Page 74 of Tear Me Apart

“It’s never easy on any victim.”

“I know. At least we’ve helped solve part of the case.”

Juliet lines up all her ducks, and Cameron helps, and when he leaves for work, bleary-eyed and rumpled, she goes through it all again.

She looks at the DNA profile as if the answers will rise from the page and give her the truth she needs. Everything she is seeing tells her the same story.

Vivian and Zack Armstrong’s long-lost daughter has been found.

But the questions this raises are daunting, and as she arranges her day, she can’t help letting them run through her mind.

Who killed Vivian Armstrong? And how was Mindy chosen to sell to Lauren? Was Castillo involved in more than simply helping place her indigent and illegal patients’ children? Why, and how, was she trafficking in stolen babies?

These are questions for her CBI agent compatriots to answer. Juliet has to handle her family.

Juliet showers and cleans up the apartment. Despite what she told Cameron, she still doesn’t know what step she wants to take first. Talk to Lauren? Talk to her boss? Get on a plane to Nashville and see if Zack Armstrong will come to Denver, no questions asked?

All of the above is the only option.

No matter what happens, this story is about to get very public, very quickly. Everyone needs to be on board because the media is going to be all over them from the moment they hear. Everyone loves a reconciliation, especially involving missing kids.

In the end, it is her sister’s number she dials first.

Lauren sounds as bleary as Juliet feels.

“I’m so sorry, did I wake you?”

“Not exactly,” Lauren says, the yawn imminent. “You sound like you were up all night, too.”

“I was. Listen, are you alone? We need to talk.”

“I am. Jasper’s gone to get breakfast.”

“Mindy didn’t take it well?”

A ghost of a laugh. “She didn’t take it well, no. She took it with hope, and grace, and excitement, and then fear and anger. If it wasn’t her lifeline, I would have been insulted. She was practically vibrating with the idea that she was someone else’s kid, then she attacked me for holding out on her.”

“Sounds like a perfectly normal reaction, considering the situation.”

“She’s no dummy, Juliet. She knows a cure might be out there.”

“And that’s what she was excited about, Lauren. She loves you and Jasper. Nothing will change that.”

“We’ll see.” Her sister’s bitterness is surprising.Just you wait, sister.

Juliet takes a deep breath. “I need to talk to you about Mindy’s lineage.”

“You make her sound like a horse.”

“Stop, okay? I think I might have found her father.”

The silence from Lauren is deafening.

“Are you still there?”

Finally, “Yes. Who is it?”

“A man named Zachary Armstrong. He’s from Nashville.”