The Secret Sin. Darlene Gardner

hoping the girl might be caught off guard into providing her phone number. Lindsey shook her head. Figuring now was not the time to hassle her, Annie returned the forms to the reception desk and settled back to wait.

      Noisy twin boys who were probably still in preschool banged around the waiting room, traveling from toy to toy, their attention spans not much longer than a gnat’s. Two seats away, a surprisingly calm woman who looked vaguely familiar leaned over. Her thin legs poked out beneath baggy madras shorts, and she wore her frizzy blond hair in a ponytail.

      “One of my boys has a little cold, but they’re mainly here for a checkup,” she said. “I already told the receptionist your Lindsey could go ahead of us.”

      “Thanks,” Annie said.

      “You don’t remember me, do you?” She placed a bony hand on her chest. “I’m Edie Clark now, but my maiden name is Cristello. We went to high school together.”

      Now that the other woman had identified herself, Annie wondered how she could have failed to recognize her. Edie had been one of the popular girls who whispered and giggled whenever Annie passed them in the hall.

      “We just moved from Virginia after the school year ended. That’s where my husband’s from. I convinced him Indigo Springs was a great place to raise a family.” Edie looked pointedly at Annie. “Do you have kids?”

      The door to the inner office opened. A fortyish nurse with a kind face appeared, clipboard in hand, calling out, “Lindsey Thompson.”

      “Go ahead, Lindsey.” Annie nodded to the girl, who got unsteadily to her feet and moved gingerly through the office.

      The nurse stood back, letting Lindsey precede her through the inner door, but didn’t immediately follow. Her gaze zeroed in on Annie. “Wouldn’t you like to come with her?”

      Annie couldn’t imagine her presence would help put Lindsey at ease. The opposite might be true. “Won’t you be there when the doctor examines her?”

      “Well, yes,” the nurse said.

      “Then I’ll wait here.”

      “Very well.” The nurse’s slow acceptance of her decision made Annie wonder if she’d made the wrong choice. “I’ll come get you when the doctor’s done. You’ll want to hear what he has to say.”

      Edie gazed at her curiously as the nurse took her leave, no doubt wondering why she hadn’t gone with Lindsey. Annie remembered that Edie and her high-school friends had been nicknamed the Gossip Girls long before the TV show became popular.

      “Lindsey and I aren’t related.” Annie decided it would be better to tell Edie the truth than have her spread rumors. “She’s a friend of the family.”

      “I thought she might be a stepdaughter, but I was pretty sure you weren’t married,” Edie said. “Didn’t I hear something about you taking over your father’s rafting business?”

      “Not true,” Annie said, although the misconception was a common one. Some people in town already had her as the new owner. “I’m still a magazine writer. My boss let me take the summer off so I can run the business for my father while he’s out of the country.”

      “He’s in Poland, right?” Edie asked.

      “Right,” Annie said.

      One of the twin boys barreled over to Edie, stopped dead in front of her and pointed to his face. Edie dug a tissue out of her purse and wordlessly swiped at the little boy’s runny nose.

      Annie picked up a magazine on fly fishing and flipped it open. Edie’s son rejoined his brother, plopping down on the floor in front of a fort they were constructing from plastic building blocks.

      Edie ignored the hint that Annie wasn’t up for any more conversation. “You do know Ryan Whitmore’s back in town, right?”

      Annie hid a grimace, afraid that Edie and her friends had guessed how Annie felt about him in high school. Why else would Edie bring him up? She composed herself and looked up from the magazine. “Why do you ask?”

      Bonnie Raitt started to sing suddenly, her powerful voice cutting off whatever response Edie had been about to give. Annie fished her cell phone from the deep pocket of her shorts, muted the ring tone and checked the display. Her father’s number displayed on the small screen.

      “Excuse me.” She stood up, grateful for an excuse to get away from Edie. She headed for the exit and privacy, waiting until she was outside on the sidewalk to press the receive button. The door of a gift shop next door was slowly swinging shut behind a customer, and she caught the sweet smell of scented candles.

      “Hello, Dad.” She headed up the hill from the pediatrician’s office, away from a group of window-shopping tourists. As the hour neared five o’clock, the traffic on the street had thickened, the number of cars seemingly out of place on the too narrow quaint street. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

      “I didn’t have my phone with me.” Her father’s voice was scratchy and hard to make out, but it was still wonderful to hear from him. After her mother deserted them when Annie was four years old, they’d grown exceptionally close. “Is something wrong?”

      “Not really.” She got straight to the point. “I called to ask you about Lindsey Thompson.”

      Interference in the connection combined with the incidental street noise made it difficult to tell whether her father had responded.

      “Dad?” Annie prompted. “Are you still there?”

      “What about Lindsey Thompson?” His voice sounded odd, but that could have been due to the poor reception.

      “She phoned from the train station to say she’d come to visit you. She said she knows you through Joe Nowak.”

      There was a long pause before he said, “That’s true.”

      “Why didn’t you ever tell me Helene Nowak had a daughter?” Annie asked. “I’m positive you didn’t mention it when she died.”

      “I didn’t.” The strange vibe remained in his voice. “Where is Lindsey now?”

      “Here in Indigo Springs. With me. There were no trains back to Pittsburgh today so now I’m wondering what to do with a fifteen-year-old.”

      “Lindsey told you she was fifteen?”

      “Isn’t she?”

      “She’s thirteen,” her father said.

      Thirteen.

      The unlucky number flashed in Annie’s mind like a neon warning sign. And just like that, she knew.

      Her muscles clenched and her stomach muscles tightened against the blow that was coming. It was the only way the events of the past few hours made sense.

      “Who is Lindsey Thompson, Dad?” she prompted, her voice already trembling.

      “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

      She suppressed an urge to toss the cell phone into the street, where the tires of a passing car would smash it. She took a deep breath and smelled exhaust fumes. She forced her vocal chords into action. “Want me to find out what?”

      “She’s your daughter.”

      Annie sank onto the nearest stoop. The traffic continued to pass by while across the street a bell jingled as customers went in and out of an ice-cream shop, the scene the same as it had been moments before.

      But for Annie, everything had changed with three world-shattering words.

      “There you are.” Edie Clark appeared as though she’d materialized out of thin air. “I told the receptionist I’d come out and get you.”

      “Annie?” Her father’s voice came over the phone, urgent and worried. “Are you okay?”

      She