The county clerk's office was nearly empty when we returned.
Bonnie looked up as Jeremy and I walked through the doors together.
Her eyes moved from me to him.
Then back to me.
She understood immediately.
“Mrs. Tolley.”
I walked to the counter.
“You said there was another record.”
Jeremy stood beside me.
Bonnie hesitated.
“Sir, I need to speak with your wife privately.”
“No.”
I answered before Jeremy could.
“If it's about my marriage, he stays.”
Bonnie nodded.
She opened the database.
“There are older records attached to Jeremy's full name.”
“How many?”
“One additional record that concerns me.”
Jeremy leaned toward the screen.
Bonnie stopped him.
“I can't disclose another person's protected information without proper authorization.”
“Then tell us what you can.”
She looked at me.
“The record is from Alabama.”
Jeremy's face changed.
I noticed.
“So you know it.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
I turned toward him.
“You've been married before.”
He didn't answer.
Bonnie looked uncomfortable.
“Mrs. Tolley, perhaps you should—”
“No.”
I kept my eyes on Jeremy.
“Who was she?”
His shoulders dropped.
“Rebecca.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Why have I never heard it?”
“Because I was nineteen.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“I ran away with her.”
I stared at him.
“You were married before me?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Eleven months.”
I laughed without humor.
“So today I learned my husband has been married twice before?”
“Not twice before.”
“Then explain.”
He rubbed his hands over his face.
“I married Rebecca when I was nineteen. We were young. She was pregnant.”
The word pregnancy seemed to follow him everywhere.
“What happened?”
“She lost the baby.”
I looked at Bonnie.
Then back at Jeremy.
“Another baby.”
He nodded.
“Seven months.”
“Was that the accident?”
“Yes.”
“You were driving.”
“Yes.”
“And she survived.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Rebecca?”
“She left.”
“Where?”
“Back to her mother.”
I stared at him.
“And you never contacted her again?”
“I tried.”
“How many times?”
He looked away.
“Not enough.”
Bonnie quietly printed the old record.
I took it.
Rebecca Anne Harper.
Jeremy Lee Tolley.
Marriage date.
Twenty-five years earlier.
I folded the paper.
“Is there a divorce?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
“Where?”
“Alabama.”
“Did you file it?”
Jeremy looked at the floor.
“Rebecca did.”
“And you never told me.”
“I thought it was irrelevant.”
I laughed.
“Your entire life before me apparently qualifies as irrelevant.”
He flinched.
Bonnie watched us.
Then she said, “There's something else.”
I looked up.
“What?”
She lowered her voice.
“The divorce record was filed very quickly.”
“How quickly?”
“Less than a year after the marriage.”
Jeremy nodded.
“That sounds right.”
“But the timing is unusual.”
“Why?”
Bonnie looked at the screen.
“Because there is a notation attached to the record.”
Jeremy's face tightened.
“What notation?”
Bonnie turned the monitor toward herself.
“I shouldn't read it aloud.”
“Please.”
She hesitated.
Then she said, “Child-related documentation was filed separately.”
Jeremy went completely still.
I looked at him.
“You told me the baby died.”
“Yes.”
“Then what documentation?”
“I don't know.”
Bonnie looked at the file.
“There was a birth record.”
The room seemed to become smaller.
Jeremy shook his head.
“No.”
Bonnie continued.
“Mother: Rebecca Anne Harper.”
Jeremy stepped closer.
“Stop.”
“Father: Jeremy Lee Tolley.”
He grabbed the counter.
I stared at him.
“What was the child's name?”
Bonnie looked at the document.
“Samuel Lee Tolley.”
Jeremy sat down.
I had never seen him look that way.
Not guilty.
Not afraid.
Broken.
“You said the baby died.”
“That is what I was told.”
“Who told you?”
“The hospital.”
“Did you see the body?”
He looked at me.
“No.”
The answer was barely audible.
I sat beside him.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Bonnie said, “There is a later document.”
Jeremy looked up.
“What document?”
“An amended family record.”
“What does it say?”
Bonnie frowned.
“I don't understand it.”
She printed another page.
The name Burcham appeared.
Jeremy took the page.
His face drained.
“No.”
I read it.
Burcham.
The same surname as Lacey.
I looked at him.
“What does this mean?”
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“Jeremy.”
“I don't.”
Bonnie pointed to a line.
“There's a reference to a sealed adoption.”
My stomach tightened.
“Whose adoption?”
She looked at the record.
“Samuel Lee Tolley.”
Jeremy stared at the paper.
“If Samuel was adopted, then the baby might not have died.”
I whispered the words.
Jeremy didn't answer.
My mind went back to Lacey.
Her age.
Her face.
The way she had looked at Rebecca's photograph.
The resemblance that had unsettled all of us.
I remembered Evan's eyes.
Then I remembered Lacey telling me she had given birth alone.
I looked at Jeremy.
“How old is Lacey?”
“Forty-two.”
“Your baby with Rebecca would be twenty-five.”
He stared at me.
“That doesn't fit.”
“No.”
“But something doesn't fit.”
We drove back to Lacey's house.
Nobody spoke during the drive.
When we arrived, Evan's car was parked outside.
Lacey opened the door.
She looked at our faces.
“What happened?”
I handed her the copy.
She read it.
Then stopped.
“Burcham.”
Her fingers began to shake.
“Why is my family's name here?”
Jeremy stepped forward.
“I don't know.”
Lacey looked at him.
“That's not good enough.”
“I know.”
She read the page again.
Then she whispered, “My father adopted me.”
Jeremy froze.
“What?”
“My father told me I was his biological daughter.”
I looked at her.
“Are you saying you were adopted?”
“I don't know.”
She looked toward the hallway.
“There's something in the attic.”
“What?”
“My mother kept old documents.”
We followed her upstairs.
The attic was hot and smelled of cardboard.
Lacey pulled down several boxes.
Dust rose into the light.
She opened one.
Photographs.
Birth announcements.
School papers.
Medical records.
She moved through them quickly.
Then stopped.
“Here.”
She held up an envelope.
The name on it was Rebecca Harper.
Jeremy went pale.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was inside my mother's things.”
Lacey opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Rebecca.
Pregnant.
And beside her stood a younger man.
Not Jeremy.
Someone else.
On the back of the photograph was a handwritten sentence.
Rebecca, you cannot let them take him.
Jeremy read it.
His hands shook.
“Who is him?”
Lacey stared at the photograph.
“I don't know.”
Then a voice came from the doorway.
“I do.”
We all turned.
Evan stood there.
He was holding a photograph of his own.
“I found this in Grandma's room.”
He handed it to me.
It showed Rebecca holding a baby.
The baby was wrapped in a pale blue blanket.
Beside her stood a young girl.
Lacey.
Except she couldn't have been there.
The photograph was dated twenty-five years earlier.
Lacey stared at it.
“I wasn't born yet.”
Jeremy looked at the picture.
“Then who is that girl?”
Nobody answered.
Evan turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back.
One name.
Sarah.
Jeremy stared at it.
“Who is Sarah?”
Lacey shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Evan frowned.
“I do.”
Everyone looked at him.
“My ancestry account matched with someone named Sarah Vance.”
Jeremy's face changed.
“Where?”
“Durham.”
The word seemed to echo through the attic.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't think it mattered.”
I took the photograph from him.
“What else did the match say?”
Evan pulled out his phone.
“There was a message.”
“From Sarah?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
He turned the screen toward us.
A message from an unknown account.
It said:
If you are Jeremy Tolley's son, your family has been looking for you for twenty-five years.
Lacey covered her mouth.
Jeremy stepped backward.
I looked at the date.
The message had been sent six months earlier.
Exactly when Jeremy said he had first reconnected with Lacey.
That could not be a coincidence.
Then another notification appeared on Evan's phone.
A new message.
This one was shorter.
Ask your father what happened to Samuel.
Jeremy's face went white.
I looked at him.
“Who is Samuel?”
He didn't answer.
Evan did.
“That was the name on the birth record.”
Lacey slowly turned toward Jeremy.
“Is Samuel me?”
Jeremy shook his head.
“I don't know.”
She stared at him.
“You keep saying that.”
“I genuinely don't.”
Lacey stepped closer.
“Then we're going to find out.”
She grabbed her purse.
“Where are you going?”
“To see Sarah.”
Jeremy caught her wrist.
“Wait.”
She pulled away.
“No more waiting.”
Evan picked up his jacket.
“I'm coming.”
I looked at Jeremy.
He knew there was no stopping them.
He grabbed his keys.
“Then we all go.”
Three hours later, we were on the road to Durham.
The photograph sat in my lap.
The marriage certificate was in my purse.
The old Alabama record was tucked beneath it.
And the message from the anonymous account remained open on Evan's phone.
Nobody knew who Sarah Vance was.
Nobody knew what had happened to Samuel.
And nobody could explain why Lacey's name was appearing in records connected to a child who supposedly died twenty-five years earlier.
As darkness settled outside the windshield, Jeremy finally spoke.
“If Samuel survived…”
I looked at him.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“Then everything I believed about that night was wrong.”
I stared out at the road.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Everything you believed about your life may be wrong.”
He didn't argue.
For the first time since the courthouse, I realized the second marriage certificate might not even be the most important document we had found.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: The Photograph in the Old Box Forced Us Toward a Woman Who Knew More About Jeremy’s Past Than He Did
The Errand That Should Have Taken Ten Minutes Turned Into a Question I Could No Longer Pretend Not to Understand
Part 3 of 8
