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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.

“Wendy Downing is in no way related to you or your birth parents.”

“You think I was kidnapped?”

“It’ll take some time to determine that. But, yes, that’s our suspicion. There are lots of Wendy Downings in the world, and we suspect the name was an alias to begin with. The attorney listed in the adoption paperwork, and the man who brokered the deal, was someone named Guy Menendez. We also suspect, based on some early field work, that this was an alias.”

Sloan registered both names. Wendy Downing. Guy Menendez.

“Adoption, unfortunately,” agent Michaels continued, “has a very large and active black market. We believe you are a product of it.”

“But for what reason?” Sloan asked.

“Your parents paid close to twenty-five thousand dollars for the private adoption, so there was a financial motive for such a crime.”

“From everything I’ve researched about the Margolis family, they’re wealthy. Preston Margolis was an attorney at his family’s law firm. He went to Stanford Law. It makes no sense to think he and Annabelle fraudulently gave up their daughter to pocket some quick cash.”

“We agree,” Michaels said. “Which is why we suspect you were abducted.”

The word pushed Sloan to the verge of tears.

“So . . .” Sloan looked quickly across the table at her parents as she blinked back the tears, then back to agent Michaels. “If that’s true, if I was abducted . . . what happened to my birth parents?”

“We’re going to try to figure that out.”

Sloan glanced again at her parents and felt sorry for what they were learning, and for what she had accidentally dragged them into. She also, for the first time in her life, felt detached from them. Sloan was no longer just their adopted child whom they loved unconditionally. Now she was the product of fraud and deceit. Dolly and Todd Hastings had not plucked a child from the world to give her love and a wonderful life; they had unknowingly participated in a crime that stole a child from loving parents. The unspoken realization created a divide between them, as if a tornado had touched down and ripped a chasm between their worlds.

Sloan’s thoughts drifted to Eric Stamos and the story he told about his father. Had Sandy Stamos stumbled over information that would have shed light on who took her and what had happened to her birth parents? Had that information gotten him killed? And could it be true that someone inside the Margolis family knew the truth? The thoughts brought with them a wave of urgency that crashed over her. The sensation drew her, somehow, to her birth parents—people she had scarcely thought of before this week, and with whom she had never before felt a connection. But this morning she felt not just tied to her birth parents, but a deep sense of obligation to figure out what happened to them. Eric Stamos’s words echoed in her mind.

Someone inside the Margolis family knows what happened to you and your birth parents. You’re the perfect Trojan horse.

“The other thing I wanted to speak with you about,” Agent Michaels said, pulling Sloan from her thoughts, “is that we have notified the Margolis family about the developments in the case. Specifically, that DNA testing has confirmed that we’ve found Charlotte Margolis. We didn’t share your personal information, but we were duty bound to provide the Margolis family with an update, as this investigation has never been formally closed. Annabelle Margolis’s parents are deceased, and she was an only child. There’s no one on her side to tell. You’re under no obligation to speak with the Margolis family, but I wanted to let you know that they have been informed. Unless you ask us to do so, we’ll provide the family no other personal details about you.”

I want you to go to Cedar Creek. The family would welcome you back with open arms.

Sloan shook her head. “I’ll need a day or two to think about whether I want to reach out to the Margolises or not. I need to talk with my parents about it.”

“Of course,” Agent Michaels said. “There’s one last thing I need to caution you about. When you and your birth parents went missing in 1995, it was national news.”

Sloan nodded. “I’ve seen the tabloid covers.”

“If news breaks now that baby Charlotte has resurfaced, I’m sure there’ll be a media storm. My office will do its best to keep things quiet, but just a warning that if the media discover this story, they’ll likely track you down and hound you for interviews. The press can be relentless. They’ll start with phone calls, but they’ll also show up at your home, your place of employment, the health club. Anywhere they think you’ll be, they’ll be.”

Sloan never thought of that possibility. She questioned whether the country would still be interested in her after three decades. But this was America, Sloan remembered. Of course the public would still be curious. Hers was a sensational true crime story the tabloids would be happy to salivate over a second time. Hell, true crime fanatics would flock to Raleigh to find her, and podcasters would race to produce a series around the story.

If Sloan wasn’t careful, Agent Michaels warned, she could end up again on the cover of every tabloid in the nation.