“Excellent question.” Nora centered young Frank Joseph Pierce’s death certificate on the screen again. “Frank’s death certificate includes information about his birth. And look, the details of his birth that are listed here all agree with what we know to be true. The day. The place. His parents’ names.”
Gladys Mortensen. William Pierce.
“The details line up,” Nora said. “Which makes me think this death certificate was issued to the right person.”
“What other explanation for this could there be?” Zander asked.
Nora faced them, leaving one hand on the bar top. Thoughtfully, she clicked a fingernail against the laptop’s metal surface. “Before computers were as prevalent as they are now, people who were in the market for a new identity would occasionally search cemeteries for gravestones. They’d find someone of roughly the same gender and age as themselves.”
“And?” Britt asked.
“They’d jot down the person’s full name and birthday. Then they’d call the local hospital, impersonate the dead person, and ask to be sent their birth certificate.”
Willow frowned. “But how?”
“Hi, this is Mary Smith,” Nora said, “and I was born in your hospital on June seventeenth, 1942. I’m so very, very sorry, but I’ve just moved and searched through every single packing box, and I can’t find my birth certificate anywhere. Is there any possible way for you to reissue me a new one? If so, you’ll save my marriage, and I’ll be forever grateful. Truly! So grateful.”
“And just like that a person could get their hands on a birth certificate that didn’t belong to them?” Willow asked.
“Back in the day, the answer was sometimes yes,” Nora answered. “Once a person had possession of a birth certificate, they could visit the DMV and apply for a license. The DMV would take a photo and attach it to the name on the birth certificate. Once they were granted a driver’s license, a world of possibilities opened to them.”
Zander scratched the back of his neck. “You think Frank stole a dead child’s identity.”
“I think it’s possible.” Nora sighed. “I’ve been researching genealogy for years, and I’ve only seen evidence of a potential stolen identity one other time. It’s rare. But Ihaveseen it.” She considered him, concern in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Zander. I know this isn’t what you’d hoped to find.”
After they finished dinner, after they ate vanilla toffee bar crunch for dessert, after Willow and Nora went home, Zander sat next to Britt on her living room sofa.
Britt had a way of cooking—choosing ingredients and blending flavors—that was unique to her. He’d missed her food. Tonight, finally, he’d had the chance to eat a meal of hers for the first time in what felt like a decade.
But the information Nora had uncovered about Frank before they’d sat down to dinner had caused his chest to tighten with anxiety. He regretted that he hadn’t been able to taste the food like he’d wanted to.
Britt looped her arms around her bent knees, her socked feet flat on the sofa. She never wore shoes or slippers inside her house, only socks. He tried not to notice how well her jeans fit or the creamy V of skin at the base of her neck, revealed by her purple shirt. She’d braided her brown hair loosely and pulled the braid forward over one shoulder.
He sat against the sofa’s back, his palm tucked behind his head, his feet crossed on one of the two shellacked wooden stumps that functioned as her coffee tables.
The intensity between them caused the air particles separating his position from hers to vibrate. From his perspective, anyway. She probably didn’t feel what he felt. To Britt, the air between them was likely as flat as the surface of a windless lake.
Memories of the many, many other times they’d sat just like this moved through his mind. They’d talked, laughed, discussed decisions big and small, worked on some harebrained plan of his or hers—usually hers—and watched movies from this spot.
Sitting next to her tonight felt different, though. Because so much time had passed and because of the push-pull battle happening inside of him. Love pulling him to her. Futility pushing him away.
Before he’d gone abroad, he had years of practice at stuffing down his emotions toward Britt. It had never been easy. Even so,he’d become very good at it. He’d been able to manage himself inwardly and outwardly when they were together. The push-pull battle had been bearable. At least, it had been bearable right up until the night she’d thrown him a dinner party at Bradfordwood to celebrate his book contract.
She’d been dating a guy named Tristan at the time. When she’d told the guests about Tristan, her cheeks had been pink, and she’d looked excited and happy and infatuated and, all of a sudden, he’d known what he had to do with his advance.
He had to leave.
Until that dinner party, he hadn’t had the means to leave. But on that night, he’d had the means, which had, in turn, allowed him the luxury of hitting his limit. He’d taken the getaway car his newfound money provided because he’d understood that he owed himself a chance to move on. He’d needed to prove his independence from her to himself.
The night of the dinner party, the push-pull battle had not been bearable.
Nor was it bearable now.
Either he’d outgrown his old coping mechanisms or they’d become so rusty they were of almost no use to him.
Good grief. He really needed his coping mechanisms. She was assessing him without a shred of self-consciousness, and he was almost afraid to meet her eyes, for fear of what she might see.
She was far more comfortable in her own skin than anyone else he knew. Certainly more so than he was. He’d only recently grown into himself on his trip. Britt hadn’t needed travel to grow into herself. She’d always been exactly who she was.
