Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [120]
She watched almost numbly as Oreo Figaro leapt noiselessly to the foot of Will’s bed, where he always slept, curled next to a floppy stuffed bunny whose ears were silhouetted in the light from the window shade. Will had gotten that bunny at a party that Courtney had thrown for her at work, when she adopted him. Sarah Liu had given it to him.
Anger flickered in Ellen’s chest. Sarah, who was supposed to be her colleague. Sarah, who would later sell both of them out, for money. Sarah, who stole from her the choice about when or whether to give Will up. He could be here right now, home where he belonged, cuddled up with his cat, instead of in a strange hotel room, lost and confused, in all kinds of pain, going home to a house without a mother.
“You bitch!” Ellen heard herself shout. In one movement, she lunged into the room, grabbed the stuffed bunny, and hurled it into the bookshelves, where it hit a toy car. Oreo Figaro leapt from the bed, startled.
Anger flamed in Ellen’s chest, and she hurried from the room.
On fire.
Chapter Ninety
Ellen stood on the snowy brick doorstep and knocked on the front door of the gorgeous Dutch Colonial. The ride to Radnor hadn’t dissipated her anger, even with newsvans trailing her, and she knocked again on the door, drenched in the calcium white light of the klieg lights. Reporters recorded her every movement, but she didn’t care. They were doing their job, and she was doing hers.
“Hello?” Sarah opened the front door, and her dark eyes flared in alarm. She shielded her eyes from the klieg lights with a raised hand. “What are you doing here?”
“Let me in. We’re on TV, girlfriend.”
“You have no right to come here!” Sarah tried to shut the front door, but Ellen straight-armed it open.
“Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” She powered over the threshold into a warm, well-appointed living room, furnished with gray suede sectionals and a thick pile matching rug, where two young boys were sitting on the floor, playing a noisy video game on a widescreen TV.
“Wait! My kids are here.”
“I can see that.” Ellen masked her emotions to wave to them. “Hey, guys, how you doing?”
“Fine,” one answered without looking up, but Sarah shut the door and motioned to them.
“Boys, go to your room,” she said, staccato, and they set down the game controllers and rose instantly, astounding Ellen. She couldn’t get that kind of obedience from her hair, much less her son. They left the room, and Sarah picked up the controller, hit the red button for off, and set it down on top of the TV, which had gone black.
“Sarah, how could you do it?” Ellen kept her temper in check. “Not just to me, but to Will? How could you do that to Will?”
“I didn’t do anything to him, nothing wrong anyway.” Sarah edged backwards, tugging at the corner of her skinny black sweater.
“You cannot believe that.”
“I do, and it’s true. Your son is where he belongs, with his real parents.” Sarah didn’t look regretful in the least, her mouth still tight. “I did the right thing.”
“You didn’t do it because it was the right thing. You did it for the money.” Ellen took a step closer, fighting the impulse to hit Sarah in the face. “You couldn’t wait to quit your job, now that you’re rich.”
“It doesn’t matter why I did it, what matters is that he wasn’t legally yours. He was Timothy Braverman.”
“I might have told them, but you took it out of my hands.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. No mother would.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t, but I might have, and because of you, Will was taken in the worst possible way.” Ellen’s anger bubbled to the surface. “No explanation, no phasing in, just taken. It’s the kind of thing that can mess him up for life.”