Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [85]
“You’re killing me.” Marcelo winced, rising, and Ellen stood up, too. They were standing about three feet apart, so close they could embrace, but nobody was touching anybody.
“I’m joking,” she said, but Marcelo turned away and walked to the door, where he stopped and flashed her a final, sad smile.
“Then why aren’t we laughing?” he asked.
For that, Ellen had no answer.
Chapter Sixty-three
Ellen set her DNA instructions on her bedspread and unpacked the two paper bags from her suitcase, the one containing Bill’s cigarette butts and the other Carol’s soda can. She set them next to the white business envelope that contained the Q-tips with Will’s sample. From the corner of the bed, Oreo Figaro watched all of her movements with concern.
Ellen sat down beside the cat, petting his spiny back idly and picking up the Paternity Testing Form she had downloaded. She scanned the first few paragraphs that contained legal terms and conditions, then the form authorizing how to send the results.
The form contained various lines to fill out to identify the sample; name, sample date, race, and relationship, Suspected Mother, Suspected Father, Suspected Grandfather (paternal or maternal), Suspected Grandmother (paternal or maternal), and Other. She filled in Suspected Mother for Carol’s sample, Suspected Father for Bill’s, and Child for Will’s. Then she made matching labels that the form requested, cut them out with a scissors, and taped them on the two brown paper bags and Will’s envelope, like the arts-and-crafts project from hell.
She gathered the brown bags, the envelope, and the forms, and placed them in a padded FedEx Pak. She filled in the address slip, sealed the FedEx envelope, and set it on the nightstand. She would mail the FedEx Pak after she dropped Will at school, not that she wanted to think about the juxtaposition of those two events.
She sat back down on the bed and petted Oreo Figaro, but he declined to purr. In three days, she could find out that Will didn’t belong to the Bravermans and she could keep him happily for the rest of their life together. Three days seemed forever to wait, and at the same time not nearly long enough. Because in three days she could also find out that Will did belong to the Bravermans, then . . .
That was where Ellen stopped her thinking. She had promised herself on the plane.
And Oreo Figaro withheld his purr.
Chapter Sixty-four
The next morning was freezing, the sky an opaque gray and the air holding a wet chill in its clenched fist, and Ellen was sitting in her car in the parking lot of a local strip mall. Traffic rushed back and forth on a busy Lancaster Avenue, the car tires stained white with road salt and their back windshields still deicing. She watched idly, and her car grew cold, the last heat dissipating. She had dropped Will off at school only half an hour ago, but it seemed longer. The FedEx Pak containing the DNA samples sat next to her like an unwanted hitchhiker.
Ellen was stalling, and though she knew it, she couldn’t stop herself. All she had to do was slide down her car window, pull up the metal handle on the FedEx mailbox, and toss the package inside. As soon as she did that, it was out of her hands. The deed would be done. The lab would charge her credit card, process the samples, and email her the results. Yes or no. Hers or theirs.
Ellen couldn’t believe she was still hesitating, not after she’d stalked the Bravermans and placed her professional career in jeopardy, in addition to losing a man she was profoundly attracted to, before she’d even had him. She reminded herself that she didn’t have to do anything with the test results once she had them. Even if it turned out in the Bravermans’ favor, she didn’t have to tell a soul. It could stay her secret forever. Why should she stall, given all she had gone through?
Her gaze shifted to the FedEx mailbox, and she reread its pickup sticker