Page 140 of Dying to Meet You

“Your child’s,” I say slowly.

“Ding-ding! I’m wondering if Marcus Wincott had four children. Or some other deep, personal commitment to those people—a connection strong enough to involve payments for things like tuition. And remember—he died in 1997, and someone is still paying tuition in 2011. The Wincott family had to know about Marcus’s indiscretions.”

That shouldn’t surprise me, but it does anyway. “And who took over the foundation after Marcus died?”

“Well, another Wincott took over for several years, but he died on the job.”

“Died on thejob?” I picture a man collapsing in the mansion.

“No, I mean he dropped dead of a heart attack at sixty. Then the foundation was leaderless for a couple of years before Hank took over in his twenties.”

“Oh.”

“You can see it all in the annual reports. I’ve been plowing throughthem, looking for any other connections. I’ll send you the PDFs. Tim must have foundsomethingin here, or he wouldn’t have gotten himself killed. I wish I had his notebooks.”

“Yeah.” I sigh.

“Now it’s your turn to share, Rowan. What’s the name of Tim’s birth mom?”

I close my eyes and say a tiny prayer.Laura, please forgive me. “It’s Laura Peebles.” I spell it for her. “She lives in Westbrook. I don’t have a phone number.”

And, come to think of it, Laura never emailed me for those photos of Tim.

“Peebles.” On the screen, Jules scribbles it down. “I’ll run a background check.”

“Is the name familiar to you?”

“Nope. But I bet it’s in his notebooks. He was such a throwback.” Her brown eyes get sad. “And someone used it against him.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s clear to me that while Tim Kovak didn’t actually break my heart, he broke Jules’s for real.

After we hang up, I realize that I forgot to ask one more crucial question. I text her immediately.

Rowan: Hey wait! You said you’d give me everything you have on Harrison’s mom. Betsy Jones.

Jules: I did. But all I had was her name. There’s a Jones on the list. Maybe it’s the right person.

“You sneaky bitch,” I mutter. But there is, in fact, aB. Joneson the list. She’s one of the four names at the bottom—the special ones.

And when I look at the damn list again, I notice that it’s right next to C. Vespertini.

50

Natalie

It’s midnight and her feet are aching. But she’s still doing side work—wiping down serving trays and rolling silverware into napkins for tomorrow’s lunch shift.

In better news, she’s making fifteen dollars an hour for expediting, and the waitstaff “tipped out” thirty bucks to her on top of that. She didn’t even know that tipping out was a thing.

Her father is patiently waiting for her. He’s sitting at the bar, sipping a Coke and chatting with the bartender. He’s not going to let her bike home alone, even though it would be easier for both of them if he just left without her.

“Okay, that’s good for now,” the head waitress finally says, pulling off her apron. “You’re on tomorrow for the lunch shift?”

“Yeah,” she says, even though the idea exhausts her. “See you then.” She puts her apron in the dirty-linens bag and walks to the front of the house to find her dad.

“I’d better go,” he says to the bartender. “Thanks for the soda.”

“Anytime, dude. Can’t believe you have a kid. Where you been hiding her?”