Andrew leaned over to look. “I was just about to ask you if anything happened with that.”
Last week, Nana Hastings had willed her “natural-born grandchildren” Melissa and Spencer’s cousins two million dollars each. Spencer, on the other hand, got nothing. Melissa had raised a theory about why—perhaps Spencer had been adopted.
As much as Spencer wanted to believe it was just another one of Melissa’s ploys to humiliate her—they were constantly trying to one-up each other, with Melissa usually winning—the idea nagged at her. Was that why her parents treated Spencer like shit and Melissa like gold, barely acknowledging Spencer’s accomplishments, reneging on their promise to let Spencer live in the backyard barn for her junior and senior years, and even canceling Spencer’s credit cards? Was that why Melissa looked like a clone of her mother, and Spencer didn’t?
She’d confessed the theory to Andrew, and Andrew told Spencer about a biological mom-matching service a friend had used. Curious, Spencer registered her personal information—things like her birth date, the hospital where she was born, and the color of her eyes and other genetic traits. When she received an e-mail at the Rosewood Day benefit on Saturday that the site had matched her data with that of a potential mother, she hadn’t known what to think. It had to be a mistake. Certainly they’d contact the woman and she’d say Spencer couldn’t possibly be her child.
With trembling hands, Spencer opened the e-mail. Hello Spencer, My name is Olivia Caldwell. I’m so excited, because I think we’re a match. If you’re up for it, I would love to meet you. With sincere fondness, O.
Spencer stared at it for a long time, her hand clapped to her mouth. Olivia Caldwell. Could that be her real mother’s name? Andrew poked her in the side. “Are you going to respond?”
“I don’t know,” Spencer said uneasily, wincing as a police car outside turned on its shrill, piercing siren. She gazed at her Sidekick screen so hard, the letters began to blur. “I mean…it’s hard to believe this is even real. How could my parents keep this from me? It means my whole life has been…a lie.” Lately, she’d discovered that so much of her life—especially the stuff with Ali—was built on lies. She wasn’t sure if she could stomach anything more.
“Why don’t we see if we can prove it?” Andrew stood up and offered his hand. “Maybe there’s something in this house that explains it beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Spencer considered for a moment. “All right,” she conceded slowly. It was probably a good time to snoop around—her parents and sister wouldn’t be home for hours. She clasped Andrew’s hand and led him into her father’s office. The room smelled like cognac and cigars—her dad sometimes entertained his law clients at home—and when she flipped the switch on the wall, a bunch of soft lights flickered on above her father’s massive Warhol print of a banana.
She sank down in the Aeron chair at her dad’s tiger maple desk and gazed at the computer screen. There was a slide show of family pictures as the screen saver. First was a photo of Melissa graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, the cap’s tassel in her eyes. Then there was a photo of Melissa standing on the stoop of her brand-new Philadelphia brownstone their parents had bought for her when she got into the Wharton School. Then, a photo of Spencer popped up on the screen. It was a snapshot of Ali, Spencer, and the others crowded on a giant inner tube in the middle of a lake. Ali’s brother, Jason, was swimming next to them, his longish hair sopping wet. This had been taken at Ali’s family’s lake house in the Poconos. By the looks of how young everyone was, it must have been one of the first times Ali had invited them there, a few weeks after they’d become friends.
Spencer sat back, startled to see herself in the family montage. After Spencer admitted she’d cheated to win the Golden Orchid, her parents had pretty much disowned her. And it was eerie to see such an early photo of Ali. Nothing bad had happened between Ali, Spencer, and the others yet—not The Jenna Thing, not Ali’s clandestine relationship with Ian, not the secrets Spencer and the others tried to keep from Ali, not the secrets Ali kept from them. If only it had remained that way forever.
Spencer shuddered, trying to shake her jumble of uneasy feelings. “My dad used to keep everything in file cabinets,” she explained, wiggling the mouse to make the screen saver disappear. “But my mom’s such a neat freak and hates piles of papers, so she made him scan everything. If there’s something about me being adopted, it’s on this computer.”
Her dad had a few Internet Explorer windows open from the last time he’d been on the computer. One was the front page of the Philadelphia Sentinel. The top headline was Search for Thomas’s Body Rages On. Right below it was an opinion piece that said Rosewood PD Should Be Hanged for Negligence. Below that was yet another story that read, Kansas Teenager Receives Text from A.
Spencer scowled and minimized the screen.
She gazed at the folder icons on the right side of the desktop. “Taxes,” she read out loud. “Old. Work. Stuff.” She groaned. “My mom would kill him if she knew he organized the files like this.”
“What about that one?” Andrew pointed at the screen. “Spencer, College.”
Spencer frowned and clicked on it. There was only one PDF file inside the folder. The little hourglass icon whirled as the PDF slowly loaded on the screen. She and Andrew leaned forward. It was a recent statement from a savings account.