True Places(11)

“The spreadsheet for the auction. Three days of emails.” She closed the laptop. “How did the meeting with Robert go?”

Suzanne never lost track of his day’s highlights. Considering what she had to juggle herself, it was remarkable. He sat on the bed, kicked off his shoes, and gave her a quick recap of the meeting, which, if all proceeded as planned, would result in the biggest residential development deal he had ever landed, big enough to virtually guarantee more, much more, would head his way. More was his favorite word.

“Sounds really promising, Whit.”

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He retrieved it and checked the screen. “Robert,” he said to Suzanne, and ducked into the dressing room, leaving the door ajar. Robert Shipstead filled him in on his post-meeting discussion with the head of his board, who’d happened to be arriving at the club for dinner as Whit and Robert had left. The tenor of their discussion about the development of Hampstead Farms was positive. Whit’s mind buzzed at the possibilities. “Wonderful, Robert. That’s wonderful. I’ll be in touch about next steps.”

Giddy, he rejoined Suzanne. “I’m starved. Have you eaten?”

“With the kids.”

“Join me for some wine?”

She smiled and nodded. As she bent to stash her laptop and papers in the bag leaning against the chaise, Whit tapped his stockinged foot on the rug. The memory of an earlier phone call interrupted the bubbling thrill he was enjoying over the deal.

“Suze, so what’s this I hear about you picking up a homeless person this morning?”

Suzanne straightened and stared at him, her expression quickly morphing from confused to incredulous. “My mother called you?”

His wife was always getting her back up about his positive relationship with her parents. It was irritating as hell. He happened to have a lot in common with his in-laws and thought Suzanne ought to let go of ancient history and move on. “Tinsley needed some info about the company acting as sponsors for her fund-raiser, and she mentioned you’d rescued someone on the parkway.”

“She wasn’t homeless.”

“Okay . . .”

“You should’ve seen her, Whit. She was maybe twelve years old and couldn’t have weighed more than sixty pounds.”

“You carried her?”

“She collapsed. I couldn’t leave her.” Her voice dropped. “There was no one else around.”

Oh, God. The panic thing. He crossed the room and took her hand. “You were alone. On the parkway. It’s remote.”

“Well, I wasn’t really alone. And I didn’t panic. I was fine, Whit.”

He looked into her eyes, brown and honest as always. “Did you find out who she is?”

She shook her head. “At the hospital, she was too frightened to talk. The police came. They’ll follow up with me as soon as they know anything.”

“But she can talk, right?”

“Yes, she can talk.”

Whit nodded. “Let’s go downstairs and you can tell me the whole story.” He led her into the hall and paused at the top of the stairs. “What were you doing on the parkway anyway?”

She shrugged. “Just driving.”

He continued down the stairs, hunger pushing away any curiosity around his wife’s motivations. He trusted her implicitly; it wasn’t that. And digging around for deeper reasons had never been his strong suit.

Suzanne lagged behind, her voice floating down to him, but the words were not meant for him in particular.

“Don’t you ever just want to drive?”

Nope.





CHAPTER 6

A cardinal whistled outside the window: chew chew chew chew chew. It was a good distance away, but the girl could picture it on a bare branch, throat puffed out, the whole of its body quivering with the effort of sounding purely itself. But she did not move. From her bed she could see the treetops and the blue mountains stretched flat against the sky. Structures poked out of the nearby forest—buildings, towers, she really didn’t know—and she was higher than they were. This morning Nurse Amy had attached the bag filled with liquid to a pole and led her to the window. She’d looked straight down and her head spun. She lost her balance, landing sideways on a small low bed covered in green cloth. She had figured out the healing place was a tower, and she didn’t trust it. There was little here she could trust, and without Ash beside her, she felt the undiluted misery of her situation. Like her mother, she’d fallen through the skin of the damp, sweet earth.

She startled when a man appeared in the doorway. He had thick black hair and glasses halfway between clear and dark. She wondered what they were for. He’d been here before, asking questions, but she didn’t think she’d said anything to him. Since she had arrived here, her memories had been blurry and chopped up. His name was Officer, she remembered that much. A woman with short gray hair and a board with paper on it followed him in, and a nurse who wasn’t Amy. The nurse handed her a glass filled with brown liquid. She sniffed it. Her mouth watered.

“Chocolate,” the nurse said. “Thought you might like it.”

She tasted it and gagged. Too sweet. She put it down on the little table attached to the bed.

Officer pulled up a chair for himself and another for the woman. “I’m Officer Rodriguez. You probably remember me from a couple days ago.” He pointed to the woman. “This is Ms. Rappoport from Child Protective Services. We’re both here to help you. I asked you a few things, but you weren’t in much shape to answer. Feeling better now?”