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I ambled for several minutes before I remembered Jenna.

The Alexandria Gazette. Stood to reason she might have been mentioned at some point.

A wedding announcement. Birth announcement.

Some details to tell me a little more about the woman who’d lived in the bakery.

From many of Margaret’s ramblings, I remembered the original papers were held in Richmond at the state library, but microfilm copies were available here.

It could take hours and days to find a mention of Jenna, and that was time I didn’t have. Margaret, however, knew the shortcuts.

Realizing I didn’t have my phone, I went back to my apartment, taking the back staircase to the third floor. There were dozens of important tasks I should have been doing, but right now all I cared about was Jenna.

I opened email, knowing Margaret’s went straight to her phone, and typed.

Margaret,

Hope your adventures with the dead are as thrilling as you hoped. All’s well here. Mystery of recipe box is bugging me big time.

Know anyone who has access to local papers who can track references to Jenna? E-mail or text.

I leaned back against the wall and scanned my inbox, which was full of junk. No word from Terry, and I couldn’t say I was surprised. For her to suddenly open email seemed a stretch.

Still, her nonanswer hurt, not because I was looking for another mother.

I had one. But I wanted a connection with the woman who’d given birth.

And I also wanted information about my birth father’s DNA.

I logged on to the internet and typed on a whim: Who is Daisy McCrae’s birth father?

Bits and pieces of the search popped up.

A Daisy in England. A woman searching for her birth father.

A McCrae in Kansas. But of course, the universe had no illuminating answers for me. It was about as helpful as Terry.

“Who the hell did you hook up with back in the day?”

From my desk drawer I pulled out the picture of Terry and me on the day of my birth. She’d been pretty, with her long sleek black hair, and her smile was vivid. She looked happy when she’d been holding me. She’d looked like she was willing to give it her best shot.

Terry said she’d met my birth father once. She’d never tracked him down and told him about me, so there were no pictures of us.

As a kid I’d never given him much thought.

All my musings had been for the woman who’d raised me for three years and then left me on the bakery’s patio.

I’d developed long and complicated stories about her, but he’d barely registered.

Once I’d imagined he’d been a brave prince killed in a war, but for the most part he remained faceless and unimportant.

Now, however, he was important. He was half my genetics. One-quarter of the kid’s DNA. And like it or not, he mattered. I wasn’t looking for Father Knows Best or a daddy. I had Dad like I had Mom. But a 411 on my DNA would be good.

“Shit. He’s probably a serial killer locked away in Leavenworth. Terry said she didn’t have great taste in men, so it stands to reason she’d pick the worst of the worst.”

Absently, I smoothed my hand over my puffy belly, which still looked more fat than pregnant.

I wanted to tackle motherhood better than Terry, and part of doing that had to do with DNA.

The kid’s bio dad wasn’t a Father Knows Best type either.

I held no illusions that I’d contact him, and he’d rush to my side with an engagement ring in hand.

Roger hated, with a capital H , kids. He didn’t want any.

And on some level, I was relieved he wouldn’t make a big fuss.

But the kid deserved to know him. The kid was going to look at me one day and ask me about Daddy. And I knew I’d have the answers. I would find out more about Roger than his taste in scotch and his favorite stock option. I would. Soon.

Just not right now and not today. One problem at a time. Bakery rehab. Freezer install. Prenatal checkup. And tell the parents they were not only parents to a ballbuster but would by Christmas be grandparents to one.

Christmas. The kid was due by Christmas.

I’d yet to live through the holiday season as the manager of a bakery, but I’d lived through enough as a kid.

It was all hands on deck. Dad often worked twenty hours a day.

Mom worked every second she wasn’t doing something for us, and we all helped after school.

By the time I was in high school, I’d come to dread the holidays.

Yeah, we were closed early on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, but we were so tired it was all we could do to heat up lasagna and open presents.

And this year I would be short a sister and birthing a babe during chaos.

Dropping my head back against the desk, I closed my eyes.

I did have a knack for choosing the worst time.

We were going to have to hire help. I’d not really thought it through when Margaret had said her goodbye, but I knew we’d have to hire a couple of teenagers to help in the back.

I’d make a sign in the morning and put it in the window.

We had enough interest from kids in the past, so filling the job shouldn’t be so bad. I hoped.

My computer pinged, and an email appeared in my box from Margaret.

I knew u couldn’t resist. I’ve put out the word to the powers that be, and you should have answers soon. Keep checking e-mail. BTW, dead body in iron coffin and submerged in water. Coming up with plan to raise it. This is so f-ing cool.

M.

Smiling, I shook my head. Only Margaret would be knee deep in water and mud with a two-thousand-pound iron coffin and talking about the coolness of her life.

A dozen smart-ass retorts danced in my head, but I couldn’t seem to type a one. Instead, I typed, You go, girl!

I’d no sooner hit the Send button that another email popped up in my inbox. I didn’t recognize the email address, but thinking it might have been someone from Margaret’s network, I opened it. It was from Terry.