CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Bone weary, Jennifer pulled into the parking lot at the Embassy Suites shortly after ten o’clock in the morning. When she straightened up from behind the wheel, she actually heard her bones crack as they released some of the stiffness. She stood beside the car and stretched her tired muscles, then grabbed her cell phone, the duffel bag, and the rolling briefcase and made her way to the front door.

Jennifer had stayed here on business several times during a case she and Stuart had defended. The Embassy Suites was the most convenient business hotel in Birmingham, and it had the added benefit of a decent restaurant in the lobby.

She’d called ahead for a reservation in a nonsmoking room with a king-size bed. She registered under her own name at the front desk and plunked down her credit card. After she received her key card, she trudged to the elevator and got off at the sixth floor, where she found room 631 on the far left hallway. Once inside, she dropped her luggage and walked straight through to the bedroom. She fell onto the fully made bed and instantly passed into a deep state of sleep. If her exhausted dreams answered any of her questions, she was blissfully oblivious.

Waking spontaneously around three o’clock in the afternoon, Jennifer called for room service and spread out her files on the suite’s small kitchen table. Then, she went into the bathroom, peeled off her clothes, and stepped into the pounding, hot water of the shower.

An hour later, she was seated in an armchair, reviewing the notes she’d made for herself about the Jacks Clinic. She had long since finished the complimentary coffee, along with the continental breakfast. Her files covered the table. The gun rested near enough to grab.

Jennifer’s meticulous legal training had many advantages. When Lila first told her that Annabelle had been adopted through the infamous Jacks Clinic, Jennifer had started a file on the place, including legal database research. One of the things she’d found was a list of litigation the clinic had spawned. She now carefully examined the printouts she’d made.

Dr. Jacks had died years ago; his clinic was closed. But once the full story of the small rural facility became known, people affected by the activities there had united in rage. Jennifer skimmed the articles. Eventually, she found what she was looking for—the name of the woman who headed the grassroots group formed to locate the Jacks babies and reunite them with their birth families.

Jennifer picked up the hotel’s phone, dialed “9” for an outside line, and then called information. “The Jacks Baby Project, in Birmingham, Alabama, please.”

When she had the telephone number. She dialed again. On the third ring, a woman answered. “The Jacks Baby Project. How can I help you?”

“I’d like to have a package hand delivered. What is your street address please?”

Jennifer marveled at the trust people put in a telephone call. She hadn’t said or been asked what she wanted to send. Given the irrational anger evidenced by some of the lawsuits filed against Dr. Jacks, she could be someone with a vendetta. Still, the woman volunteered the address without a pause.

“Do you need directions, honey?” After answering yes, Jennifer took down the woman’s words verbatim in shorthand.

Thirty minutes later, Jennifer had packed up her bags and files, and checked out of the hotel, and was back on the road.