“They might not like it.”

Tough.

Aloud, Emme said, “I think they'd like it far less if they knew that something really bad could have happened to Belle, and that any one of them might know something that could lead us to her.”

“All right.” Hayley found a tissue in her bag and wiped her face. “I have the list at home. I can email it to you.”

“That would be great. Can you do it tonight?”

Clearly reluctant, Hayley nodded, and Emme suspected she might be worried what the others were going to say when they found out she was the one who gave out their information.

“Hayley, did Belle get along with all of the others?” Emme asked, an attempt to find out if all was well among the siblings.

Hayley nodded. “Everyone liked Belle. She's the best.”

“We spoke with Dr. Drake at the fertility clinic,” Nick told her. “She mentioned that Belle had been there, hoping to find some information on Donor 1735. She said Belle had described herself as the spokesperson for the group.”

“When we started talking about maybe trying to find a way to figure out who Donor 1735 is-maybe even meet him-Belle volunteered to go to the clinic and see if they'd let her look at her mother's file.” Hayley smiled weakly. “Which we all figured they wouldn't let her do, but she wanted to give it a shot.”

“There was interest in finding Donor 1735?” Emme asked.

“Sure. There's a kid, Aaron? He actually did it, and he started out with only the little bit of description the clinic gave his mother, and the donor number,” Hayley replied. “There was a whole magazine article about him. It was pretty cool.”

“How complete was the description?” Emme asked.

“I don't know, but my mom said they told her that our donor was tall, blond, of Slovak and Irish background, athletic build, and that he was born in Philly Just that kind of stuff.”

“Someone was able to trace a donor with nothing more than that type of information?” Nick appeared impressed. “This Aaron must be one determined kid. How did he do it?”

Hayley shrugged. “I don't know. He did almost all of it on the Internet, but we all talked about how cool it would be if we could find 1735. Have a big reunion, you know?” She played with a strand of her hair. “Of course, it wouldn't really be a reunion, you know, ′cause we'd never met him before.”

“Hayley, do you remember when this discussion took place?” Emme asked.

The girl thought for a moment. “I'm pretty sure it was sometime last year.” She paused as if trying to remember. “Yeah, it would have been. Because Jessie said she was going to do what Aaron did, but then her dad got transferred, like I said, and she pretty much forgot about it, I guess. Then it all came up again in the fall, and we were all still talking about it when we got together.”

“You talked about this when you were at the museum?” Emme asked.

“Yeah. Someone said how cool it was that we were in Philly and that he had been born in Philly, you know, back then. And how maybe he could even have been there, at the museum, right then. And then someone else said that maybe he'd been going out when we were coming in and we'd walked right past him and didn't know him and he didn't know us. Stuff like that.”

“Was anyone in your group thinking about tracking down Donor 1735, besides Jessie?” Nick's fingers closed around his coffee cup.

“Belle was. She'd already gotten in touch with this kid, Aaron, the one who found his donor? She said he told her what he did, and how he did it, and she was pretty sure she could do it, so we were all pretty psyched about that.”

“Do you know how far she got? Was she able to identify him?” Emme asked.

“I don't know, but I kinda think she might have been getting close.” Hayley sucked the rest of her drink through her straw in a loud whoosh. “When we asked her about it, she just smiled and said ‘Stay tuned.’”

“Stay tuned.” Nick repeated flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Hayley, was Belle particularly close to any one of your siblings? Someone she might have confided in?”

“Ali, maybe. But she was pretty friendly with all of us.”

“So everyone knew she was looking for Donor 1735.”

Hayley nodded. “Sure. It wasn't a secret. And Belle was scary smart. If she said she'd find him, we all knew it was only a matter of time until she did.”

Well, so much for Belle's father not being a factor in her life,” Nick said after they'd exchanged email addresses with Hayley and headed back to Emme's car. “Wendy got that wrong.”

“Maybe Belle never showed any interest in her father while your sister was still alive. Maybe losing her mother when she did made her curious about her other parent. Once she realized she had all these half-siblings, her curiosity might have been fueled by theirs.” Emme had to stretch to keep up with Nick's long stride. “Did she ever say anything at all to you about her father, or wanting to know more about him?”

“Never.” He shook his head. “Belinda never gave any hint that she knew how she was conceived or that she'd found she had half-siblings. I've been looking back over conversations we've had these past few years, thinking maybe she'd tossed out a sign or two and I just missed it. But I can't recall that she'd even hinted at any of this.”

“I wonder how long she knew, how old she was when Wendy told her.”

“I have no idea. I'm still trying to figure out why Wendy never mentioned it to me. She never mentioned wanting to be a single mother. I had no idea why she made that decision, or when.” He appeared thoughtful. “Or why Belinda never said anything. Wendy I can maybe understand. She was so much older than I was, maybe she thought I was too young to have that conversation with. But Belinda… well, I guess I thought we were closer than that.”

“Maybe she assumed you knew and that you didn't want to discuss it. Maybe she thought her mother had told you and that you'd disapproved.”

“Maybe.”

“I wonder how far Belinda got in her search for her donor.”

“I was wondering that myself.” They reached the corner of Witherspoon Street and turned right.

“Suppose, just suppose, Belle had been able to figure out who Donor 1735 was. Suppose she even tried to contact him. How happy would this guy be to hear from a kid he didn't know existed, who maybe wants to call him Daddy? Oh, and to find out he had ten other kids who want to call him Daddy, too.” Emme dug in her pocket for her car keys.

“Probably not so much. There might be some guys who'd take it in stride but they'd be in the minority.” He thought for a moment. “Yeah, mostly I don't think these guys would be too happy. They were promised anonymity; they don't expect that to ever be violated.”

“And let's face it, this would be a huge invasion of their privacy.”

“Do you think that would stop a bunch of kids from trying?”

“No. Nick, if Belle had gotten that close to finding him, would she have told the others?”

“I don't know. Belinda-I have a hard time calling her Belle. It's tough to keep a name straight like that when you've always known someone by another name.”

Tell me about it.

They arrived at her car, and she unlocked both doors with the remote. She started the engine and pulled away from the curb, her mind racing.

“Okay, how about this?” Emme was thinking aloud, playing with different scenarios. “Suppose she had figured it out. Would she have contacted the guy her research led her to and asked him if he'd been a donor, before she told the others she'd found him?”

“You mean, instead of telling them first?” Nick thought it over. “Yeah, I could see her doing that. Rather than get everyone tuned up that she'd found him, she might go that one extra step and make sure.”

“Are you sure there were no notes about this in any of those boxes you went through?”