Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [126]
The evening’s storm had passed through earlier, and now a full moon hung overhead and cast shadows behind her as she made her way back up the brick walk to her front door. She’d let Spike off the leash at the end of their drive and now stood watching as the dog sniffed at something in the grass.
“Spike,” she whispered loudly, and the dog looked up, wagging his tail enthusiastically. “Come on, buddy. Time to go in.”
With obvious reluctance, Spike left whatever it was he’d found on the lawn and followed his mistress to the front steps. Mara unlocked the front door, but did not go immediately inside. She crossed her arms and stared up at the night sky for a long moment, thinking of her own child, wondering once again where in this vast world she was at that exact moment, and who, if anyone, was standing up for her.
On the television screen, the earnest five o’clock news anchor droned on and on, his delivery as flat as his crew cut. Mara turned the volume down to answer the ringing phone.
“What’s for dinner?” Mara’s sister, Anne Marie, dispensed with a greeting and cut to the chase.
“I was just asking myself that very thing.” Mara grinned, delighted to hear Annie’s voice.
“How ’bout a little Chinese?”
“You buying?”
“And delivering.”
“You’re back?”
“I’m on my way.”
“What time will you be here?”
“Thirty minutes, give or take. I’m just leaving the airport. If you call in an order at that little place on Dover Drive, I’ll swing past and pick it up.”
“Perfect. What do you want?”
“Surprise me.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
Pleased with the unexpected prospect of Annie’s company, Mara found herself whistling while she hunted up the menu. She called in the order, then set about clearing the kitchen table of all the mail that had accumulated over the past several weeks while she had worked on the Feehan case. That case having been heard just that morning, Mara could pack up the materials she’d reviewed and return them to the courthouse in the morning. She wondered where Kelly Feehan had gone that night to drown her sorrows, her parental rights having been severed by Judge McKettrick until such time as Kelly successfully completed a rehabilitation program and obtained legitimate employment, at which time she could file for visitation rights. The odds that Kelly would follow through were slim to none, but the option was there. It had been the best the judge could do for all involved.
While the decision was clearly in the best interests of the children, it still gave Mara pause to have played a part, however small, in another mother being separated from her babies, even though she knew full well that Kelly had brought her troubles upon herself. Mara had wanted to shake the young mother, shake her good and hard, for having put herself and her children in such a situation.
You had a choice, Mara had wanted to shout at the sobbing woman as her children left the courtroom with their grandparents. We don’t all get a choice. . . .
Mara scooped dry dog food into Spike’s new Scooby-Doo dish, then gave him fresh water. She turned up the volume on the television, hoping to catch the weather forecast for the morning. She’d been looking forward to her early morning twice-weekly run with several friends and was hoping that the prediction of rain had changed.
“. . . and in other news, we have a somewhat bizarre story of two women who have the same name, who lived in the same town, and who met with the same fate exactly one week apart.” The anchorman spoke directly into the camera. “Jason Wrigley is standing by at the Avon County courthouse with the story.”
Headlights flashing through the living room window announced Annie’s arrival. Mara had just