I swallowed the rest of my Chablis. I hadn’t intended to say any of that. It had been weighing on my mind more than I thought it had, this whole thing with Richie, how it felt like an ultimatum. But was that an excuse to ambush my father like that—to make him dig up emotions he’d no doubt conveniently buried? “You don’t have to answer that, Dad,” I said. “Honestly, I’m so caught up in this case, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
It was his turn to hold a hand up. He took a sip of his martini and set the glass down and gave me a slight smile—a mixture of bemusement and concern. “Mom was the one whostarted making noises about me retiring. You’re right about that,” he said. “But she made them for seven years before I did anything about it.”
I stared at him. “Seven years?”
“Maybe seven and a half.”
“But…I thought—”
“Nope. You two girls know a lot about Mom and me. But you don’t know us in our entirety.” He finished his martini, that wry smile still on his face.
“She waited for you,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “And I bet Richie will wait for you, too. It’s what you do when you love someone.”
I drank some water. Put the glass down carefully. I was at a loss for words—the way I always was when I realized I’d been wrong about something. And this particular something was huge.My mother, making an actual compromise. Out of love.“What do I do, Dad?” I said finally.
My father waved to the server and asked for the check, handing her his credit card the way he always did, without letting me look at it. “I already told you what to do,” he said once she left.
“You did?”
“Yes,” he said. “Go to the hospital.”
Forty-One
I didn’t think Sky would take kindly to an ambush, so I texted her from The Street Bar and asked if I could stop by the hospital to ask her a few questions. She replied right away with a chipperSure!And so I grabbed my purse and said a quick goodbye to my dad, determined to make it there before visiting hours ended.
On my way to Mass General, I called Spike from the Uber and told him everything I’d figured out today. The driver kept glancing at me in the rearview, until I explained to him that I was brainstorming a screenplay idea.
“So where are you off to now?” Spike asked.
“Mass General,” I said. “I’m going to see what I can get out of Sky.” The driver glanced at me again. “You know…for screenplay research.”
“Whatever,” Spike said. “You want me to come?”
“I think it’s best if you stay with Elspeth,” I said. “We don’t know who…the other characters are going to be and if they might…surface in the third act.”
“I hate it when you speak in code,” he said flatly.
“I can’t help it,” I said. “You have to admit, this is a very scary-sounding script, and we don’t need people telling others…about our idea.”
He gave me an exasperated sigh. “Look, Greta Gerwig, I really don’t think Elspeth shot Sky.”
“Tell me why,” I said.
“Okay, I’m not being sexist. But she’s very small, especially in the shoulders. Even if it was just a .22—and I’m guessing it was a higher caliber if it did the damage you said it did to Sky’s shoulder—the kickback alone would probably take her arm out of its socket.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Plus, she’d be more traumatized than she is.”
“Yeah?” I said. “How is she?”
“Pretty good, considering. Calling friends. Working her way through my menu. I gave her one of Flynn’s tracksuits to wear so she didn’t have to be in that bloodstained Armani anymore. Fits her pretty good. Which concerns me about Flynn.”
“Okay, so I tend to agree with you. But that means someone else had to have shot her.”
“Don’t forget to say ‘in the screenplay.’ ”
