Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [80]
“I'll take both of you out to lunch tomorrow,” Mike said. “Do you know what the visiting hours are at the jail?”
“Richard will let us know when we can see Gregg. Katie is ada?mant that she must see her father again before she goes back up to school in a couple of days. Getting back into some kind of routine is bound to be good for her.”
“How are you doing, Alice?”
“Physically, not bad for someone pushing seventy-one. Emotion?ally, I don't have to tell you. I guess you saw the morning papers?”
“Yes.” Mike thought he knew what was coming.
“Mike, I'm not proud of the scene I made in court. I absolutely couldn't help myself. And I certainly would never have referred to Emily Wallace's heart.”
“I wasn't aware she had a transplant,” Mike told her. “From what I'm hearing now, it wasn't generally known. She had had an aortic valve replaced, and the transplant came so fast after it that even most of her friends didn't realize she'd had a second operation. And ap?parently she's been very quiet about it.”
“I just wish I hadn't mentioned her heart when I blasted her. But, Mike, it doesn't change the fact that I do believe Emily Wallace knows Gregg is innocent.”
“You'd never guess that the way she went for his throat on the stand, Alice.”
“She was trying to convince herself, not the jury, Mike.”
“Alice, honestly, that's taking it pretty far.”
“I can understand why it sounds like that. Mike, Richard did talk about filing an appeal. It helped Katie to hear that, but was it just talk?”
Michael Gordon decided that he would not tell her about the phone call from a possible new witness until they met for lunch to?morrow. “Alice, as it stands now, I don't think there are any decent grounds for an appeal. But we're going to establish a reward for any information that could lead to a new trial. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. Let's leave it at that.”
“I agree. Good night, Mike.”
Mike snapped off his cell phone. There was something that he couldn't initially discern in Alice Mills's voice. But now he realized what it was: her abiding certainty that Emily Wallace believed that Gregg was innocent.
Shaking his head, he dropped the phone into his pocket, and headed for the door.
At that same moment, alone in the Park Avenue apartment, Alice Mills went into the guest room that was now hers, and where she had sometimes stayed overnight when Gregg and Natalie were married. She opened a drawer and looked at the picture of Emily Wal?lace that she had cut out of the paper this morning.
Her eyes brimming with fresh tears, with a trembling finger she traced the contour of the heart that had saved Emily's life.
Just Take My Heart
54
The chance meeting with Marion Rhodes on Saturday afternoon had lifted Emily's spirits. For the most part she knew that she was a private person and not given to sharing her problems with others. But she had felt instantly comfortable with Marion, both last week and today, and looked forward to talking to her.
For that reason, when she got home just in time to catch the ring?ing phone, she was able to sound upbeat.
It was her father calling from Florida. He had e-mailed her yesterday, congratulating her on the verdict and asking her to call him when she got a chance. She had intended to call him last night, but she knew he would detect that she was upset and she didn't want to worry him.
Then this morning, after she had read the paper, she put off call?ing him again.
“Em, I was so happy for you about the verdict. That's one big feather in your cap. How come you didn't call your old man last night? I figured you must be out celebrating.”
“Dad, I'm sorry. I meant to call you last night, but when I got home I didn't have the energy to pick up the phone. I went straight to bed. I would have called you when I was running around today, but I forgot my