Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [91]
“I know, but I have to go.” Ellen grabbed her coat and purse from the seat. “I’ll follow up and let you know if I learn anything new. Thanks again.”
“You think we should call the police?”
“No,” Ellen said, too quickly. “I’m sure it’s speculation, but I’ll give it some thought. Have to go now. Thanks again.”
She turned and fled the restaurant.
Chapter Sixty-eight
Ellen hurried from the restaurant, her head swimming. She broke into a light jog, pulling her coat around her with a shaky hand. Her heels clacked along the frozen concrete, and she almost ran into two students who came suddenly out of a bookstore. She hurried ahead, ignoring their laughter. Her breath came in short, ragged bursts, fogging from her mouth. Her eyes stung, and she blinked the wetness away, telling herself it was the cold. She reached her car, fumbled for her keys, jumped in and turned on the engine, then lurched into the lane of traffic.
HONK! HONK! A van driver blared his horn, but Ellen didn’t look back. It was late afternoon and a premature night was falling, frigid as black ice. Cars clogged the street in both directions, their headlights aglow. She drove on autopilot, through a world that had gone topsy-turvy around her.
She had thought that Will was hers and would be forever. She thought that he had a young mother somewhere and a wandering father. She thought that they were gone for good, a young couple who made a mistake. But it had been a fantasy, created by a writer’s imagination. All of it was fiction. And now Ellen was deathly afraid of what was true.
Her hands gripped the wheel. Her heart thundered. She skidded to a stop at a traffic light, the burning red circle searing into her consciousness like a hot poker. She was too emotional to think straight. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. She couldn’t go to the police because she’d lose Will. She had been going it alone for so long, she couldn’t do it for another minute. She picked up her cell phone and pressed in a phone number.
“Please be there,” Ellen was saying, when the call connected.
Chapter Sixty-nine
“Come in, what’s the matter?” Marcelo swung open his front door, and Ellen hurried past the threshold, compelled by a force she didn’t understand completely, whether pulled or pushed inside she didn’t know. It had taken her an hour to get to his house in Queens Village, but the ride over hadn’t calmed her down. It had been all she could do to hide her panic when she’d called Connie and asked her to stay late.
“There’s a problem but . . . I don’t know where to begin.” Ellen raked a hand through her hair and found herself pacing back and forth in his neat living room, a blur of exposed-brick walls, glass tables, and black leather furniture. Marcelo closed the front door behind her, and she spun on her heels to face him. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“It’s all right,” Marcelo said softly, his dark eyes steady. “Try the beginning.”
“No, I . . . can’t.” Ellen didn’t know why she’d come here. She wasn’t sure it was the right thing. She knew only that she needed to talk to someone. “I think I’m in the middle of something . . . I don’t know what.”
“Did you do something illegal?”
“Yes, and no.” Ellen didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t know what to think. Her hands flew to her face, and she felt her fingerpads burrow into the flesh of her cheeks. “No, but . . . I think I stumbled onto something . . . I wish I never started. It’s the worst . . . the worst thing that could happen.”
“What could be so bad?” Marcelo asked, disbelieving, stepping closer to her and taking her by the shoulders. “What is it?”
“It’s too awful, it’s just . . .” Ellen couldn’t continue, afraid to give it voice, as if she’d fall into an abyss, a darkness that would follow as inexorably as nightfall. She felt something tear loose in her chest, as if her heart were actually ripped from its moorings, untethered from everything that held it in place, everything that kept her alive, and she heard herself erupt in a sob that came from deep within and burst free. The