire. Here’s my card. How about you get in touch with us when you’re ready to talk?”
She reached forward and picked up the card from the table. It looked official, not that she’d be able to tell at this point. Her mind was in a tailspin as the agents walked away.
“But if you wait too long,” he added, looking over his shoulder, “we won’t be able to help you.”
By the time she looked up again, they were gone. She stared at the card in her hand. It had his name, an office phone, and a cell phone. That seemed like a lot for a prank.
What did he mean that DNA didn’t lie? She didn’t care what the company said. They’d made a mistake!
Claire stood up, pacing the room. What was she supposed to do? What if some criminal actuallydidcome looking for her? She could call the FBI guy, but it might be too late.
What kind of crime were they investigating? Maybe if the guy thought she was his mother, he wouldn’t hurt her. Unless he was bitter that she’d abandoned him.
Claire sat down at the table again, the room spinning around her.
