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arrangements with an agency in the event of their deaths—likely because they had no living family—otherwise their children would have become wards of the state.
    “Anyway, Victoria also found out about you. Under a section titled ‘Other Children Born to Birth Parents’, there was a single listing: ‘Female, one-month of age, born at the University of Chicago Medical Center’. Same birth location as was listed for Victoria, as well as her age at the time of her birth.
    “This intrigued both Victoria and Sir Edward. Why hadn’t her parents adopted both children? They had wanted a family—this would have been the perfect solution. They found the answer further down in the papers.
    Once the Winestones learned of the second child—you—they immediately contacted the agency. Though the agency sympathized, they claimed the birth parents had explicitly stated under no circumstances were the children to be adopted together. And, based upon the letters exchanged between Sterling Joy and the Winestones, it also became quite clear the agency had been paid handsomely to honor the birth parent’s last wishes.”
    “That is strange,” Leah commented, before looking to me to gauge my reaction to this news. I wasn’t sure what my face showed, but I was astonished.
    “There was one final surprise waiting on the bottom of the security deposit box. Five documents were bound together, almost symbolically. They included Victoria’s current birth certificate, her original birth certificate, your original birth certificate, your current birth certificate and your parent’s address.” My address.
    “Oh, my gosh,” I gasped as I looked at Leah, flabbergasted, “that is totally insane. Do you think they contacted my parents—that my parents knew?”
    “We don’t know, AJ,” Abe replied quietly, “and with the players deceased, I’m not sure we’ll ever know. It was this information, however, that prompted Victoria to search for you. And, it was at the beginning of this search she learned of your parent’s tragic accident. That’s when she hired us.”
    Leah murmured absently, “Perhaps there’s another safety deposit box lurking around somewhere? One with more clues?”
    “We’d thought of that too. It’s certainly something we can pursue,” Elijah replied, “but first, there’s a bit more we need to tell you.”
    “Are you serious?” Leah squawked a bit too loudly, which made Nicoh moan like a moose.
    I couldn’t blame him, I wanted to moan like a moose myself—this conversation was becoming more and more like the one with Ramirez. Abe and Elijah both apologized, but I told them to continue, so Abe picked up where Elijah had left off.
    “When Victoria got back from London, she went to her parent’s house to check on things. On the answering machine, there was a message from someone at the dealership where her mother had purchased her Jaguar, apologizing for the mix-up and confirming she still wanted the original car. Victoria lost it.”
    “What rock had this guy been living under?” Leah snarked.
    “Victoria said she gave him an earful,” Abe replied. “The manager apologized profusely. He returned from a cruise vacation and wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, but in his absence, the assistant manager had delivered her mother’s custom-designed car to another client. Rather than disappoint that client, who had already fallen in love with the car, he immediately called Victoria’s mother to confess his oversight. As gracious as ever, she let the assistant manager off the hook and agreed to take the car until another could be ordered.”
    “So, the car she was driving when the accident occurred wasn’t the car she should have been driving?” I asked.
    “Nope,” Abe continued, “but that wasn’t the end of it.”
    “Of course not,” I retorted, perhaps a bit too sarcastically, “why would it be?”
    “What raised the red flags—and frankly, still raises the hair on the back our