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“Where have you been?” her dad asked when Sloan walked through the front door.
“Long story. You first. What happened with the FBI today?”
“They’re finished with the formal questioning,” her dad said. “We told them everything we know—starting with how we adopted you and who we adopted you from. We provided all the paperwork we had. They finished a very deep dive into our backgrounds and, after three days, we’re cleared.”
“Cleared?” Sloan said.
“The FBI is convinced we know nothing about the disappearance of your birth parents.”
“So now what?” Sloan asked.
“They want to speak with you tomorrow morning.”
“What do they need from me? I know less than you or Mom.”
“They want to speak with you about their next moves,” her mother said.
“The agent’s name is John Michaels,” her dad said. “Nice guy.”
“Did they say how they would investigate this?”
“I think that’s what they’re going to discuss with you tomorrow morning. Are you going to tell us where you’ve been?”
Sloan considered telling her parents about her visit from Eric Stamos but thought better of it.
“A body turned up in the morgue,” Sloan said. “I’m in the middle of dealing with it.”
She didn’t mention that it wasn’t her morgue, or that the body was from 1995. Sloan considered the omission less deceitful than a full-blown lie. Back at her apartment, she spent the small hours of the night on her laptop, reading about Eric Stamos, his dead father, and the Margolis family of Cedar Creek.
CHAPTER 17
Raleigh, North Carolina Saturday, July 20, 2024
THE FOLLOWING MORNING SLOAN WAS AT HER PARENTS’ HOUSE BRIGHT and early. Her mother had a pot of coffee brewing and they all waited anxiously for the FBI to arrive. At promptly 9:00 a.m. the doorbell rang, and Special Agent John Michaels stood on the front doorstep dressed in a crisp suit and tie.
“Good morning,” Michaels said when Dolly Hastings answered the door.
“Please, come in.”
They walked into the kitchen. “Sloan, this is Agent Michaels. This is our daughter, Sloan.”
“Hi,” Sloan said.
“Nice to meet you,” Michaels said, shaking Sloan’s hand.
“We can talk at the kitchen table here,” Todd Hastings said. “Coffee?”
“That would be great, thank you.”
Once all four were seated around the table, coffee mugs in front of each of them, Michaels got right to the point.
“I wanted to speak with you all this morning about where our investigation will go from here, some potential hazards we face, and ones that you’ll want to be aware of.”
“Hazards?” Sloan said.
“We believe the key, one of them, is to track down the woman who put you up for adoption. From the paperwork your parents provided, we have some leads. We’ll see where they take us. The woman named in the documents is Wendy Downing. There are only two possible conclusions to draw about your adoption. The first is that your birth mother, Annabelle Margolis, posed as Wendy Downing. But your parents”—Agent Michaels gestured at Dolly and Todd—“emphatically deny that the woman who called herself Wendy Downing matched the photos we showed them of Annabelle Margolis. There’s always the possibility that Annabelle used a disguise, but that’s a stretch. Still, we’ll pursue the possibility.”
“And the second conclusion?” Sloan asked.
