Save Me - Lisa Scottoline [34]
“Relax. I have it under control. Hang on, please.” The nurse sounded calm, and in the next minute the background noise stopped and the TV silenced, but Melly was still crying softly, which broke Rose’s heart.
“Hello, Annabelle?” she said. “Are you there?”
“Pardon?”
“Can you just comfort my daughter? She’s a good kid, she’s just scared, and she’s been through a lot in the past few—”
“I’m sorry, but we have to hang up. There are no calls permitted this late.”
“No, wait. Don’t hang up. I want to talk to my daughter.”
“There’s an automatic cut-off for phone calls after ten. I’ll take good care of her.”
Rose felt her temper flare. “Let me say good night to her, for God’s sake.”
“Please, hold on.”
“Melly? Melly?” Rose said, but the line went dead. She tried to call back, but there was no answer. She tried the switchboard and asked again for the nurses’ station, but the phone rang and rang, all over again. She hung up, noticing the red light was blinking on her phone, which meant incoming email.
She pressed the button to see the list of senders, but they were all messages sent from Facebook. She scanned the names in the messages: Kim Barnett, Jane Llewellyn, Annelyn Baxter, moms from the class and school committees. When she’d moved to Reesburgh, she’d friended everyone in the class. She clicked the first name, and the email came on the screen:
Kim Barnett has sent you a message on Facebook. “I KNOW THE GIGOT FAMILY AND THEY ARE HEARTBROKEN! HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF?”
Rose set down the BlackBerry. Reesburgh was a small town, and the Internet made it even smaller. She didn’t need to read any more.
She got the gist.
Chapter Nineteen
Rose stood at the kitchen counter, drinking Diet Coke and waiting for the TV news. She didn’t relish seeing the story of the school fire, but she wanted to know what Melly might have seen or heard. She scratched the sleeping dog with her foot while the turbocharged theme of Philly News started. A handsome anchorman came on the screen, with a photo of the burning elementary school behind him, above a banner, FATAL SCHOOL FIRE.
“Good evening, Tim Dodson here. In our top story, life in Reesburgh is getting back to the new normal, after a cafeteria fire in an elementary school that left three dead, a beloved teacher and two female cafeteria workers. Tanya Robertson is on the scene at Reesburgh Memorial Hospital, where young Amanda Gigot remains in Intensive Care, fighting for her young life…”
The screen changed to Tanya, holding a bubble microphone to her lipsticked lips, standing in a pool of manufactured light. “Tonight, the two students injured in Friday’s school fire remain in this hospital. They’re little girls from the same third-grade class, but that’s where the similarity ends. The lucky one, Melinda Cadiz, age eight, will be going home tomorrow after being treated for smoke inhalation. Melinda, called Melly, was rescued from the flames by her mother, our reluctant hero Rose McKenna. We were the first to show you that viewer video yesterday, of Rose running out of the smoky school, with her daughter in her arms.”
Rose shuddered, but wasn’t completely surprised. So many people had phones and BlackBerrys. She’d carried a flip camera around since the day John was born.
Tanya’s expression darkened, and a school photo of Amanda popped onto the screen. “Not so lucky is Amanda Gigot, also age eight, who remains in a coma, after a head injury and significant smoke inhalation. Amanda’s the only daughter after two sons, and the Gigot family is headed by hard-working single mom Eileen Gigot, whose husband was killed in a forklift accident seven years ago. The entire extended Gigot clan is now by Amanda’s side, hoping and praying for her recovery.”
Tanya changed her tone, to investigative mode. “Authorities say that the school is set to reopen on Monday, but a spokesman for the Gigot family tells me they’re considering legal action against the school, the school district, and the school’s general contractor for negligence. The Gigot family has already filed for an