Exposed (Rosato & DiNunzio #5)(26)

Bennie had to get the truth, but she couldn’t do it with an audience. She stood up, crossed to the door, and opened it with a smile. “Gentlemen, I’d like everyone except for Todd to leave the room.”

Todd recoiled, bewildered. “For real?”

“Yes. I won’t keep you long.”

“Okay.” Jason and Ray rose from the chairs and headed toward the door.

Only Nate didn’t move, looking up at her with a mock-frown. “You can’t mean me, too.”

“Yes, I do,” Bennie answered, opening the door wider.





CHAPTER NINE

Mary and Anthony threaded their way through the Children’s Hospital lobby, which was bustling with early-morning activity. Doctors in scrubs and surgical caps, nurses with decorated stethoscopes and laminated IDs, and staff with colorful plastic carry-alls hurried this way and that, mixing in with the patients’ families, the mothers and fathers bearing up under the strain, tugging toddlers and siblings by the hand.

Mary and Anthony fell silent as they climbed into the crowded elevator, and she knew that he felt the same way that she did inside. The elevator pinged on their floor, the door slid open, and they made their way out of the cab, down the hall, and into the BMT unit, where they Purelled their hands. They stopped at the lounge, taken aback at the crowd filling it to its glass walls.

“What’s going on?” Mary wondered aloud, then did a double-take at the same moment that Anthony did, when they began to recognize faces from the neighborhood in the crowd.

“It’s everybody. It’s all of South Philly.”

“You’re right, and both our families. They didn’t tell me they were coming.” Mary’s father, her mother, and The Tonys were there, and so was her mother-in-law, Anthony’s mother, Elvira, whom Mary secretly called El Virus. They were talking with a group of Simon’s cousins from the West Coast and Italy, whom Mary had met at Simon and Ellen’s wedding, and sadly, at her funeral.

“Oh no,” Anthony said under his breath. “You don’t think anything bad happened, do you?”

“No, they’d be crying. There’s a reason the best operas are Italian.”

“We go hard on the waterworks.”

“And why not, really?” Mary spotted her mother smiling and talking, the shortest one in the crowd, with thick glasses and white hair teased into a cumulus cloud to hide her bald spot. She had on her flowered housedress with her orthopedic shoes, which looked oddly great together. “How cute is my mother?”

“Cute. She gets it from you.” Anthony chuckled, Mary joined him, and for a moment they stood outside the glass, watching their blood relatives as if they were strangely exotic fish in a fishbowl, which in a way, they were.

“Oh, look. There’s Simon, so nothing terrible happened.” Mary noticed Simon at the center of the crowd, being hugged and kissed by his cousins.

“You mean nothing worse.”

“Right.” Mary felt her stomach clench. “I think it’s nice that his family came from Italy, don’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s also concerning. How long can she wait for a donor? This is awful. Such a sweet little girl.”

“I know.” Mary squeezed his hand. Anthony adored Rachel and had a special way with kids. Someday he’d be a wonderful father, and they’d both talked about having kids when the time was right. Until then, they loved spending time with Patrick O’Brien, a child whom Mary had met on her last big special-education case.

“Let’s go.” Anthony opened the door for Mary, and heads started turning as soon as she entered the lounge, with everybody reaching for her, trying to hug her, and calling to her.

“It’s Mary!” “Hey, Mary!” “Look who it is!” “Come here, Mary!”

“Hi, everybody!” Mary called back, hugging everybody in sight, getting kissed on the cheek, and breathing in the smells of Aqua Velva, Aquanet hairspray, and aqua–everything else. They were treating her like an absolute rock star, and she realized that the word must’ve spread that she was representing Simon in his lawsuit.

“Maria!” her mother said, grabbing her cheeks and giving her a big smooch.

“HEY, MARE! I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE COMIN’.”

“I just thought I’d check in before work.” Mary hugged her father, who seemed back to his usual chipper self, flashing her a big grin as he let her go. She hugged and kissed Pigeon Tony and Tony-From-Down-The-Block, with Feet bringing up the rear, like a caboose with glasses.

“Mary, I’m so glad you’re fighting for Simon. It’s like we got Perry Mason on our side! Thank God!” Feet squeezed her tight, and Mary let him go as Simon reached her side.

“Mary, thanks for coming.” Simon gave her a big hug, then gestured behind him. “You remember my cousins, Amelia, Adriana, and Elisa from Rome? They’re the good-looking branch of the family, my Uncle Tullio’s daughters.”

“Of course, hello.” Mary shook the manicured hands of a bevy of beautiful dark-haired women, all about her age, with similarly lovely cheekbones that had to be in the Pensiera DNA.

“Mary, it’s wonderful to see you again,” Amelia said in perfect English. “Thank you so much for helping Simon and Rachel.”