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“Tell us about the adoption.” Clearly, Claire sensed the same mixed message as Casey did, because she was leading the conversation in a specific direction. “Was Gia born in New Rochelle?”
“No, she was born in Manhattan.”
“And who handled the adoption?”
At that, Maria lowered her gaze, fidgeting on the love seat.
“Why are you asking?” Nick demanded. “It was a legal adoption. We have the papers to prove it. And I don’t understand why Gia isn’t asking us these questions herself. We’ve always been honest with her. She’s the center of our lives. Why is she turning to private investigators to ask these questions? And how do we know for sure that she did?”
Casey was ready for that challenge. “We have a letter in her handwriting asking you to talk to us.” She passed it across the table to Nick. “As you can see, she’s waiting to speak to you herself. She loves you. She’s worried about you. She just felt it would be better and less emotional if we handled the initial conversation.”
Nick read the letter thoroughly. Then, he nodded. “Okay, go ahead. Ask your questions.”
“We need to know the details of the adoption.” Casey wasn’t mincing words. Not once she sensed the Russos were holding something back. “Was it handled by an agency? If so, which one?”
The Russos exchanged a nervous glance. “It was a private adoption,” Maria said. “No agency, at least not that we know of. A lawyer handled everything.”
“What was that lawyer’s name? We’d like to speak with him.”
Maria looked like a bird that wanted to take flight. “His name was Constantin Farro.”
“Can you spell that for me please?” Casey waited for Maria to do so and quickly scribbled down the name. She’d have Ryan run it ASAP, along with every detail about the man that he could find.
“Can you describe him?” Casey asked.
“Average height and weight,” Nick replied. “Curly brown hair. Light eyes, maybe blue. A pointy nose. I don’t know what else to say. It was twenty-seven years ago. He showed us his credentials. He had a lot of experience with adoptions.”
“That’s very helpful.” Casey jotted that down.
“We followed all the legal steps he explained to us.” Maria was unraveling. “I don’t understand why this is coming up now.”
“You wanted a child very badly,” Claire said with gentle certainty. “You’d tried every agency you could find. The waiting list was unbearable. This was your opportunity. So you didn’t look too deeply. You just accepted the blessing that was being handed to you.”
Maria stared at Claire through her tears. “Exactly. How did you know?”
There was no need to go into Claire’s abilities. “I didn’t know,” she replied. “But it wasn’t a reach. As long as you had legal adoption papers, you didn’t care who did what to make it happen.” Claire took a purposeful bite of biscotti and smiled at the flavor. “The only thing I don’t understand is how you found this lawyer.”
“We didn’t,” Nick admitted. “He found us. Apparently he had business relationships with some of the adoption agencies we’d applied to—business that allowed him access to their files. He saw from the reams of paperwork we filled out time and time again how desperate we were. So when Gia was due to arrive, he spoke to the birth mother and approached us. As you just said, we weren’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides the legalities, we had a few rules to follow. We promised to do so. In return, Gia was ours.”
“Rules?” Casey’s antennae went up. “What rules?”
“We had to be part of a close-knit Italian family. We had to move to an area of the country where people were kinder and the air was clean. Bozeman, Montana, was suggested to us. We agreed to move there. We didn’t care where we lived if we could adopt Gia. It was required that we live in Bozeman until Gia was at least of kindergarten age. We were prohibited from moving to New York City or Minneapolis, where the birth father lived at various points in time. We asked about New Rochelle since our entire extended family lives here. It was approved for a later move because it was only a suburb of New York City. But like I said, we had to stay in Bozeman until Gia was in elementary school.”
“Does Gia know all this?”
Nick fiddled with his coffee cup. “We never went into these specifics, no. All Gia needed to know was the most important truth—that she was wanted and loved more than any child ever could be. That has never changed.” He met Casey’s gaze, his brows drawn in question. “Now that we’ve shared more details with you than we ever have with anyone else, it’s time you told us what this is about. We talked to you for Gia’s sake. Is there some loophole in the adoption we don’t know about? Because Gia is ours. She always will be.”
Despite all the information Claire and she had acquired, Casey felt sick at what she was about to do to the Russos.
“I don’t doubt how much you love Gia,” she said. “Neither does she. But there’s definitely an inconsistency, with her date of birth and the facts you were given. We’re not sure how deep this deception goes or who orchestrated it—or why. But it’s fact, not conjecture, and it’s illegal.”
Maria’s lips quivered. “How do you know that?”
There were no easy words to use. So Casey just told them as gently as she could. “Because Gia has an identical twin.” No mention of the word triplet. “They’ve been DNA-tested and there’s no room for error. Plus, given what you just told us, someone is trying to keep them apart. Her twin was also adopted and was raised in Minneapolis—one of the places you were forbidden to live.”
Both the Russos recoiled in shock, their faces turning sheet white. If ever there was a doubt that they’d been kept in the dark about Dani’s and Lina’s existence, that possibility was annihilated by their reaction.
“Dear God,” Maria whispered, pressing her palms to her cheeks. “A twin? How can that be? It was just Gia. We would have been told if…”
