“Why in the world would I have adopted a baby?” Mom demanded, gathering steam. “I was trying to finish college at the time that I had you. I wanted to see the world! I wanted to travel. I was not ready for children. You know this about me.”

“I do.”

“I did not adopt you.”

“And yet we’re not related by blood. How do you propose to explain this?”

“Clearly the lab made a mistake.”

“My DNA matches include people with surnames like Brookside and Donnell and May. Do you recognize any of those?”

“I don’t. Listen, humans are involved in the process of DNA testing. If humans are involved, there’s the possibility of human error. I’m guessing that your test tube was mistaken for someone else’s test tube. Will YourHeritage let you retest?”

“They will.”

“Good. Make sure they expedite your retest since this was their mistake.”

Leah swallowed a sigh. Her intuition did not think this was the lab’s mistake. “A new test kit is already en route to me. Once I send it in, I should hear back in less than two weeks.”

“Tell them to give us our money back for both tests. They owe us that after the trouble they’ve caused.” She didn’t wait for Leah to reply before saying,“I’m off!”

Mom’s words hung in Leah’s ear as the line went dead.

If Mom had not adopted her, then only one theory remained that honored both her mom’s version of events and the DNA test.

That theory: her mother’s biological child had been switched at birth with someone else’s baby.

CHAPTER TWO

Farmers markets were not his thing.

And yet, there he was. Sebastian Xavier Grant slipped on sunglasses as he walked from his parking space toward Misty River High School’s athletic fields and rows of vendors shaded by pop-up canopies.

He’d come to this particular farmers market for one reason only: to support his best friend, Ben. An eleventh-grade science teacher, Ben was responsible for staffing every volunteer position at today’s market, which was one of the high school’s most lucrative fundraisers of the year.

Sebastian had offered to volunteer wherever he was needed. Apparently, he was needed in the booster club’s spaghetti lunch line, located on the far side of the market stalls, near the base of the wooded hillside.

He checked his watch. 11:45. His shift started at twelve.