“Do you think someone just randomly looked down here and picked it out?”
“Not necessarily. They needed to pick someone local, and my guess is she was chosen because she lived and died here. Picking out the name of a dead person at random has its drawbacks. A carefully chosen one will stand up to a lot more scrutiny. Makes everything a lot easier.”
“You know an awful lot about this.”
“It is my business.”
I stare down at the grave for a moment, noting the birth and death dates.
“I don’t even know what my real date of birth is.”
“It’s at least close to that day,” Nate says. He wraps his arm around my shoulders. “We have a lot of unanswered questions still. If you want, I can help you figure it all out.”
“I’ve thought about it a bit since I came back,” I say. “I think the idea of dealing with it by myself was a bit too overwhelming.”
“With how everything turned out, we never got to follow up on what we found out about you—about your heritage.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“We have a good start,” Nate says. “Everything got a little sidetracked, but we have a few things to go on. I’ll help you get the answers, Cherry. I promise.”
I nod and take in a deep breath of cold air as I stare down at the headstone bearing the name I found on my forged birth certificate. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed it before. I don’t even know anyone with the last name of Montgomery in town.
“It’s fucking creepy.” I wrap my arms around myself. “I mean, I know that’s not my real name on the stone, but still.”
Nate takes my hand and squeezes it.
“Let’s get to the shop,” he says. “We are more likely to find information there than if we just stand here in the cold.”
We walk back to the house, and Nate starts toward the car.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I thought we were going to the antique shop.”
“It’s just a couple of blocks from here.” I point down the driveway and laugh. “You don’t really have to drive to get to anywhere in town.”
“But it’s snowing,”
“What’s more likely to get stuck in the snow, the car or your feet?”
“Fine. You have a point there.” Nate looks down at his expensive leather shoes and sighs.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t have any boots in your size. Maybe we should go get you some, first. We’d have to head to Grantsville to find an actual shopping center.” Just mentioning the town makes me realize I need to make an appointment with the doctor there. Of course, I still haven’t told Nate anything about the baby, but now doesn’t feel like the right time. “There isn’t a lot of variety here in town for such things.”
“No, it’s all right. The bag I left in the car has another pair of shoes I can switch into later.”
Nate takes my hand, and I lead him down the driveway and walk the short distance to the shop. We dig through a filing cabinet in the office as well as a few other likely places but still find nothing.
“There has to be something,” Nate says.
“Are you sure? I mean, maybe she got rid of any evidence.”
“No way. Even when you need to hide something important, you have to have proof of the truth somewhere. You never know when you’re going to need it. Maybe we should check out the post office before it closes. I think that paper from Micha’s file might lead to something there.”
I open the drawer of an antique desk in the back of the office and dig around in the back. I pull out a ring of keys.
“I know what most of these are for but not all of them. One might go to a PO box.”