"Well, they're in the box somewhere but I didn't get a chance to go through and see which papers are mine."

"Then take the whole box. Take all three, for all I care. Take them with you."

"What if there's things in there you want?"

Musko waved her off. "I don't need anything in those boxes. I should get rid of the ones in the garage, too. I should just burn the damn things."

Ellen realized then why the dead files were still in the garage. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend the money on a storage space. It was that he wanted to keep them and he wanted to burn them, both at once.

"Thanks," she said. "I'll send you back what's not mine." She put a lid on the third box, shutting its secrets inside.

At least until she got home.

The night was starless and black, and the windows dark mirrors that reflected Ellen at her dining-room table, sifting through the contents of the third box, sitting next to a glass of emergency merlot. Oreo Figaro sat in his spot at the far end of the table, watching with a disapproving eye.

She set aside bills and legal pads, then pulled out the papers that should have been in her file and read each one as she put them in chronological order, oldest to most recent, re-creating Will's adoption file. There was printed email correspondence to Karen and from the home-study people, who had come to see the house and interview Ellen before the adoption was finalized. She went back to the box, shoved aside pencils and a half pack of gum, and unearthed another typed letter to Karen, this one printed in a larger font, on thin paper. She read it with a start:

Amy Martin 393 Corinth Lane Stoatesville, PA

Dear Karen,

Here are the papers you asked me to get signed. They are from the baby's father and he says he will give up his rights to the baby. Please make sure the woman who wants to adopt him takes good care of him. He's a good baby, and it's not his fault he's fussy and sick. I love him but I know this is what is the best thing for him and I will remember him always and keep him in my prayers.

Sincerely, Amy

Ellen's heart thundered in her chest, and she read the letter again, feeling a tingle just holding it in her hands. It was from Will's birth mother, who had held this paper, had written this note, and had printed it out. So her name was Amy Martin. She sounded so sweet, and her pain in putting Will up for adoption came through even her simple lines. It was all Ellen could do not to pick up the phone and call her, but instead, she reached for her wine and raised her glass in a silent toast.

Thank you, Amy, for the gift of your child.

Oreo Figaro looked over, blinking, and she set down the wine, returned to the box, and kept digging, finally reaching more court papers, with her caption at the top. Consent of Birth Parent, read the heading, and the form showed Amy's name and the Stoatesville address, and her birth date, which was July 7, 1983, and marital status, which read single. The paper was signed by Amy Martin under the sentence, I hereby voluntarily and unconditionally consent to the adoption of the above-named child. The paper had also been witnessed by Gerry Martin and Cheryl Martin, from the same address.

Ellen skipped to the next form, which was the consent of the birth father, and she learned his name and address with her heart in her throat:

Charles Cartmell 71 Grant Ave Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

She eyed his signature, a messy scrawl with barely comprehensible loops. So Charles Cartmell had been Will's father, and she couldn't help but wonder what he had been like. What he looked like. What he did for a living. How did he and Amy meet, and why did they never marry?

She returned to digging in the box but found nothing else relating to Will except his medical information sheet, which she already had in her file, stating that both birth parents had a history of high blood pressure. There was no mention of any heart problems, which was consistent with what she'd been told by the hospital, that Will's heart defect could have originated with him. The state had a voluntary medical registry online, but Will's birth parents had never registered. Still, the consent papers were a tangible answer to a question Ellen hadn't been able to articulate, even to herself.

"Well, that settles that," Ellen said aloud, startling Oreo Figaro. Her gaze fell on the papers on the table, and her thoughts strayed to poor Karen. She remembered that Karen had called to congratulate her on the day Will's adoption papers were processed. It was so hard to believe that she would be dead a little over a month later, by her own hand. Ellen shuddered and took a last sip of wine. It was so awful to think of Karen doing that, with three little kids at home. Musko had been right about that much.

Where was a mother's instinct then?

She couldn't think about it now. It was late and she had to get to bed. She'd done enough for one day, except on her homicide story. She'd normally have drafted something after her interview with Laticia Williams, but tonight she was too beat. She set the wineglass down next to the box, but a bright pink splotch amid the clutter caught her eye. She moved the papers aside. It was the hot pink of Karen's leather Filofax.

She picked it out and opened it, idly. It was a standard date book, a week on two opposing pages, and each page bore Karen's neat script, noting her appointments and meetings by client name. Ellen felt a pang, looking at the record of a woman's life, her time on earth divided into billable increments. What the diary couldn't show was that, in those increments, this woman had changed lives.

She flipped back in time through the Filofax, slowing when she reached the week of July 13, the day on which Karen had committed suicide. That week began on Monday, July 10, and the Filofax showed a neat lineup of appointments. The eleventh showed Karen had a client meeting in the morning and a Women's Way luncheon.

Ellen scanned the rest of the week, including the day Karen died. The lawyer had had appointments scheduled all day long, which made sense. Karen couldn't have known that the night before, her husband would find out about her affair. Ellen was about to close the book when she noticed that one of the appointments, on Wednesday, didn't have a name, but only an initial: A, written next to the time: 7:15 P.M.

Ellen was intrigued. A nighttime meeting? Maybe A was Karen's lover? She skipped back to the week before that, but there was no A, and then the week before that. There, in the middle of the week, on Wednesday, June 28.

A, also at 7:15.

She flipped pages to the week before, and then the week before that, which brought her to Wednesday, June 14.

A, this time at 9:30 P.M.

She mulled it over. That was the day before Will's adoption was final, on June 15. She flipped back to earlier weeks, checking each one, but there were no other meetings with A. She sat back, thinking, and her gaze shifted to the letter on the table, from Amy Martin. The date on the letter was June 15.

Ellen thought a minute. There had been a meeting with A, and then the next day, a letter from Amy Martin. She put two and two together. "A" wasn't Karen's boyfriend. "A" could stand for Amy.

She sank into a chair at the table, her good mood evaporating. She looked again at the letter. It even said "in our meeting." So Karen had had a meeting with Amy. But Ellen didn't remember seeing Amy's name in the Filofax, anywhere. She paged through it again, around June, and double-checked. There was no notation of a meeting with Amy Martin or Charles Cartmell, though all the other client meetings had been noted.

Ellen set down the Filofax and reached for her wine. She took a sip, but it tasted warm and bitter. She knew what she had to do, first thing tomorrow morning. Finish this thing once and for all. Put an end to her dwelling. She was driving herself nuts.