Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [44]
Will giggled again.
Ellen came back to the bed, where she could see Will wriggling in his bed. “Are you being a wiggle worm?”
“I am!”
“I’m coming in. We’re having a slumber party.”
“What’s that?” Will scissored his legs.
“It’s people having a party when they should be sleeping.” Ellen eased onto the skinny bed, on her side. “Scoot over, wigglehead.”
“Okay.” Will edged backwards, and Ellen reached for him and wrapped him up in her arms. She didn’t want to think about Amy Martin and the Bravermans anymore. She wanted to be where she was, right this moment, holding her son close.
“How’s that feel? Good?”
Will hugged her back. “I made a snowball.”
“You did? Cool.”
“It’s on the porch, did you see?”
“No.” Ellen gave him a squeeze. “It’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll look at it in the morning, first thing.”
“Do you have to go to work tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Ellen didn’t know what would happen at work tomorrow, with her story unfinished. Right now, she didn’t care.
“I hate work.”
“I know, sweetie. I’m sorry I have to work.”
“Why do you?”
Ellen had answered this more times than she could count, but she knew it wasn’t a real question. “I work so we have all the things we need.”
Will yawned.
“Maybe we should settle down and go to sleep. Party’s over, and slumber is beginning.”
“I won’t fall out,” Will said again, and Ellen hugged him close.
“Don’t worry. You won’t fall out. I’m here to catch you.”
“Good night.”
“I love you, sweetie. Good night.” Ellen cuddled him, and in the next minute, she could feel his body drifting back to sleep. She caught herself beginning to cry and willed herself to stop. If she went that way, she’d never come back, and this wasn’t the time or the place anyway.
Flip it.
She really couldn’t be sure that Beach Man was the carjacker. A tracing couldn’t tell anything with accuracy, and composites were based only on a verbal description. Lots of men had narrow eyes and long noses. If the composite was too unreliable to prove that the carjacker was Beach Man, then there was no link between Will and Timothy.
Ellen smiled in the dark, feeling a tiny bit better. Maybe Amy would email her, tell her the story of Will’s birth, and explain why she’d put him up for adoption.
Will shifted in his sleep, and she snuggled him. She couldn’t resolve tonight whether her fears were founded or completely insane. But behind them lurked an unspoken question, one that she couldn’t begin to acknowledge, much less articulate to herself. It had been lurking in the back of her mind from the moment she’d seen the infernal white card in the mail.
She hugged Will closer, there in the still, dark room, and the question hung in the air above the bed, suspended somewhere between mother, child, and the false stars.
If Will is really Timothy, what will I do?
Chapter Thirty-four
Ellen entered the newsroom the next morning, exhausted after only two hours of sleep. She hadn’t been able to stop her brain from thinking about Will and Timothy, and she felt raw, achy, and preoccupied. She had on the same jeans and shirt she’d worn yesterday, but with a different sweater, and she hadn’t had time to shower. She’d checked her email too many times on the way in, but there’d been no email from Amy Martin.
Get a grip.
“Good morning, dear,” Meredith Snader said, passing her with an empty mug on the way to the coffee room, and Ellen managed a smile.
“Hey, Mer.” She tried to put the Braverman business behind her, but her head was pounding. The newsroom was mostly empty, and she hustled down the aisle, trying to get her thoughts together for the meeting about the hom i cide piece. Through the glass wall of his office, she could see Marcelo at his desk and Sarah sitting across from him, laughing about something.
Great.
Ellen figured the laughter would stop when she told them she’d be late with her end of the story. She dropped her handbag on her desk, shed her jacket, and hung it on the coatrack, seeing that Sal and Larry were entering Marcelo’s office, holding