The speaking look she gave him was meant to remind him of their presence.
“It’s after five,” he said without bothering to even so much as lower his voice. “I’m going to have to come back and finish up some things, but I need a break. What do you say we go get a quick dinner?”
29
“I thought we were going to try to be discreet about this?” Lisa’s protest came as they ran through the pouring rain for the Jaguar and she pressed the remote button to unlock its doors. Scott had an arm around her to keep her close as he held her umbrella over both their heads. Their feet splashed in the inches of running water that sluiced over the pavement. The plan was that they would go in her car to Joe Bologna’s, a casual Italian restaurant not far from the office. Then he would ride with her to the hospital and catch a lift back to the office from Andy, who was watching over Martha and would be leaving when she arrived.
“To hell with it.” Scott practically had to yell to be heard over the roar of the rain. The sky was overcast and dark, and thunder rumbled in the distance. “It is what it is, and I’m not planning to tie myself in knots trying to hide it. Like I said, as long as you don’t go jumping my bones at the office we should be fine.”
Lisa was sliding in out of the rain by that time. It was only after he closed the door behind her that she realized she was in the passenger seat of her own car. A slight smile touched her lips as she watched him run around the hood toward the driver’s side. She’d known he wasn’t the kind of man who liked being driven. He just happened to be smart enough not to push the point when he couldn’t win.
“Remember the whole ‘my car, I drive’ thing?” she asked drily as he got behind the wheel and tossed the umbrella into the backseat.
Blue eyes met brown ones. “You want to drive?”
There he had her. “No.”
He held out his hand for the keys, which she handed over. “Anytime you want to, you just let me know. I’m happy to be a passenger, baby.”
“You are such a liar.” Fastening her seat belt, she settled back in the seat as he started the car and headed out of the lot.
He grinned at her. “Only when I need to be.”
They reached the street, and he braked to wait for the light to change. Then he leaned over to kiss her. It was a quick kiss, a nothing kiss, really, just another kind of hello, but still heat shot clear down to her toes.
The light changed and he straightened, pulling out into traffic that was moving slowly because of the rain.
“So, what did you need to talk to me about?” he asked.
Lisa took a deep breath. All the warmth his presence and that kiss had engendered in her fled. She was wet and cold, and felt about as gloomy as the day.
“It’s Barty, isn’t it? He’s responsible for what happened to the Garcias. You figured it out, and that’s why you started backpedaling and telling me that maybe I should just leave the whole thing alone.”
Scott didn’t say anything for a moment. He just drove, frowning out at the rain splashing down on cars and buildings and pavement, letting the steady swish of the windshield wipers and the hum of the defroster fill the silence while she watched him and waited.
“I won’t deny that the evidence seems to be pointing that way,” he said finally. “But I don’t know that he’s involved for sure. Except for the break-in, I have no proof of a link between him and the Garcias. I certainly don’t have enough to even think about charging him at this point.”
“But you think you can get it, which is why you were hesitating about going any further.” Lisa thought about Katrina. The link to Marisa Garcia was not clear. As Scott had pointed out, the doll resembled her, too. Except that she hadn’t been born when it was ordered. And she didn’t have blue eyes. Nor did she have, at least as far as she knew, a childhood outfit that exactly matched the doll’s.
She had a terrible feeling that if Katrina’s origins were probed as thoroughly as they probably needed to be, Scott might have the evidence of a link that he needed.
By then they had reached the restaurant. He parked, killed the ignition, and looked at her.
“He’s your father.”
Lisa felt that terrible internal squeezing sensation again. “I know.” Scott reached in back for the umbrella. “Sit there. I’ll come around for you.”
Lisa nodded. Then, as he got out of the car and walked through the downpour toward the passenger door, she opened it, ready to get out as he reached it. She did, and they rushed through the rain into the restaurant.
Usually Lisa loved Joe Bologna’s, with its homey decor and robust Italian smells, but today she was barely aware of their surroundings as the hostess led them to a table. With the waitress coming and going with menus and drinks and salads and breadsticks, the conversation stayed light and general. Then, when the waitress left them to eat their salads in peace, Scott looked at Lisa steadily.
“Some of the medical records I sent for came today. Your father’s, Miss Martha’s, and yours. I’m still going through them, but I already found something you should probably know about.”
Lisa hated to ask. In fact, she hated to ask so much that she put down the breadstick she’d been about to bite into before it even touched her mouth. And she loved Joe Bologna’s breadsticks. “Like what?”
“Eat your salad.” He made sure she obeyed before continuing. “To begin with, you have the same blood type as your father. That’s nothing definitive, but it means that we can’t rule out that you are your parents’ biological child.”
“Okay.” She waited, watching him eat. Knowing Scott as well as she did, she knew there was more.
“Apparently, you were one sick little girl when you were born.”
Lisa frowned. “I was?”
“You didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “No one’s ever said anything to me about it.”
“You were premature—a seven-month baby. Barely five pounds.”
“I knew that.” She remembered the pictures she had seen of her tiny, wizened-looking newborn self being cradled by Martha and, yes, Barty in the hospital immediately after her birth.
“And according to your medical records, you were born with ARPKD—autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease.” He recited the name as though he’d spent some time memorizing it.
“I take it that’s bad.”
He nodded. “Seventy-five percent of babies born with it die before their first birthday.”
“Really.” Lisa quit eating to frown at him. “I’ve always been perfectly healthy. At least, as far back as I can remember.”
The waitress came to replace the salads with their entrées. Lisa inhaled the aroma of the lasagna she’d ordered and knew she wasn’t going to be able to eat much of it. There was a knot in her stomach.
“You must be one of the lucky twenty-five percent.” Scott tucked into his own spaghetti and meatballs with no difficulty that she could see. He’d clearly been hungry, and despite the tension she was feeling, she smiled at the rate at which his meal was disappearing.
“I’ve never heard of—what did you call it?”
“It’s called ARPKD. Eat your lasagna.”
“I’m not really hungry.” But because he was watching her instead of eating himself, she took a bite. “They must have gotten it taken care of when I was little, because I don’t remember ever being treated for anything like that. In fact, the only time I remember being sick is when I had chicken pox when I was six.”
“A lot of the children who survive have lingering symptoms.”
Lisa shook her head, and with his eyes on her ate some more. “I’ve always been perfectly healthy.”
“Yeah, I know. At least, I thought so.”
“I’ll ask my mother.”
“You do that. I’ll be interested to hear what she has to say.”
Lisa hesitated. He must have sensed something, because he looked at her questioningly. “I found out what the mark on my doll meant.” Until the words cam
e out of her mouth, she hadn’t been sure she meant to tell him. She continued almost reluctantly. “You know, the MBF surrounded by a heart.”
When she paused again his eyes narrowed at her. “You going to tell me the rest, or am I supposed to guess?”
Again she hesitated, because she now saw the information as one more step on the slippery slope she was no longer so certain she wished to tread. But in the end she did tell him, and by the time she had finished they were on their way out of the restaurant. The rain had stopped, she was glad to see, but clouds hung ominously low and dark overhead. Puddles lay everywhere, sparkling in the streetlights that were already coming on. The heat was so thick that it was like walking through a steam room. It was only about six-thirty, early for a summer night, but it seemed more like full twilight.
“I don’t want to do this,” she said as he got into the car beside her. He was driving again, an automatic thing on his part, it seemed, and one she wasn’t in the mood to dispute. He didn’t reply, just started the car and pulled out onto the street while she stared blindly at the oncoming traffic.
“Did you hear me?” She turned her head to look at him. “I don’t want to do this. Continue with the investigation, I mean. I want to stop it right now. I want to walk away.”
“I heard you.” Most of the cars had their headlights on, and bright yellow beams slashed across the front seat. He was looking grim. “All in all, I think it’s probably a wise choice.”
Lisa didn’t say anything more for a moment as an image of the Garcias took center stage in her mind’s eye. It was the picture, of course, the one from the file, the one in which Angela Garcia looked enough like her to be her double. Her heart ached for them. Her conscience smote her. Her need to know what had become of them would live inside her forever, she knew. But there were other ties, closer ties, ultimately unbreakable ties, to consider, and those, she knew without a shadow of a doubt, had to take precedence.
“It’s Barty,” she burst out, clasping her hands tightly together. “I can’t do it. He’s my father.”
The words sounded as though they had been wrenched out of her.
“I know.” Scott’s voice was quiet. She knew he did know, and the knowledge provided some small degree of solace.
“I despise him. He deserted my mother and me. He’s ignored me practically all my life.” She laughed, a tremulous, angry sound with nothing of amusement in it. “I called him this afternoon to ask about the doll. He didn’t pick up. He didn’t call back. Where I’m concerned, he just doesn’t want to know.” She took a deep breath. “But I can’t stand the thought that he might be arrested for murder, much less tried and convicted. Even if he got off, the scandal would ruin him, professionally and probably financially. Then there’s his family—his other family. I don’t know why I care that it would tear them apart, but I do.” The look she shot him was full of naked anguish. “How stupid is that?”
“It isn’t stupid. It’s human. Hell, I’m still telling myself that somewhere deep inside, my father is a decent human being.” His twisted smile spoke volumes. Her eyes just touched on the scrape on his cheek before meeting his. “Truth is, families are a bitch.”
They had reached the hospital now, and he was parking not too far from the entrance. “I had a feeling you were going to react this way, once you figured out where this thing was headed.”
“It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong to just turn our backs on this. What happened to the Garcias needs to be uncovered. They deserve justice.” She broke off, took a deep breath. “But he’s my damned father.”
She could feel the unwelcome sting of tears, and angrily blinked them back.
He turned off the ignition, then unbuckled his seat belt and her own.
“I know,” he said again. Then he leaned over and kissed her. And she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back and clung to him like he was the only solid thing in her world.
Later, when she was in her mother’s hospital room and Scott had left with Andy, her mother smiled at her.
“So, Annalisa, when were you going to tell me—about Scott?”
Lisa looked at her mother in surprise. Martha was sitting in her wheelchair—the nurses now made it a point to keep her out of bed for a good portion of the day—and Lisa was curled in the chair beside her, feeding Martha her evening meal, which rested on the small table between them. In her opinion, Martha looked better than she had since arriving in the hospital. All the tubes and monitors had been removed, and she used oxygen only at night, as she had for months. She was dressed, she had a hint of color in her cheeks, and her eyes were bright. It was difficult to accept that she was actually getting worse. Lisa felt her stomach churn at the thought and tried to banish it. Along with the knowledge that soon, probably as soon as her mother had finished her supper, she was going to have to tell her about tomorrow’s planned move to a nursing home.
“What about Scott?” she asked.
“You and he . . .” Her mother’s voice trailed off, but her expression left Lisa in no doubt about her meaning. Then she remembered that quick kiss in front of the elevators the previous night with Martha’s friends as witnesses, and had little doubt that her mother’s phone had been ringing with the news as soon as the women had awakened.
Busted, she thought, but she didn’t really care.
“Okay, so I’m dating Scott,” she admitted, although “dating” didn’t quite cover it. No way was she getting any more graphic with her mother, however. “It’s not that big of a deal, and I was going to tell you one of these days. Maybe. If it lasted long enough to talk about.”
No need to let her mother start thinking this was some deathless romance. Not until she herself had had time to get over the surprise of it, and the heat that sizzled between them whenever they were in each other’s company had died down to a manageable level, and she had caught her breath to the point where she could see the way ahead a little more clearly. At some point her plan had always been to head back to Boston. . . .
“When did—this start?” Although her mother was clearly trying to be low-key, she was looking at her as though Lisa had just given her the best present possible. If ever delight had shined from someone’s face, it was shining now from Martha’s.
“Fourth of July. We were at the country club and we just—clicked.” The PG version was all her mother was going to get, and it was clearly enough for her. She beamed.
“I’m so—glad. I’ve always—liked him. Ever since you—came back—I’ve been thinking—he’s perfect for you. You should . . .”
A nurse tapped on the open door then, interrupting, and walked into the room as Martha broke off. Lisa looked a question at the nurse.
“Dr. Spencer asked me to tell you that he’s made arrangements for an ambulance to take Mrs. Grant to the Worley Center at ten. They’ll be expecting her.”
Martha had been looking at the nurse. Now she frowned and turned bewildered eyes on Lisa, who abruptly put down the spoonful of applesauce she’d been holding.
“The Worley Center?” Martha asked. “What’s this?”
Martha knew what the Worley Center was. They had even talked about the possibility that she might have to be placed there one day, when the ALS drew near to its inevitable end. But she had always wanted to die at home, and Lisa had promised to do her utmost to keep her there. Now, however, it just wasn’t possible.
“Thank you,” Lisa said to the nurse, who nodded and left the room. Then she looked at her mother.
“You’re being released tomorrow.” Drawing on her reserves of inner strength, she summoned a cheerful tone, as if she was giving her mother good news. “Since we can’t go back to Grayson Springs just yet, Dr. Spencer suggested the Worley Center.”
Martha wasn’t fooled. “It’s getting—worse, isn’t it?”
Lisa knew she meant the ALS. With every fiber of her being she wanted to lie, wanted to deny what Dr. Spencer and the tests had said, wanted to allay the fear she saw in her mother�
�s eyes.
But what felt like a long time ago now, when she had first come back home, she had promised her mother that where her illness was concerned, she would tell her nothing but the truth.
“Yes,” she said.
The color leached from Martha’s face like someone had pulled a plug, allowing it to drain away.
“Ah.” Martha’s fingers curled around the arms of her chair.
“You wouldn’t be going there tomorrow if Grayson Springs hadn’t burned,” Lisa said swiftly, moving to crouch in front of her mother’s chair. “The disease hasn’t progressed to the point that you really need that kind of care yet. It’s just that you can’t go home, and . . .”
“The end’s coming,” Martha finished for her. She was looking down at Lisa. Her fingers had relaxed, and her expression was quite calm now. “That’s all right. I’m all right. I’ve known it—somewhere inside—for a while, I think. I’m not afraid, and—I don’t want you to worry about me. It’s just that—Annalisa, could you—take me home? Tonight? Just for a little while? I’m afraid I’ll—go into that place—and never come—out again.”
“Mother . . .”
“Please, Annalisa.”
“It’s raining.”
“Please.”
30
“This is—fun.” Color had crept back into Martha’s cheeks, and her face was more animated than Lisa had seen it in a long time. “I’ve never—run away—from a hospital before.”
Lisa knew that her mother’s outward gaiety was largely assumed for her benefit. Her own heart was heavy, but still she managed a smile. They were in the Jaguar, with her mother strapped into the passenger seat beside her and her wheelchair folded into the trunk. If Martha hadn’t weighed about as much as a sack full of nothing, Lisa would never have managed getting her into the car on her own. But Martha was so tiny now that it hadn’t been hard, like lifting a child, and with the seat back upright and the seat belt locked in place, she was as secure in the passenger seat as she would have been in her wheelchair. Lisa had a great many reservations about this, but she wasn’t proof against her mother’s pleas—her mother never asked for anything for herself—or the yearning she saw in her eyes.
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