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“You doubt your ability to do that?”
Did he ever doubt himself? Of course he did. The question asked and answered itself in seconds.
Still, admission was dangerous.
“Your meeting with Smith was before lunch, you said.”
“That’s right.”
“And it obviously went okay if you got the go-ahead.”
“Yeah.”
“So what happened to the rest of the day?”
The problem with dealing with cops was that they saw too much, more than other people saw at any rate. At least Ramsey Miller did.
And Ramsey…he knew her. Understood her. Far better than any other peers ever had.
And he had arms made for hugging. Even if he didn’t realize it.
“Luce? What’s going on?”
She could put an end to needing him. An end to whatever was happening between them that neither of them wanted, much less was ready to acknowledge.
She could hang up.
“My mother.”
In a few brief words she told him about the call she’d received while still in Lionel’s office. And of Sandy’s eventual diagnosis and prognosis.
“You’re at the hospital?”
“Yes.” She hadn’t actually said so.
“Are you with your mother now?”
“No.” She described her current location. “Mama’s been asleep since they brought her up.”
“Did you have a chance to speak with her?”
“Not yet. She opened her eyes once and smiled when she saw that I was there. She squeezed my hand, but that’s all.”
“The alcohol still has ahold of her.”’
“I know.” So why was this little-girl fear eating at her from the inside out? She’d been the adult in her and Sandy’s relationship since she was about four years old. “Anyway, I’ll get to UC on Monday. Marie is prepared to stay with Mama around the clock if necessary.”
“Does she get paid overtime?”
“No. But she and my mother have been best friends since grade school. And she’s a widow. Mama sat with her many, many nights while her husband was dying of leukemia. I was only four or five at the time. I can barely remember Dwayne, just that he made me laugh. And that we were safe with him.”
An odd concept for a five-year-old to have.
Unless you were the five-year-old of a rape victim—and the sister of a baby who’d been abducted and never found.
“Does Marie have kids? Did she ever remarry?”
“No and no. Mama was Mama, even then. Drunk as much as she was sober. Marie took us both on. Mama, and me, too, as much as she could. She still worked full-time back then, and took care of her own mother, but she got money from Dwayne’s death, too. I guess he’d taken out a fairly nice lifeinsurance policy before he got sick. Strange how things work that way, huh?”
