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“I’m Sloan Hastings. What do you need?”
Sloan saw what she thought were tears well in the woman’s eyes.
“I need to talk with you and tell you a few things.”
The woman’s southern accent reminded Sloan of home. It wasn’t Carolina twang, more Alabama drawl. But definitely different from the unrounded “awe’s” of Northern California and Nevada.
“Talk with me about what?”
“About what happened to you when you were a baby.”
A chill found Sloan’s shoulder blades and quickly funneled down her back.
“Are you one of those true crime junkies?”
The woman rocked her head back and forth, and then shrugged. “Yeah, but that ain’t why I’m here.”
“What do you know about what happened to me when I was a baby?”
“Probably not as much as I should, considering. But definitely somethin’.”
Sloan remained standing in the crook of the open car door, ready to drop back into the driver’s seat and tear out of the driveway if need be.
“How do you know anything about what happened to me?”
The tears that had been building on the woman’s lower lids finally spilled over and streamed down her cheeks.
“’Cause I was the woman who gave you up for adoption.”
CHAPTER 41
Cedar Creek, Nevada Thursday, August 1, 2024
SLOAN’S HEART FLUTTERED AND A WAVE OF HEAT COURSED THROUGH her body, bringing with it a spell of dizziness. She held onto the car door for support.
“You . . .” Her eyes squinted to slivers. “You gave me up for adoption?”
“I ain’t proud of it,” the woman said, still standing on the other side of the Mazda. “I tried to hide from the guilt by telling myself that all’s I did was help a baby find loving parents. But part of me knew something was wrong with the whole thing. Over the years I told that part of myself that even if the baby had been taken, you know, from her actual parents, that she wouldn’t know no difference—she’d still be loved. I never had parents who loved me when I was growing up. So I convinced myself I wasn’t really hurting you none. You were still gonna be loved by that couple who wanted a baby so bad. I seen ’em on the news this morning—Dolly and Todd. Still remember their names.”
The woman wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands.
“Anyway, I tried real hard to believe the lie I told myself. That I hadn’t done nothin’ wrong. I needed the money so bad back then. Hell, I’d have believed anything I told myself.”
“How did you find me?”
“Back then?”
“No—well that, too. But start with today. How did you find me here, in Cedar Creek?”
“Story’s all over the news. Plus, I follow the Unsolved podcast and Ryder Hillier was the one who first broke the story ’bout baby Charlotte turning up after nearly thirty years. I’d heard the story before. I mean, everybody knew about it when it happened. But I never put it together ’til I heard the lady’s name who put you up for adoption.”
“Wendy Downing.”
“Yeah. That’s the name the lawyer told me to use.”
Sloan blinked and worked to understand what this woman was telling her. “You’re Wendy Downing?”
“No, I’m Margot Gray. But in 1995 a lawyer named Guy Menendez paid me ten grand to pretend my name was Wendy Downing so that he could, what he told me at the time, make sure a little girl was adopted by a couple who deserved her.”
