Page 44

But had she kept a secret from all of them? Had she gone away and had a baby in 1996? And better question yet…had Joel Winslow known?

Fuck, what if Joel was also the biological father of this baby? They’d already found the year before that Joel had fathered another child in Winslow Heights. Had Leigh made the huge mistake of getting involved with her boss?

Christ on a unicycle, this was so fucked up. Sam couldn’t even say that his dad would never do something like that. He would, without a doubt, and have no remorse about it, too.

But one thing didn’t make sense to him. If Joel had fathered this child, Sam didn’t think that his dad would want to keep Leigh around as a daily reminder of his human frailty. Joel didn’t dwell on things like that. He pushed reality aside and replaced it with his own version.

“If she wasn’t creepy, then we need to open our minds to the possibility that Leigh has a child. Or…she had one?”

The last statement brought Sam out of his reverie.

“Are you saying that the baby might not have lived?”

“It’s possible,” Alli countered. “It’s clear that Leigh had a child, but we don’t see one, do we? Maybe the worst happened? I hate to even think about it, but it’s a possibility.”

Sam didn’t want to think about something so awful either, but he couldn’t argue Alli’s logic.

“I’m going to check with Human Resources and see if Leigh took any time off in 1996,” he finally said.

Alli was looking at him like he had two heads.

“Do you honestly think that the company has kept vacation requests from thirty years ago? Are you even on the same HR system?”

Well, no. Maybe the third or fourth, to be honest.

In 1996, he was pretty sure vacation and sick time were tracked by hand on yellow cards in a manager’s desk drawer. He was sure there hadn’t been any online system.

Had they saved those cards? Surely, they had. Joel didn’t like to get rid of anything.

“I think they manually tracked everything,” he finally replied, realizing that he hadn’t answered Alli. “We might still have the attendance cards.”

“Sam,” she said, her tone measured. “With all this evidence in your hands, do you really need an attendance card? Really?”

“I just can’t believe it,” he admitted, sinking down onto the bed. “I’m blindsided by all the things I didn’t know about Leigh. Past and present. She was a good person, and I should have known more.”

“Why? She wasn’t your assistant. When this happened, you were a little kid. How much do you remember from thirty years ago?”

“I can remember things,” he argued. “If I saw her pregnant, I would remember that.”

“But you weren’t even two years old. Besides, some women don’t show for a long time,” Alli said with a shrug. “Some show right away, and some never do. If she didn’t have the baby here in Winslow Heights, then no one would have seen her pregnant radar”

“I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.”

Sam had always known that the people of Winslow Heights had secrets. Hell, his own family had too many secrets. But for some reason, he hadn’t thought that Leigh had them. To him, she’d always been what he thought was an open book.

What else do I not know about you, Leigh? What else are you hiding?

He looked at the little pile of things on the bed. The booties. The bracelet. The curl of hair in its envelope. He thought, unwillingly, of his unhappy father in a hospital bed. He hadn’t wanted Sam to pack Leigh’s personal items.

We’re going to have a talk, old man.

Joel Winslow had a hell of a lot to explain.

Chapter

Thirteen

The memorial service was held in the big conference room on the rear side of the first floor, because it was the only space with enough chairs and a door that closed.