Page 1 of Not Our Daughter

Prologue

The sudden pounding and doorbell ringing at the front door startled him. He glanced over at the clock on his nightstand. Seventeen minutes past midnight. But he wasn’t asleep. How could he possibly fall asleep on the worst day of his life? He looked beside him, where his wife lay. She’d taken powerful prescription sleeping pills to knock herself out. This was after they’d spent hours earlier in the day just holding each other and sobbing uncontrollably. The hurt ran so deep. Like nothing he’d experienced his entire life. It felt like someone was reaching inside him and crushing his soul with their merciless hand. At one point, because he couldn’t get his wife to calm down, he’d thought he was going to have to make a trip to the ER to have her sedated. Thankfully, that had become unnecessary.

More pounding and incessant ringing of the doorbell. Whoever was out there was clearly not going away. He slid out of bed, pulled on his pajama pants and a gray T-shirt, and then took a quick peek into the crib in the corner of the bedroom. Marcy was fortunately still asleep. The abrupt noise had not stirred her awake. At nine months old, she had been theirs for the past eight months. In every way but birth, she was their daughter, despite the court’s cruel decision today. They’d experienced every first with her—first rollover, first solid foods, first crawl, first pull-up at the coffee table. Marcy had even said her first word justthis past week:Da-da.It had moved him to tears. She just kept saying it repeatedly with the biggest smile on her face.Da-da! Da-da! Da-da!

But tomorrow morning at ten, she would no longer belong to them. He would no longer be her da-da. The judge had made that decision today in court after leading them to believe, just a month ago, that she would grant them full parental rights. They were absolutely crushed. That word didn’t even feel adequate. He wasn’t sure his wife would ever recover. After years of infertility issues, tens of thousands of dollars spent on in vitro fertilization, and two horrific miscarriages, they’d believed they finally had their family. They had allowed themselves to fully embrace it the past month.

And then everything was yanked away in a split second.

More pounding and doorbell ringing. He stepped down the hallway of their custom-built five-thousand-square-foot home in an affluent Austin neighborhood, then hustled up to the oversize glass front door. His jaw dropped. Candace. Marcy’s biological mother. The person whom the judge had granted full parental rights today. A twenty-one-year-old who’d been messed up on drugs and in and out of jail several times over the past eight months, while they’d been fostering and raising Marcy as their own. She’d somehow miraculously cleaned herself up over the past month and even gotten sober—at least according to a representative from a rehabilitation program who’d testified on her behalf today. He had to admit Marcy’s mother had looked like a completely different person in court today. Well dressed and put together. She’d provided proof of new employment as an administrative assistant. She was also a few months pregnant with Marcy’s half sister, which seemed to be the real clincher for the court. The judge decided she couldn’t split up the sisters. And that was that. Their dream was dead.

But the pretty young woman did not look the same tonight. Her long blond hair was completely disheveled. Eyes bloodshot. Makeup smudged. She wore only a black tank top and red micro shorts. She was barefoot. Why was she here looking like this? Was she back on drugs already? He pulled the front door open. She fell straight into him, knocking him backa bit, before he grabbed her to keep her from landing on the hardwood floor. That’s when he realized there was blood all over the front of her. What the hell? The blood was now on his own T-shirt and smeared across his forearms. He eased her down to the floor and turned her over onto her back to see her face. She was gasping. He noticed the midsection of her tank top was torn and completely saturated in blood.

He cursed. Had someone stabbed her? Or shot her?

“Candace, what happened? What’s going on?”

She was coughing up more blood. “He’s coming!” she cried.

His forehead bunched. “Who’s coming? Who did this to you?”

“You have to . . . get . . . out of here!”

She could barely get the words out. Candace suddenly shook violently and then heaved blood straight up into his face. He jerked back, tried to wipe it with his arm, which only made it worse. He looked out his front sidewalk to the street to see if someone was indeed out there. Her white Toyota Corolla was parked out front, driver door open, vehicle still running. But he didn’t see anyone else. He needed to call the police. He needed to get an ambulance to the house as fast as possible. She was in jeopardy.

“Please!” she managed. “He’s coming here ... for her!”

His brow furrowed. “For who?”

“Marcy! Get her as far away as possible. Just leave!”

He felt his chest tighten. Someone was coming for Marcy? What was happening?

“But the ... judge,” he said, stammering. “She said ... she’s not our daughter.”

“She is ... now. Save her.”

The young woman drifted a second, her eyes rolling back.

He grabbed her shoulders, shook her, his heart racing. “Who’s coming, Candace?”

This brought her back for a moment.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

And then she was gone.

One

Thirteen years and three months later

Special Agent Mark Burns was used to people obeying his orders. He’d been with the FBI for more than twenty years, had worked his way up into a prime DC position, and was well respected by nearly everyone. But his teenage daughter, Izzy, was not one of his subordinate agents. She seemed to revel in scoffing at his requests. Burns gave her a lot of grace and didn’t push back too much right now. The divorce had been brutal on his fifteen-year-old. Izzy already didn’t want to spend her designated days with him. He was careful to not shove her even further away. She’d made it very clear she blamed him for ruining her family. He lived at the office. He was never around enough. He abandoned Mom all the time for work. Of course her parents had grown apart. It was all his fault.

Burns still had not told her it was her mother who’d had the affair. He knew it would only further destroy her. And clearly his ex-wife, Nicole, had no intentions of sacrificing herself in this situation by telling their daughter the truth. Even after exposing his wife’s cheating, Burns still hadn’t wanted the divorce. It was just not the way he was raised. His parents had been married for fifty-four years and counting. They didn’t have a perfect marriage, but they’d stuck it out throughthick and thin. Burns wanted to put in the counseling work and somehow make it right between them again. But Nicole clearly just wanted out. He figured she wanted to get caught. It had not been a difficult case for him to crack.

“I thought this morning was fun,” he said, sitting behind the wheel of his Ford Explorer as he drove Izzy back to her mom’s. “Did you?”

Izzy looked over at him with a serious scowl. “The zoo, Dad? Really? That’s your idea of fun? Do you think I’m still ten years old?”

---