Mother May I(31)

Marshall shook his head. “Wouldn’t felony murder apply to the daughter, too?”

Gabrielle shrugged. “Oh, hell yeah, and accessory to kidnapping. The daughter is in it up to her neck, but they might not understand the law. Plus, a prosecutor would have to prove in court that the daughter staked you out or actively helped another way. No one has a legal obligation to report a crime, even if it hasn’t happened yet. I think. We really need Leticia. May I please call her?”

“Fine,” I said.

She hesitated. “If Leticia thinks you’re safe to call the cops in, can I do that, too?”

“No!” I said, instantly angry, my slumped spine jerking up straight.

Her eyes were huge and dark and sorrowing. “I’m sorry, Bree, but if you’re right, if this is about something Trey and Spencer did together, the chances of this woman calling you back at this point . . .”

I shook my head. “It’s one thing to send me to kill a man she hates in a garden far away. It’s another thing to—” I couldn’t finish. I looked back and forth between her and Marshall, tears finally breaking out and spilling down my cheeks. “She’s held him all day. Fed him. He’s such a good baby, and he’s lost that newborn scrawny look. He’s fat and pink and sweet. He learned to smile last week, and it’s all lopsided and toothless. I don’t see how she could, no matter how much she hates Trey. She’s a mother. It would be so personal.”

“That’s true,” Gabrielle said, and I saw a little of my hope leach into her features. “Okay. But I am going to go call Leticia and ask a few hypotheticals. To know your liability.”

She took her cell phone and headed out down the hall that led to my formal living room. I thought she’d agreed mostly because I was the client. I knew the firm’s first rule from Trey: Keep the client happy.

“You should listen to her.” Marshall looked grave. As an ex-cop, he’d seen levels of cruelty that Gabrielle and I had never known.

There was no way to explain my hope without sounding unhinged, so all I said was, “If I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter.” I could not stop there. I would have to say the most awful thing, out loud, to convince him. “If I’m wrong, she’s already killed him, and I don’t care what happens to me.”

Marshall rubbed at his eyes, then nodded. He looked sick, but he stopped arguing. We would do this my way. He got up and gathered the coffee cups, taking them over to refill them. “It’s going to be a long night.”

It was. The longest. I was trying to decide what “morning” meant. A minute after midnight was the start. But midnight came and went with no call.

We got more coffee and went to sit on the big sectional sofa. Marshall moved the artifacts to the coffee table gingerly, hoping for fingerprints, I thought. But I’d already touched those things all over.

When Gabrielle finally finished her phone call and came back, I said, “We’ll talk about it later,” before she could begin.

She fell asleep around two, her bare feet propped on an ottoman. Marshall dozed as well, listing sideways on the sofa. I listed with him, until I looked up and saw Trey sitting across from me in his favorite chair. I wanted to run to him, hurl myself into his arms, but I was also instantly so angry.

What did you do? I yelled, and I was halfway to standing before I realized I’d been dreaming him.

Marshall snored lightly. Gabrielle didn’t stir.

The clock ticked, the long hours passed, I waited. I could almost feel the mother, somewhere far from me. I thought she might be awake, too, still holding my son. Deciding.

When Gabrielle woke up around five, I got a couple of new toothbrushes from my pantry stash. I sent her to the master bedroom to shower and then borrow any of my clothes she wanted. Marshall was up before she got back, and I sent him to the guest bathroom.

When they returned, their eyes were full of questions that they didn’t ask. It was almost sunrise. Gabrielle went back to staring at her phone, and Marshall took over pacing. Outside, the sky stayed dark, and I heard a growl of distant thunder. A storm was coming.

Dawn changed the blackness around the blinds to soft gray light. As the rain broke, patting and tapping at the roof, Gabrielle came over to sit down by me on the sofa. She’d borrowed some sweatpants and a T-shirt. She was both shorter and curvier than me, so my clothes simultaneously made her look very young and very sexy.

She took my hand. “Leticia said you could be liable, but she thinks you could claim necessity or duress. The threat of those defenses would help her get you a good deal, if they even want to prosecute. To be blunt, you’re white and you’re wealthy. We don’t think you’re risking prison time. We should talk to the police.”

I hadn’t considered prison. I should have. I’d killed a man. Not just any man. My husband’s childhood friend, his partner, his second cousin who had spent endless hours with my family. I knew how Spence had liked his gin and tonics, knew he ate his steak rare and his bacon burned near to ash. I’d once borrowed a swimsuit from his soon-to-be-ex-wife—no, his widow—after a client dinner at his house. Charlotte and I had changed in their master bedroom, and I’d found myself peeking at her naked body with a faint, nostalgic envy. She was built like me, tall and slim, but her breasts had never been baby-chewed. She’d had no stretch marks creeping silver up her toned abs.