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tanaquiljallTitle: Double Trouble
Fandom: Miracles
Rating: General
Contains: neonatal death
Words: 15160 words
Summary: A few weeks after Paul joins Sodalitas Quaerito, Keel drags him off to Pennsylvania to investigate a case involving identical twins born to different mothers. As well as unraveling the truth of the case, Paul begins to discover what working with Keel will be like.
Author's Note: Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
casestory big bang and based on one line in episode 1.03 The Patient. Wonderful art for the story was created by nickygabriel and can be seen at http://nickygabriel.livejournal.com/506325.html. Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scribblesinink for the beta and sgafan for helping me with some Americana.
Disclaimer: This story is based on the David Greenwalt Productions/ Spyglass Entertainment/ Touchstone Television series Miracles. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it.
Go To Part One
oOo
An elderly woman was out front as Keel and Paul approached the small brick house. She was busy weeding the borders that lined each side of the path leading to the front stoop and didn't look up until Paul's shadow fell across her. He guessed she might be slightly deaf.
"Mrs Margaret Clark?"
"Peggy," she corrected with a smile. She sat back on her heels and pulled off her gardening gloves. "And who might you young men be? I'm not buying anything and I'm quite happy with my church. St Mary's, just back up the road there." She gestured with one hand.
Paul found himself grinning back at her directness. "I'm Paul Callan and this is Alva Keel." He gestured in Keel's direction. "We'd like to talk to you about something that happened while you were working at Divine Providence hospital."
"Hmm." Paul thought he caught a flicker of unease in her eyes. "Well, then, I guess you'd better come in and have something to drink. Here." She held out her hand to Paul. "Twenty years lifting patients didn't do my back and knees any good at all."
Paul helped her to her feet, finding her grip unexpectedly strong, and followed her inside the house. Keel brought up the rear. Somewhat to Paul's surprise, he was carrying the small basket of gardening tools Peggy had left on the path. She smiled at him as she took it from him and put it on the hall table. "Thank you, dear."
Peggy Clark seemed to have a lot of grandchildren and a fondness for china rabbits, judging by the decor of the living room she showed them into. She waved away Paul's offer to help with the coffee and disappeared to the kitchen, bustling back a few minutes later with a tray neatly laid out with china cups and saucers, a sugar bowl and cream in a jug.
"Now, then," she said, when they'd all been served and she'd settled herself into an armchair. "What do you want to know?"
Keel gestured to Paul that he should be the one to speak. Paul turned back to Peggy. "You worked in the labor ward at Divine Providence as a nursing assistant, didn't you?"
"Yes." Peggy nodded. "I started off in a surgical ward, but then they transferred me to the labor ward and I spent nearly twenty years there. Such a happy place, you know? So much joy."
Paul leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. "But not always?" he suggested gently. "Sometimes some of those babies are stillborn? And sometimes they don't live for very long?"
"Sometimes." Peggy had been restlessly playing with the bottom edge of her sweater, but now her hands stilled in her lap. Her gaze slid away from Paul's. He dipped his head to try and catch her eye again.
"Do you remember a baby called Lauren Powell?"
Peggy didn't answer, but Paul, watching closely, saw her lips tighten a little, as if keeping her response in check. When it was clear she wasn't going to say anything more he prompted, "She died a few hours after birth. The ME's report says you were the one who found her."
"Then I guess I must have." Peggy's gaze flicked up to his face for a moment and then away again. Her tone was flat, yet with a little something at the edge that told Paul she wasn't nearly as indifferent as she was pretending to be.
"Are you saying you don't remember?" Keel, now also perched on the edge of his seat, peered at her with a frown.
Peggy turned her head away from both of them. "There were a lot of babies." Her tone had taken a peevish, almost childish turn.
"I don't suppose you remember a baby called Melissa Farmer, either?"
Keel's voice was soft in the quiet room and Paul wondered for a moment whether Peggy could hear him. The way she'd spoken herself when offering them coffee, a shade too loud, suggested his initial guess that she was a little hard of hearing had been right. But the slight twitch of her cheek when Keel spoke Melissa's name told Paul that she could hear well enough. He thought now he knew what had happened, though he still had no idea why.
"Melissa was born around the same time as Lauren," Keel reminded her. "They were in the nursery together. So was Lauren's twin sister, Kimberly."
Peggy turned her head further away and closed her eyes. Paul suspected she was wishing she was a lot deafer than she was.
"Peggy?" Leaning forward and touching her arm, Paul discovered she was trembling slightly. "We're not here to get you into trouble. We just want to know what happened."
Peggy drew in a deep, shuddering breath, before she turned her head and, opening her eyes, looked back at Paul.
"The baby the Farmers took home: that was Lauren, wasn't it?" Paul raised his eyebrows a little, seeking confirmation. "The real Melissa was the baby who died?"
Peggy nodded, letting out a small gasp that she quickly smothered with a hand to her mouth.
"Why?" Keel was shaking his head. "Why did you switch them? What possible—?"
A tear trickled down Peggy's wrinkled cheek. Paul dug in his pocket and passed her a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes with it.
"They wanted a baby so much." Her voice was hoarse. "She talked about it, Mrs Farmer, when I went in to there take her vitals. She told me they'd waited ten years and they'd tried everything and they'd given up. And then God had given them this… miracle." She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes again.
So much joy, she'd said. Paul found his own throat growing tight, making it hard to ask the next question. "And then you were in the nursery later that night and you found Melissa and she wasn't breathing?"
Peggy nodded. "I was doing a regular check." She swallowed. "I was a bit late doing it. We were really short-staffed that night. There'd been a storm and a lot of trees had come down and the roads were blocked, so people couldn't get in. But she'd been fine—they'd all been fine the last time I'd checked. But this time…. Her lips were blue. Really blue. And I knew that even if the doctors came, even if they tried…." She looked down at her hands twisting together in her lap.
"It would have been too late?"
Peggy nodded wordlessly.
"So you swapped the bracelets and put Lauren in the bassinet that Melissa had been in? And then you called the doctors?"
Peggy nodded again.
"And you didn't think about how the Powells would feel finding out their baby had died? How much hurt that would cause them?" Keel sounded faintly disgusted.
"They had two babies!" Peggy's head came up and her eyes were blazing. "They'd still have one even if they lost one. And they were young. They'd be able to have more children. The Farmers…. They'd had a miracle and then something went wrong, but God put those two baby girls there and He put me there so I could make it right."
oOo
Driving away from Peggy's house, listening to Keel calling the Farmers and the Powells, Paul was still mentally shaking his head. He could understand why she'd felt the urge to swap the babies and to spare the Farmers the devastation of their loss. He could even understand that she'd genuinely thought God had placed her there to do it; he'd spent most of his life around people who believed they were doing God's work. He couldn't quite believe she'd gone against all the hospital's rules and procedures, not to mention medical ethics and sheer common sense, and actually done it, though.
Keel had seemed equally unable to wrap his head around the idea. At one point, he'd asked incredulously, "Didn't you think anyone would notice? Especially once the girls started growing up."
Peggy had collected herself by that point, having sniffed back her tears and accepted the fresh cup of coffee Paul had poured for her. "I didn't think. Not at first." She'd given a small shrug."Afterwards, yes. When… when I saw how upset the other family were. And then when I had to give my statement. But I was too scared to tell anyone what I'd done. And I hoped…. After all, God had given me this chance to make things right, so surely he'd take care of the little details."
Maybe God had taken care of things, Paul reflected, as he steered the car back toward the chain motel on the edge of town where he and Keel were staying. The Powells had moved away, and the Farmers had been given thirteen happy years with the daughter they'd wanted so badly. It was possible Melissa and Kimberly might never have met at all, never known of the other's existence: one jump shot missed—or made—and their teams might never have reached the regional finals together.
oOo
"So what do we do now?" Mrs Powell's question broke the silence that had settled on the room after Keel had finished explaining what he and Paul had discovered.
Keel shrugged. "I don't know. Technically speaking, Melissa is Lauren Powell. Practically speaking,…."
"She's our daughter." Mr Farmer repeated what he'd said two days earlier. "I don't care what anyone says. We raised her. She belongs with us."
Mr Powell cleared his throat. "I'm not sure legally that's—."
"Kevin." His wife put her hand on his arm, her tone soothing. "We talked about this…."
"No, dammit!" He sat forward, throwing off her hand. "The DNA shows it and now the story from that damn fool nurse confirms it. Melissa's our daughter. She's Lauren. She doesn't belong here at all."
"Now, just hold on a goddamned minute—." Mr Farmer was on the edge of his seat too, his fingers digging hard into the upholstery.
Paul saw the two women exchange a look, before Mrs Powell again reached out to her husband. "Kevin, please. Melissa grew up here. I know—" Her voice caught in her throat. "I know she's our baby girl that we thought we'd lost, but just think how we'd feel if it was the other way around and they wanted Kim back."
"But it's not the other way around, is it?" Mr Powell snarled. "Melissa—Lauren is ours just as much as Kim is. And these people stole her from us."
"Hey!" Mr Farmer was on his feet. "We didn't steal anybody. Whatever happened at the hospital, we took home our girl with our name right there on her bracelet. If anyone's trying to steal her, it's you people."
"Mr Powell. Mr Farmer." Paul had gotten to his feet too and stretched out a calming hand between them. "Please, let's—."
Keel was standing too, and suddenly the room seemed very full, the four men occupying the space between the chairs while the two women and the two girls pressed themselves back. Paul heard a plaintive "Dad" from Kimberly's direction and a horrified "Daddy" from Melissa.
"She's our daughter, dammit!" Mr Farmer took a step forward. "We raised her and we made her what she is and she's our baby, no-one else is—."
A crash from over by the fireplace made everyone turn. One of the photographs on the mantelpiece had fallen to the floor; a long crack ran diagonally across the glass, bisecting Melissa's smile.
Mr Farmer turned back to Mr Powell. "Now look what—." He'd barely got three words out before another of the photos lifted from the mantelpiece and flew toward Mr Farmer. He ducked and it caught him a glancing blow on the temple, before spinning away to land by Mr Powell's feet.
"What the—?" Mr Powell backed up against the couch he'd been sitting on, throwing out his arms to protect his wife and daughter on either side of him.
Another photograph launched itself from the mantelpiece. Mr Farmer put his hands up to fend it off. Even as he batted it away, one of the pictures from the bookshelves aimed itself at his head.
"Get down." Paul flung himself at Mr Farmer, wrestling him to the floor and trying to shield the other man's head as well as his own as more pictures hurled themselves at the two of them. Against the clatter of glass and wood and metal, he heard Keel say, "It's Melissa. The real Melissa."
A sharp metal frame caught Paul's cheek and he felt the sting of blood, while hard corners rained down blows on his back and shoulders. He tried to remember how many pictures there were in the room—a lot—and to comfort himself with the thought that whoever or whatever it was would run out of ammunition eventually.
"Melissa?" Keel spoke loudly, making himself heard over the din. "Can you hear me?"
There was a sudden silence. Paul, tensed for the next missile, lifted his head cautiously and peered up. Another photograph hung in the air by the bookshelves. Even as Paul watched, it suddenly fell straight down to the ground, as if whatever entity was holding it up had exhausted itself.
"Good." Keel sounded pleased. Peering back over his shoulder, Paul saw he'd taken a step forward and had his hands open in appeal as he spoke to whatever was manifesting itself. "Listen, Melissa, you shouldn't be angry with your parents…."
Paul jumped at the loud bang that came from the direction of the bookshelves. Turning, he saw a picture had been slammed over. But not thrown. That was an improvement, at least.
Cautiously, he lifted himself away from Mr Farmer a little. Not wanting to disturb Keel's conversation with the spirit—he was speaking with it again—Paul merely raised his eyebrows questioningly as the other man began to roll over. Meeting Paul's gaze, Mr Farmer gave him the slightest of nods. Paul backed off a little more, letting the other man sit up, while he kept a wary eye on the row of photographs still standing on the shelves.
"I can understand you're angry." Keel had lowered his voice a little now he didn't have to compete with the sound of destruction. "Maybe you feel neglected. Like your parents are ignoring you. But this isn't your parents' fault. They didn't know—."
"Look out!" Out of the corner of his eye, Paul had seen a picture rise from the group that stood on top of the TV cabinet on the far side of the room from the bookshelves. Apparently the real Melissa had more of a talent for deception than her namesake; while Keel had been talking to her, thinking she was still by the bookshelves, she'd moved.
Keel turned and raised his hands, managing to get them up in time to stop the picture smashing into his face. A second followed, and he caught it.
"Melissa!"
Paul turned, startled at the voice that had spoken. Melissa had stepped away from her mother, who was cowering against the wall. No, Paul silently amended to himself: Lauren had stepped away from Mrs Farmer.
"Melissa. Sweetheart…." Mr Farmer held out a hand to hold her back.
She looked down at him and Paul saw there were tears in her eyes. "I'm not Melissa," she reminded him, her voice a whisper. "I'm Lauren. Lauren Powell."
She looked back up, toward where the last photograph had been thrown from. "Look, I'm sorry." Her voice cracked a little. "I'm sorry I took your place. I'm sorry I… took what was yours. Your mom and dad—" She shot a quick glance over her shoulder at Mrs Farmer, before giving Mr Farmer a smile as she turned back towards the television. "—they're really great. They're really—."
She stopped, her lips trembling. Mr Farmer reached up and took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Swallowing hard, she went on, "I know we ignored you, but we didn't mean to. We didn't know. Please, don't be angry with them."
"We didn't ignore you." Kimberly stepped around her father's outspread arm and joined her sister in the middle of the room. Paul saw her grope for her sister's free hand as she turned to face the television. "We'd go visit your grave every year, and mom and dad would talk about you sometimes."
Another picture on the TV cabinet rocked a little. Paul tensed, wondering who Melissa was mad at now and which way he would need to fling himself. But after a moment the picture simply fell forward, face down, with a quiet clatter.
"It's my fault." Mrs Farmer's voice cracked a little as she took a pace away from the wall. "I should have known. I should have known this Melissa wasn't you." She reached out and lightly touched the shoulder of the girl she'd thought was her daughter. "I held you and I fed you. Before—. Before you died. I held you and I fed you and I should have known. I'm sorry I didn't."
"You couldn't have…," Keel started to object, but Mrs Farmer shook her head at him, silencing him. She turned back toward where her daughter's spirit had last shown itself.
"I'm sorry we hurt you. We gave the love we should have given to you to someone else, and that isn't how things should have been." Mrs Farmer hesitated and then slipped her arm around the girl who had been raised as Melissa and smiled down at her. "But I can't regret loving her, loving this Melissa. She may not be our blood, but she is our daughter. I just hope you know we would have loved you just as much."
The picture frame quivered.
"And we did love you, even though you weren't ours." It was Mrs Powell's turn to speak up. She put her hand on her husband's arm and he turned to look down at her and meet her gaze. "You were loved and missed, Melissa. You were. I don't think there's been a day that's gone past that we haven't thought of you. Please don't be angry with your parents."
The picture frame rocked again and then slowly lifted itself upright. It teetered for a moment, before settling back in place, once more displaying the photograph to the room: the Farmers holding Melissa—Lauren—as a baby, proud smiles on their faces.
"Thank you." Mrs Farmer tightened her arm around Lauren's shoulders as she whispered the words. She looked across at the Powells. "Lisa, Kevin, may we visit Melissa's grave?"
"Of course." Mrs Powell nodded at her. "Any time."
Paul couldn't have told how he knew—except maybe, just at the edge of hearing, he caught a baby's chuckle—but he suddenly sensed that Melissa was gone. Her spirit had perhaps found its release and had finally moved on to wherever it was supposed to be. Getting back to his feet and helping Mr Farmer up, Paul found himself murmuring, "Anima eius et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace."
He hoped she could find peace at last. He hoped all of them could.
oOo
While Keel had a few last words with the Farmers and the Powells, Paul stepped outside. The girls were where he'd expected to find them, standing under the basketball hoop. Kimberly held the ball in front of her, but they didn't look like they'd been playing. Seeing him, they exchanged a glance and then crossed to meet him as he came down the steps.
Melissa's gaze went to the cut on his head, which Keel had cleaned and closed with a couple of butterfly bandages. "Does it hurt?"
Paul gave a wry laugh. "I've had worse." Catching her anxious look, he added quickly. "I'll be fine."
She nodded, her expression serious. "Do you think we'll see her again? The… real Melissa, I mean."
Paul shook his head. "I don't think so. It felt like she's at peace now."
Melissa looked up at him coyly from under her lashes. "And will we see you again?"
Paul scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Uh. Probably not." He dropped his hand. "But your parents have promised to let us know how things go."
Both girls looked a little disappointed and there was a moment of awkward silence while he cast around for something else to say. What the heck was taking Keel so long inside? He cleared his throat. "What you did back there, that was very brave. Both of you."
Melissa simply shrugged, a blush coloring her cheeks, but Kimberly giggled and offered up an embarrassed-sounding, "Thanks." Spinning the basketball in her hands, she added, "And thanks for, you know, the thing with the shooting…."
"It helped?" Paul allowed himself a rueful chuckle inside at how absurdly pleased he felt to hear he'd made a difference about that, given all they'd been through and all they'd achieved in the past few days.
Kimberly nodded. "Yeah. I still forget sometimes, you know? When I don't have time to think about it. But when I remember? Yeah, it really helps."
"Well, lots of practice and you won't have to remember," he reminded her. "It'll come naturally. That's the secret to being good at anything."
Melissa looked up coyly from under her lashes at him. "I guess you must have had a lot of practice at… this." She flapped her hand in the direction of the house. "Dealing with ghosts and stuff."
He laughed and shook his head. "This? I'm just a beginner."
"Beginner's luck, huh?" Paul jumped as Keel slapped him on the shoulder. He hadn't heard him come out of the house. "Come on, time to drag you away from these two delightful young women and get you home. Ladies." He dipped his head in salute to them and headed down the path.
Paul turned back to the girls. "Gotta go. The Boss has spoken. Take care, okay?" Giving them a parting smile, he headed after Keel.
oOo
Settling into the car, Paul closed his eyes against the early evening sun and leaned his head back, letting Keel steer the car back to the Interstate.
"So, how was it?" Keel asked after a few minutes, when they'd reached a steady cruising speed.
"How was what?" Paul opened one eye and squinted in his direction.
"Meeting your first ghost."
Paul's lips twitched. "Who says it's my first?"
"Is there something you haven't been telling me?" Keel's startled question was accompanied by the car taking a lurch sideways on to the shoulder. Keel swore under his breath as he wrenched them back onto the road. From somewhere behind them, a horn blared. Paul grabbed on to door handle and made a mental note not to tease Keel when he was driving.
"No." Paul cautiously let go of the door handle. "I've seen a few weird things, but no ghosts before." When he'd seen Tommy in the church, he'd been imagining it, hadn't he? It had just been his mind playing tricks. He huffed a laugh. "And it was painful." He lifted his hand to touch the band-aid on his cheek.
"Our line of work often can be." Keel sounded fatalistic.
Paul thought for a moment about asking Keel why he did it, if it was so dangerous. Why not stay at Harvard, where the worst he'd face was some metaphorical backstabbing from his peers. He wasn't sure he wanted to get into that discussion—or his own part in Keel's choices—right now. Settling himself more comfortably in the car seat, he turned the topic back to the case. "So. Ghosts. I thought they usually haunted the place where they died."
Keel nodded. "That's quite common, yes. But perhaps in Melissa's case, she was more attached to the mother who'd just given birth to her than the hospital, and she hitched a ride."
"Uh-huh." Paul lifted his hand and then lowered it again, resisting the urge to scratch his cheek. "Do you think they'll be okay?"
"Oh, I should think so." Keel took one hand off the wheel and waved it breezily. "Now that Melissa seems to have forgiven her parents, I doubt they'll have any more trouble."
Paul shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I mean, with Melissa turning out to be the Powells' daughter after all. That's got to be pretty… confusing and upsetting for her."
Keel shrugged. "They seem to be handling it okay."
That was true enough. Mr Powell had come into the kitchen while Keel was patching up the gash on Paul's cheek and told them Melissa would be staying with the Farmers. He'd given a slight shrug. "She might have our genes, but she's their daughter, and it's best for her."
Paul thought he was right—about Melissa being the Farmers' daughter, even if they weren't genetically related. Poppi had always been more of a father to him than the man who'd given him his name and disappeared out of his life before Paul was old enough to remember him. And he could barely remember his mother, either: just a few brief impressions of being held and wanted, of her quietly murmuring a lullaby, of his hand reaching out futilely for hers before a nun had bundled him out of her hospital room.
The Farmers had given Melissa thirteen years of love and care, the way Poppi had cared for Paul for thirteen years in the orphanage. The way he still cared for him. Paul knew that was really mattered.
Flinching as Keel had applied a band-aid over the cut, Paul had tried to reassure Mr Powell. "I'm sure you're doing the right thing."
"How will you handle things legally?" Keel had been gathering together the used cotton buds and the wrapping from the band-aid and was dropping them in the trash.
Mr Powell had run a hand through his hair. "I guess we'll have to consult a lawyer about that. See about getting a statement from that nurse you spoke to. And the Farmers will maybe have to adopt Melissa, or we'll have to have some kind of fostering agreement." He'd smiled. "We can sort it out. After everything we've been through, that's the easy part."
"I think you've both gained a daughter," Paul had offered.
Mr Powell had nodded. "Yes, I think you're right. Whatever happens, we're going to make sure Kimberly and Melissa get to spend some time together. Get to know each other." He'd hesitated and then jerked his head toward the living room, where they'd left the two families clearing up the mess the real Melissa had made. "We're going to visit the grave. We didn't know if you'd like to come…."
Keel had rubbed his hands together as if dusting off some dirt. "No, no. We'll leave that to you. The two of us should be getting back to Boston."
"Okay, then." Mr Powell had held out his hand to Keel. "In that case, we just wanted to thank you for your help. I don't know why you guys do this, but we appreciate it."
Keel had shaken his hand. "We're just in search of the truth."
"And sometimes we get to help people along the way," Paul had added when it was his turn to shake Mr Powell's hand. Keel's quiet snort hadn't been lost on him, but Paul hadn't cared.
Closing his eyes and settling back into the car seat as they headed back to Boston, Paul remembered what he'd though back at the house and nodded to himself. Whatever reasons Keel had for running SQ—and no matter how much his blinders might make him behave in ways that made Paul cringe—Paul knew he could do good work here.
Fandom: Miracles
Rating: General
Contains: neonatal death
Words: 15160 words
Summary: A few weeks after Paul joins Sodalitas Quaerito, Keel drags him off to Pennsylvania to investigate a case involving identical twins born to different mothers. As well as unraveling the truth of the case, Paul begins to discover what working with Keel will be like.
Author's Note: Written for the
casestory big bang and based on one line in episode 1.03 The Patient. Wonderful art for the story was created by nickygabriel and can be seen at http://nickygabriel.livejournal.com/506325.html. Thanks to scribblesinink for the beta and sgafan for helping me with some Americana.Disclaimer: This story is based on the David Greenwalt Productions/ Spyglass Entertainment/ Touchstone Television series Miracles. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it.
Go To Part One
An elderly woman was out front as Keel and Paul approached the small brick house. She was busy weeding the borders that lined each side of the path leading to the front stoop and didn't look up until Paul's shadow fell across her. He guessed she might be slightly deaf.
"Mrs Margaret Clark?"
"Peggy," she corrected with a smile. She sat back on her heels and pulled off her gardening gloves. "And who might you young men be? I'm not buying anything and I'm quite happy with my church. St Mary's, just back up the road there." She gestured with one hand.
Paul found himself grinning back at her directness. "I'm Paul Callan and this is Alva Keel." He gestured in Keel's direction. "We'd like to talk to you about something that happened while you were working at Divine Providence hospital."
"Hmm." Paul thought he caught a flicker of unease in her eyes. "Well, then, I guess you'd better come in and have something to drink. Here." She held out her hand to Paul. "Twenty years lifting patients didn't do my back and knees any good at all."
Paul helped her to her feet, finding her grip unexpectedly strong, and followed her inside the house. Keel brought up the rear. Somewhat to Paul's surprise, he was carrying the small basket of gardening tools Peggy had left on the path. She smiled at him as she took it from him and put it on the hall table. "Thank you, dear."
Peggy Clark seemed to have a lot of grandchildren and a fondness for china rabbits, judging by the decor of the living room she showed them into. She waved away Paul's offer to help with the coffee and disappeared to the kitchen, bustling back a few minutes later with a tray neatly laid out with china cups and saucers, a sugar bowl and cream in a jug.
"Now, then," she said, when they'd all been served and she'd settled herself into an armchair. "What do you want to know?"
Keel gestured to Paul that he should be the one to speak. Paul turned back to Peggy. "You worked in the labor ward at Divine Providence as a nursing assistant, didn't you?"
"Yes." Peggy nodded. "I started off in a surgical ward, but then they transferred me to the labor ward and I spent nearly twenty years there. Such a happy place, you know? So much joy."
Paul leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. "But not always?" he suggested gently. "Sometimes some of those babies are stillborn? And sometimes they don't live for very long?"
"Sometimes." Peggy had been restlessly playing with the bottom edge of her sweater, but now her hands stilled in her lap. Her gaze slid away from Paul's. He dipped his head to try and catch her eye again.
"Do you remember a baby called Lauren Powell?"
Peggy didn't answer, but Paul, watching closely, saw her lips tighten a little, as if keeping her response in check. When it was clear she wasn't going to say anything more he prompted, "She died a few hours after birth. The ME's report says you were the one who found her."
"Then I guess I must have." Peggy's gaze flicked up to his face for a moment and then away again. Her tone was flat, yet with a little something at the edge that told Paul she wasn't nearly as indifferent as she was pretending to be.
"Are you saying you don't remember?" Keel, now also perched on the edge of his seat, peered at her with a frown.
Peggy turned her head away from both of them. "There were a lot of babies." Her tone had taken a peevish, almost childish turn.
"I don't suppose you remember a baby called Melissa Farmer, either?"
Keel's voice was soft in the quiet room and Paul wondered for a moment whether Peggy could hear him. The way she'd spoken herself when offering them coffee, a shade too loud, suggested his initial guess that she was a little hard of hearing had been right. But the slight twitch of her cheek when Keel spoke Melissa's name told Paul that she could hear well enough. He thought now he knew what had happened, though he still had no idea why.
"Melissa was born around the same time as Lauren," Keel reminded her. "They were in the nursery together. So was Lauren's twin sister, Kimberly."
Peggy turned her head further away and closed her eyes. Paul suspected she was wishing she was a lot deafer than she was.
"Peggy?" Leaning forward and touching her arm, Paul discovered she was trembling slightly. "We're not here to get you into trouble. We just want to know what happened."
Peggy drew in a deep, shuddering breath, before she turned her head and, opening her eyes, looked back at Paul.
"The baby the Farmers took home: that was Lauren, wasn't it?" Paul raised his eyebrows a little, seeking confirmation. "The real Melissa was the baby who died?"
Peggy nodded, letting out a small gasp that she quickly smothered with a hand to her mouth.
"Why?" Keel was shaking his head. "Why did you switch them? What possible—?"
A tear trickled down Peggy's wrinkled cheek. Paul dug in his pocket and passed her a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes with it.
"They wanted a baby so much." Her voice was hoarse. "She talked about it, Mrs Farmer, when I went in to there take her vitals. She told me they'd waited ten years and they'd tried everything and they'd given up. And then God had given them this… miracle." She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes again.
So much joy, she'd said. Paul found his own throat growing tight, making it hard to ask the next question. "And then you were in the nursery later that night and you found Melissa and she wasn't breathing?"
Peggy nodded. "I was doing a regular check." She swallowed. "I was a bit late doing it. We were really short-staffed that night. There'd been a storm and a lot of trees had come down and the roads were blocked, so people couldn't get in. But she'd been fine—they'd all been fine the last time I'd checked. But this time…. Her lips were blue. Really blue. And I knew that even if the doctors came, even if they tried…." She looked down at her hands twisting together in her lap.
"It would have been too late?"
Peggy nodded wordlessly.
"So you swapped the bracelets and put Lauren in the bassinet that Melissa had been in? And then you called the doctors?"
Peggy nodded again.
"And you didn't think about how the Powells would feel finding out their baby had died? How much hurt that would cause them?" Keel sounded faintly disgusted.
"They had two babies!" Peggy's head came up and her eyes were blazing. "They'd still have one even if they lost one. And they were young. They'd be able to have more children. The Farmers…. They'd had a miracle and then something went wrong, but God put those two baby girls there and He put me there so I could make it right."
Driving away from Peggy's house, listening to Keel calling the Farmers and the Powells, Paul was still mentally shaking his head. He could understand why she'd felt the urge to swap the babies and to spare the Farmers the devastation of their loss. He could even understand that she'd genuinely thought God had placed her there to do it; he'd spent most of his life around people who believed they were doing God's work. He couldn't quite believe she'd gone against all the hospital's rules and procedures, not to mention medical ethics and sheer common sense, and actually done it, though.
Keel had seemed equally unable to wrap his head around the idea. At one point, he'd asked incredulously, "Didn't you think anyone would notice? Especially once the girls started growing up."
Peggy had collected herself by that point, having sniffed back her tears and accepted the fresh cup of coffee Paul had poured for her. "I didn't think. Not at first." She'd given a small shrug."Afterwards, yes. When… when I saw how upset the other family were. And then when I had to give my statement. But I was too scared to tell anyone what I'd done. And I hoped…. After all, God had given me this chance to make things right, so surely he'd take care of the little details."
Maybe God had taken care of things, Paul reflected, as he steered the car back toward the chain motel on the edge of town where he and Keel were staying. The Powells had moved away, and the Farmers had been given thirteen happy years with the daughter they'd wanted so badly. It was possible Melissa and Kimberly might never have met at all, never known of the other's existence: one jump shot missed—or made—and their teams might never have reached the regional finals together.
"So what do we do now?" Mrs Powell's question broke the silence that had settled on the room after Keel had finished explaining what he and Paul had discovered.
Keel shrugged. "I don't know. Technically speaking, Melissa is Lauren Powell. Practically speaking,…."
"She's our daughter." Mr Farmer repeated what he'd said two days earlier. "I don't care what anyone says. We raised her. She belongs with us."
Mr Powell cleared his throat. "I'm not sure legally that's—."
"Kevin." His wife put her hand on his arm, her tone soothing. "We talked about this…."
"No, dammit!" He sat forward, throwing off her hand. "The DNA shows it and now the story from that damn fool nurse confirms it. Melissa's our daughter. She's Lauren. She doesn't belong here at all."
"Now, just hold on a goddamned minute—." Mr Farmer was on the edge of his seat too, his fingers digging hard into the upholstery.
Paul saw the two women exchange a look, before Mrs Powell again reached out to her husband. "Kevin, please. Melissa grew up here. I know—" Her voice caught in her throat. "I know she's our baby girl that we thought we'd lost, but just think how we'd feel if it was the other way around and they wanted Kim back."
"But it's not the other way around, is it?" Mr Powell snarled. "Melissa—Lauren is ours just as much as Kim is. And these people stole her from us."
"Hey!" Mr Farmer was on his feet. "We didn't steal anybody. Whatever happened at the hospital, we took home our girl with our name right there on her bracelet. If anyone's trying to steal her, it's you people."
"Mr Powell. Mr Farmer." Paul had gotten to his feet too and stretched out a calming hand between them. "Please, let's—."
Keel was standing too, and suddenly the room seemed very full, the four men occupying the space between the chairs while the two women and the two girls pressed themselves back. Paul heard a plaintive "Dad" from Kimberly's direction and a horrified "Daddy" from Melissa.
"She's our daughter, dammit!" Mr Farmer took a step forward. "We raised her and we made her what she is and she's our baby, no-one else is—."
A crash from over by the fireplace made everyone turn. One of the photographs on the mantelpiece had fallen to the floor; a long crack ran diagonally across the glass, bisecting Melissa's smile.
Mr Farmer turned back to Mr Powell. "Now look what—." He'd barely got three words out before another of the photos lifted from the mantelpiece and flew toward Mr Farmer. He ducked and it caught him a glancing blow on the temple, before spinning away to land by Mr Powell's feet.
"What the—?" Mr Powell backed up against the couch he'd been sitting on, throwing out his arms to protect his wife and daughter on either side of him.
Another photograph launched itself from the mantelpiece. Mr Farmer put his hands up to fend it off. Even as he batted it away, one of the pictures from the bookshelves aimed itself at his head.
"Get down." Paul flung himself at Mr Farmer, wrestling him to the floor and trying to shield the other man's head as well as his own as more pictures hurled themselves at the two of them. Against the clatter of glass and wood and metal, he heard Keel say, "It's Melissa. The real Melissa."
A sharp metal frame caught Paul's cheek and he felt the sting of blood, while hard corners rained down blows on his back and shoulders. He tried to remember how many pictures there were in the room—a lot—and to comfort himself with the thought that whoever or whatever it was would run out of ammunition eventually.
"Melissa?" Keel spoke loudly, making himself heard over the din. "Can you hear me?"
There was a sudden silence. Paul, tensed for the next missile, lifted his head cautiously and peered up. Another photograph hung in the air by the bookshelves. Even as Paul watched, it suddenly fell straight down to the ground, as if whatever entity was holding it up had exhausted itself.
"Good." Keel sounded pleased. Peering back over his shoulder, Paul saw he'd taken a step forward and had his hands open in appeal as he spoke to whatever was manifesting itself. "Listen, Melissa, you shouldn't be angry with your parents…."
Paul jumped at the loud bang that came from the direction of the bookshelves. Turning, he saw a picture had been slammed over. But not thrown. That was an improvement, at least.
Cautiously, he lifted himself away from Mr Farmer a little. Not wanting to disturb Keel's conversation with the spirit—he was speaking with it again—Paul merely raised his eyebrows questioningly as the other man began to roll over. Meeting Paul's gaze, Mr Farmer gave him the slightest of nods. Paul backed off a little more, letting the other man sit up, while he kept a wary eye on the row of photographs still standing on the shelves.
"I can understand you're angry." Keel had lowered his voice a little now he didn't have to compete with the sound of destruction. "Maybe you feel neglected. Like your parents are ignoring you. But this isn't your parents' fault. They didn't know—."
"Look out!" Out of the corner of his eye, Paul had seen a picture rise from the group that stood on top of the TV cabinet on the far side of the room from the bookshelves. Apparently the real Melissa had more of a talent for deception than her namesake; while Keel had been talking to her, thinking she was still by the bookshelves, she'd moved.
Keel turned and raised his hands, managing to get them up in time to stop the picture smashing into his face. A second followed, and he caught it.
"Melissa!"
Paul turned, startled at the voice that had spoken. Melissa had stepped away from her mother, who was cowering against the wall. No, Paul silently amended to himself: Lauren had stepped away from Mrs Farmer.
"Melissa. Sweetheart…." Mr Farmer held out a hand to hold her back.
She looked down at him and Paul saw there were tears in her eyes. "I'm not Melissa," she reminded him, her voice a whisper. "I'm Lauren. Lauren Powell."
She looked back up, toward where the last photograph had been thrown from. "Look, I'm sorry." Her voice cracked a little. "I'm sorry I took your place. I'm sorry I… took what was yours. Your mom and dad—" She shot a quick glance over her shoulder at Mrs Farmer, before giving Mr Farmer a smile as she turned back towards the television. "—they're really great. They're really—."
She stopped, her lips trembling. Mr Farmer reached up and took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Swallowing hard, she went on, "I know we ignored you, but we didn't mean to. We didn't know. Please, don't be angry with them."
"We didn't ignore you." Kimberly stepped around her father's outspread arm and joined her sister in the middle of the room. Paul saw her grope for her sister's free hand as she turned to face the television. "We'd go visit your grave every year, and mom and dad would talk about you sometimes."
Another picture on the TV cabinet rocked a little. Paul tensed, wondering who Melissa was mad at now and which way he would need to fling himself. But after a moment the picture simply fell forward, face down, with a quiet clatter.
"It's my fault." Mrs Farmer's voice cracked a little as she took a pace away from the wall. "I should have known. I should have known this Melissa wasn't you." She reached out and lightly touched the shoulder of the girl she'd thought was her daughter. "I held you and I fed you. Before—. Before you died. I held you and I fed you and I should have known. I'm sorry I didn't."
"You couldn't have…," Keel started to object, but Mrs Farmer shook her head at him, silencing him. She turned back toward where her daughter's spirit had last shown itself.
"I'm sorry we hurt you. We gave the love we should have given to you to someone else, and that isn't how things should have been." Mrs Farmer hesitated and then slipped her arm around the girl who had been raised as Melissa and smiled down at her. "But I can't regret loving her, loving this Melissa. She may not be our blood, but she is our daughter. I just hope you know we would have loved you just as much."
The picture frame quivered.
"And we did love you, even though you weren't ours." It was Mrs Powell's turn to speak up. She put her hand on her husband's arm and he turned to look down at her and meet her gaze. "You were loved and missed, Melissa. You were. I don't think there's been a day that's gone past that we haven't thought of you. Please don't be angry with your parents."
The picture frame rocked again and then slowly lifted itself upright. It teetered for a moment, before settling back in place, once more displaying the photograph to the room: the Farmers holding Melissa—Lauren—as a baby, proud smiles on their faces.
"Thank you." Mrs Farmer tightened her arm around Lauren's shoulders as she whispered the words. She looked across at the Powells. "Lisa, Kevin, may we visit Melissa's grave?"
"Of course." Mrs Powell nodded at her. "Any time."
Paul couldn't have told how he knew—except maybe, just at the edge of hearing, he caught a baby's chuckle—but he suddenly sensed that Melissa was gone. Her spirit had perhaps found its release and had finally moved on to wherever it was supposed to be. Getting back to his feet and helping Mr Farmer up, Paul found himself murmuring, "Anima eius et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace."
He hoped she could find peace at last. He hoped all of them could.
While Keel had a few last words with the Farmers and the Powells, Paul stepped outside. The girls were where he'd expected to find them, standing under the basketball hoop. Kimberly held the ball in front of her, but they didn't look like they'd been playing. Seeing him, they exchanged a glance and then crossed to meet him as he came down the steps.
Melissa's gaze went to the cut on his head, which Keel had cleaned and closed with a couple of butterfly bandages. "Does it hurt?"
Paul gave a wry laugh. "I've had worse." Catching her anxious look, he added quickly. "I'll be fine."
She nodded, her expression serious. "Do you think we'll see her again? The… real Melissa, I mean."
Paul shook his head. "I don't think so. It felt like she's at peace now."
Melissa looked up at him coyly from under her lashes. "And will we see you again?"
Paul scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Uh. Probably not." He dropped his hand. "But your parents have promised to let us know how things go."
Both girls looked a little disappointed and there was a moment of awkward silence while he cast around for something else to say. What the heck was taking Keel so long inside? He cleared his throat. "What you did back there, that was very brave. Both of you."
Melissa simply shrugged, a blush coloring her cheeks, but Kimberly giggled and offered up an embarrassed-sounding, "Thanks." Spinning the basketball in her hands, she added, "And thanks for, you know, the thing with the shooting…."
"It helped?" Paul allowed himself a rueful chuckle inside at how absurdly pleased he felt to hear he'd made a difference about that, given all they'd been through and all they'd achieved in the past few days.
Kimberly nodded. "Yeah. I still forget sometimes, you know? When I don't have time to think about it. But when I remember? Yeah, it really helps."
"Well, lots of practice and you won't have to remember," he reminded her. "It'll come naturally. That's the secret to being good at anything."
Melissa looked up coyly from under her lashes at him. "I guess you must have had a lot of practice at… this." She flapped her hand in the direction of the house. "Dealing with ghosts and stuff."
He laughed and shook his head. "This? I'm just a beginner."
"Beginner's luck, huh?" Paul jumped as Keel slapped him on the shoulder. He hadn't heard him come out of the house. "Come on, time to drag you away from these two delightful young women and get you home. Ladies." He dipped his head in salute to them and headed down the path.
Paul turned back to the girls. "Gotta go. The Boss has spoken. Take care, okay?" Giving them a parting smile, he headed after Keel.
Settling into the car, Paul closed his eyes against the early evening sun and leaned his head back, letting Keel steer the car back to the Interstate.
"So, how was it?" Keel asked after a few minutes, when they'd reached a steady cruising speed.
"How was what?" Paul opened one eye and squinted in his direction.
"Meeting your first ghost."
Paul's lips twitched. "Who says it's my first?"
"Is there something you haven't been telling me?" Keel's startled question was accompanied by the car taking a lurch sideways on to the shoulder. Keel swore under his breath as he wrenched them back onto the road. From somewhere behind them, a horn blared. Paul grabbed on to door handle and made a mental note not to tease Keel when he was driving.
"No." Paul cautiously let go of the door handle. "I've seen a few weird things, but no ghosts before." When he'd seen Tommy in the church, he'd been imagining it, hadn't he? It had just been his mind playing tricks. He huffed a laugh. "And it was painful." He lifted his hand to touch the band-aid on his cheek.
"Our line of work often can be." Keel sounded fatalistic.
Paul thought for a moment about asking Keel why he did it, if it was so dangerous. Why not stay at Harvard, where the worst he'd face was some metaphorical backstabbing from his peers. He wasn't sure he wanted to get into that discussion—or his own part in Keel's choices—right now. Settling himself more comfortably in the car seat, he turned the topic back to the case. "So. Ghosts. I thought they usually haunted the place where they died."
Keel nodded. "That's quite common, yes. But perhaps in Melissa's case, she was more attached to the mother who'd just given birth to her than the hospital, and she hitched a ride."
"Uh-huh." Paul lifted his hand and then lowered it again, resisting the urge to scratch his cheek. "Do you think they'll be okay?"
"Oh, I should think so." Keel took one hand off the wheel and waved it breezily. "Now that Melissa seems to have forgiven her parents, I doubt they'll have any more trouble."
Paul shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I mean, with Melissa turning out to be the Powells' daughter after all. That's got to be pretty… confusing and upsetting for her."
Keel shrugged. "They seem to be handling it okay."
That was true enough. Mr Powell had come into the kitchen while Keel was patching up the gash on Paul's cheek and told them Melissa would be staying with the Farmers. He'd given a slight shrug. "She might have our genes, but she's their daughter, and it's best for her."
Paul thought he was right—about Melissa being the Farmers' daughter, even if they weren't genetically related. Poppi had always been more of a father to him than the man who'd given him his name and disappeared out of his life before Paul was old enough to remember him. And he could barely remember his mother, either: just a few brief impressions of being held and wanted, of her quietly murmuring a lullaby, of his hand reaching out futilely for hers before a nun had bundled him out of her hospital room.
The Farmers had given Melissa thirteen years of love and care, the way Poppi had cared for Paul for thirteen years in the orphanage. The way he still cared for him. Paul knew that was really mattered.
Flinching as Keel had applied a band-aid over the cut, Paul had tried to reassure Mr Powell. "I'm sure you're doing the right thing."
"How will you handle things legally?" Keel had been gathering together the used cotton buds and the wrapping from the band-aid and was dropping them in the trash.
Mr Powell had run a hand through his hair. "I guess we'll have to consult a lawyer about that. See about getting a statement from that nurse you spoke to. And the Farmers will maybe have to adopt Melissa, or we'll have to have some kind of fostering agreement." He'd smiled. "We can sort it out. After everything we've been through, that's the easy part."
"I think you've both gained a daughter," Paul had offered.
Mr Powell had nodded. "Yes, I think you're right. Whatever happens, we're going to make sure Kimberly and Melissa get to spend some time together. Get to know each other." He'd hesitated and then jerked his head toward the living room, where they'd left the two families clearing up the mess the real Melissa had made. "We're going to visit the grave. We didn't know if you'd like to come…."
Keel had rubbed his hands together as if dusting off some dirt. "No, no. We'll leave that to you. The two of us should be getting back to Boston."
"Okay, then." Mr Powell had held out his hand to Keel. "In that case, we just wanted to thank you for your help. I don't know why you guys do this, but we appreciate it."
Keel had shaken his hand. "We're just in search of the truth."
"And sometimes we get to help people along the way," Paul had added when it was his turn to shake Mr Powell's hand. Keel's quiet snort hadn't been lost on him, but Paul hadn't cared.
Closing his eyes and settling back into the car seat as they headed back to Boston, Paul remembered what he'd though back at the house and nodded to himself. Whatever reasons Keel had for running SQ—and no matter how much his blinders might make him behave in ways that made Paul cringe—Paul knew he could do good work here.
