Caroline felt like she’d taken a fist to the stomach. There had to be some mistake.“He paid me twenty thousand dollars to give up my baby for adoption,” Lauren said, her voice a whisper as she leaned closer.Caroline was going to be sick. There was no way James could have been involved in something like that. “But you said his name was Jack Murphy. This man’s name is James Medford. He is—was my husband. Maybe it’s not the same man.” She was grasping at straws and she knew it.Lauren shook her head. In the low light of the coffee bar, Caroline could see the sheen of tears in her eyes, the faint tremble in her mouth. Lauren’s fingers twisted around her cup and she held herself perfectly still as the story came spilling out. “I was only sixteen, and I had run away to live with my boyfriend, who was twenty. We were going to get married and keep the baby, but he was killed in a liquor store robbery.”“I’m so sorry,” Caroline said.Lauren let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t be.
