The Homecoming Baby by Kathleen O`Brien

either his father or his mother.
    And, just in case he’d needed more proof, Trish Linden’s ashen face last night had provided it. After meeting him, she had managed to make a bare minimum of respectable small talk, but her panic had been palpable. She obviously recognized him, and she couldn’t wait to get away.
    Apparently the Linden family still didn’t want to acknowledge their relationship to Patrick Torrance. Apparently they were still eager to run away from the responsibility, the scandal, the shame.
    Well, it may have been easy to run away from the whimpering baby on the bathroom floor. It was going to be somewhat more difficult to escape the grown man—the man who intended, for the first time inthirty years, to place blame squarely where it belonged.
    On the shoulders of Angelina Linden.
    â€œEllyn, I was hoping you’d do me a favor.”
    â€œOf course,” she said. “Do you need me to come get you?”
    â€œNo, I’m fine. I just need you to mail me something.”
    If she was disappointed, she didn’t let it show. “Of course. What?”
    â€œIn the left hand drawer of the desk in my office at home, there’s a file, a large one, marked Dr. Anton Misrati.”
    â€œAll right. I’m sure I can find that.”
    â€œThanks. If you’d just mail me that file, I’d appreciate it. Just address it to me, care of the Morning Light Bed and Breakfast, Enchantment, New Mexico. Send it priority, if you would. I’d like to get it in a couple of days.”
    She didn’t ask who Dr. Misrati was, or what was in the file so urgent he needed to get it ASAP. Ellyn was one of a kind, which was why he’d chosen her for this task.
    He had put all the documents into a closed envelope, but the seal could be easily broken by anyone who wanted to snoop. Patrick trusted his employees—to a point. Ellyn was different. She’d been so well bred she’d never, ever pry into someone else’s affairs, no matter how curious she might be.
    Which was a very good thing, because these documents would shock even people far less shelteredthan Ellyn Grainger. In that overstuffed file were copies of all the emergency room reports, X rays and doctor’s notes—dozens of them, each in dry but graphic detail—that documented more than ten years of Julian Torrance’s systematic abuse of his adopted son, Patrick.
    Ten long, hard years. Julian’s violent side hadn’t begun to spiral out of control until Patrick’s mother was too sick with her final cancer to intervene. Patrick had been about five. And it hadn’t ended until, at sixteen, Patrick had finally been big enough to shove back. Julian was a coward, of course—all bullies were, weren’t they? He hadn’t been quite as eager to pick on someone his own size.
    At the time, that helpless decade had seemed endless. Also in the file were a few of Patrick’s own Polaroids of some of the cuts, burns and bruises that hadn’t received medical attention. How naive he had been, hiding there in his room, fighting back tears while he photographed his own arms. He’d actually believed that, with enough proof, a ten-year-old boy could make Julian pay for his cruelty.
    Julian Torrance never had paid—unless you counted all the money he spent to keep the story quiet, to keep the doctors from going to the authorities. No, Julian hadn’t paid. But maybe, if Patrick could get Trish Linden to reveal her sister’s location, the infamous Angelina Linden would.
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    C ELIA HAD RECENTLY BEGUN spending late Tuesday afternoons volunteering at the Teen Drop-in Center.Several of the kids there were her patients, and it helped to interact with them in such an informal setting.
    If you watched carefully, you could learn more about what bothered a kid from playing basketball with him, or helping him with his homework, or sharing a bag of popcorn, than you could ever