Save Me - Lisa Scottoline [68]
“Yes.”
“Excellent. We’re delighted, and I know I speak for Tom. If you tell me your email address, I’ll email you an engagement letter and when you get a second, send us a check for the retainer, which is five thousand dollars.”
“Okay.” Then Rose remembered. “Wait. I disabled my email.”
“Get a new account, and we’ll keep it private. What do you want to do about the press release, or me talking to one of my sources? May I go forward?”
“I’m not sure. Let me think and talk to Leo.”
“Sure. Let me know. See you. Take care.”
“Thanks.” Rose pressed END, then L to speed-dial Leo, and waited while it rang, then went to voicemail. She composed herself before leaving another message: “I’m meeting with the D.A. tomorrow morning. Please call.”
She pressed END, and her gaze fell on John, happily sucking his fingers. She couldn’t imagine what would happen to him or Melly, if she had to go to jail. Leo would have to hire a full-time caretaker, and even if John could adapt, Melly would be devastated. She’d already lost her father, now she’d lose her mother. And there’d be no backstop for her at school, now that Kristen was gone.
Rose felt a wave of sadness so profound that she had to lean on the counter until it passed. It killed her that her children, and Leo, would have to pay for what she’d done, and even so, she sensed that she was entering eye-for-an-eye territory, the ultimate payback. She pressed the emotion away, trying to stay anchored in the present. There were dishes to rinse, counters to spray-clean, and a baby to bathe; the tasks of home life, the very stuff of being a mother. She had always taken satisfaction in the tasks, because she knew that each one mattered; it was the little things that made a house a home, and moms did all the little things.
Rose went to John, pulled out his tray, picked him up, and hugged him close, breathing in his damp baby smells and feeling his reassuring weight. He looped his fleshy arm around her neck, and she rocked him, told him she loved him, and nuzzled his warm neck with her nose, trying not to think about how much longer she’d have him, or he’d have her.
“Let’s go say hi to your sister,” she whispered into his ear, swallowing her emotion. She carried him into the family room, where Melly looked up from the computer printer, her blue eyes expectant.
“Mom, was that Ms. Canton on the phone?”
“No, sorry.”
“When is she going to call?”
“I’m not sure, but soon, I hope.”
“She said she would.”
“She will,” Rose said, uncertain.
After the kids were in bed, she went back down to the kitchen, cleaned up, and sat down in front of the laptop, logging onto the web and checking philly.com for news of Amanda. The earlier stories hadn’t changed, which meant that she was still alive.
Thank you, God.
Rain fell outside the window, and the sky had grown dark, a backdrop like a final curtain, of dark velvet. She could see the peaked roof of the house next door, which had in-ground floodlights that shone upward at its brick façade, lighting the place like a stage set. The tall trees in the sideyard were shedding leaves, but night and rain had obliterated their colors, so they looked black and shiny.
She wondered which leaf would fall next, playing a waiting game with herself, which felt uncomfortably familiar. She’d been waiting to see what would happen to Amanda. Waiting to see if she’d be charged with a crime or sued. Waiting for decades, since it had happened.
It had been a night just like this, and the rain was a slow, steady downfall. Her downfall. Rose could call up the memory of that night, without thinking. In fact, it took thinking not to call it up. She could see it now as if it were in front of her. It had happened around this time of year, too, but at the end of October. Halloween night, the leaves fallen, dead on the street.
Rose blinked, and the memory vanished. The kitchen was dim, the halogens under the counter working their suburban magic. The only sound was the patter of the raindrops on the roof and the thrumming