Chapter Twelve

Bailey was already parked in front of my house when I arrived, hit the garage door opener, and pulled inside. I got out, slung my purse over my shoulder, and waited for her to walk up my paved driveway.

“Thanks for coming over,” I said, moving to the front door. “I can’t believe how wound up I am. It took every ounce of my self-control not to google him from my phone while I was at a stoplight.”

“That could have been disastrous. After what just happened, you should know better than to text and drive.”

“Which is why I didn’t do it,” I replied, holding the door open for her. “But I’m dying to get to my computer.”

We walked into my mudroom, kicked off our shoes and dropped our purses onto the bench.

“I’ll show you the video of him first, so you can see what he looks like. He looks exactly like he did in my flashback.”

“It wasn’t a flashback,” she reminded me.

“I know, I know, but I hate calling it a dream or a vision, because it still feels like a memory. Especially the stuff that involved Logan.”

A rush of anticipation moved through me at the notion of finding the boy I’d envisioned as my son—although rationally, I knew it couldn’t possibly be true. Because if I’d had an actual biological son, I would most certainly know about it.

“Maybe this is all a big conspiracy,” I said, “like in Total Recall where Schwarzenegger had his memories erased and they planted him in another fake life where he was married to Sharon Stone, who turned out to be his enemy. Maybe Mark was my Sharon Stone.”

Bailey followed me. “Congratulations. Now you’re sounding totally crazy.”

We went straight to my computer desk in the family room and turned on the power. I inserted the flash drive into the USB port and within seconds, the video piece about the UW grad schools came up.

“That’s him,” I said, pointing. “Does he look familiar to you?”

Bailey, who stood behind my chair, leaned closer over my shoulder, studied his face, and shook her head. “Not at all. He’s cute, though.”

“That was just over ten years ago,” I told her. “So I don’t know what he might look like now. Let’s find out.”

I opened another window and searched for the name Chris Jenson, dentist in Seattle. Thousands of web pages appeared, but there were no dentists in the city by that name.

“He might have moved somewhere else,” Bailey said. “Or never graduated. Maybe he hated putting his hands in other people’s mouths and is doing something else now.”

I let out a breath and sat back in my chair, staring at the computer screen intently.

Where are you?

With a sudden tingling sensation in my fingertips, I sat forward again.

“This is probably a long shot, but let’s search for Dentists in Maine—Chris Jenson.”

I typed the words quickly and hit Enter. The little circle spun around and around while I waited with bated breath, bouncing my foot repeatedly on the floor.

At last, a new listing of web pages loaded onto my screen, and the one at the top sent ripples of goose bumps across my entire body. I had pins and needles everywhere.

Hastily, I clicked on it.

“Are you serious?” Bailey said, bending forward to stare.

I covered my mouth with my hand as the website’s homepage loaded.

“This is nuts.” I looked up at her. “So what do we do now?”