“Oh my God, Max. So it’s true? They let you out?”
“Yeah,” I say, not bothering to explain. Every syllable out of her mouth hurts me. All I can hear is her saying Preston’s name as she rocks back and forth on top of him. I squeeze my eyes shut, as if the visual is playing out on the patterned wallpaper of Ben’s office instead of the inside of my skull. “What were you trying to tell me?” I ask again.
“What’s wrong? Are you mad because I got us caught?” She’s still talking, but I hold the earpiece away from my head because I almost can’t stand it anymore. “My parents will drop that stupid restraining order once they find out you’re innocent and—”
“I know about you and Pres.” The words come out sharply and suddenly, like I’m vomiting up bowling balls.
Dead silence. And then a tiny breath. “What?”
“Your friend Preston? I know you guys . . . slept together.”
“Max.” Her voice softens. “I can explain.”
“No, P,” I say. “I don’t want to hear about how it was all practice for being a spy or maybe a school project you two did together on the Kama Sutra.” My voice starts to crack. I am dangerously close to losing it. “All I want to know is what was so important that you left me three messages.”
“All right.” She sounds hurt. I don’t think I’ve ever raised my voice to her before. Never had a reason to. “I think maybe Preston was adopted, and Violet Cain was his real mother.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I was going through all of my texts and emails from Preston, looking for anything that might be a clue. One of them reminded me of something that happened a couple years ago.”
“What?”
“I found a lot of money in the trig book, like thousands of dollars. I asked Pres about it and he said his parents gave it to him. Said they were always giving him money because they felt bad about the adoption.”
“What did he mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Parvati says. “He was drunk at the time, and after that he never brought it up again.”
Probably because they were too busy getting naked. Bile surges up into my throat. I swallow it down, try to keep from pushing the entire computer onto the floor. “Well it’s an interesting theory, given her age. But she can’t be,” I say, “because I have a birth announcement in front of me, DeWitt and his wife holding baby Preston, back when DeWitt was the governor.”
“Damn it. I thought for sure I was onto something,” Parvati says. “I just keep thinking about Violet being thirty-five. There’s no way Pres would be hooking up with someone that age. He’s never shown any interest in older women. There has to be some other reason he went to see her.”
“Uh-huh.” I’m trying to focus, but my brain keeps flashing back to those pictures of Parvati and Preston.
“Are you at home?” she asks, oblivious to my thoughts. “I’ll sneak out. We can go through all the information together.”
“No,” I say tersely. “I’ve got to go. I’ll double-check the adoption angle, just in case.”
“Come on, Max. You know we work better as a team.”
“I thought we did,” I say. “But that was back when I thought we told each other the truth.” I hang up before she can answer. She calls back, but I let it go to voicemail. She sends me a text and I turn the phone off without reading it.
Using just the light of the computer screen so as not to wake anyone up, I scan the entire study, looking for Ben’s giant key ring. I don’t see it, so I head into the hallway, planning to check the kitchen next. My foot collides with something hard and plastic and I trip over a bouncy seat parked outside the nursery. “Son of a bitch,” I say, just a little too loudly. One of my sisters stirs in her crib.
Uh-oh. The whole house shakes with the wailing of a healthy-lunged baby, which is shortly joined by the wailing of a second healthy-lunged baby.
Darla stumbles out of her bedroom in a flannel nightgown, her hair sticking up on top. “Max?” She stops like she isn’t sure I’m real. “We got your message, but—”
“I know,” I say. “I owe you an explanation, and I wish I had one.”
I follow her into the nursery, where she picks up Jo Lee and gestures for me to get Ji Hyun. It might be the first time I’ve really held one of my little sisters.
“Sorry,” I say. “I think I scared them when I bumped into their bouncy thing.”
“It’s okay.” Jo fusses in Darla’s arms. Darla rocks her back and forth and motions for me to do the same with Ji.
Gradually, Ji’s screaming fades to wailing and then sniffles before subsiding. I smile despite everything that’s happening. The babies are cute when they’re not screaming, but why Darla wanted to adopt more kids when she’s over forty is beyond me.
“What happened?” Darla asks. “Did the charges get dropped?” Her voice is so hopeful that it kind of breaks my heart to tell her no.
“But who could have possibly posted your bond?”
“I don’t really know,” I hedge.
Darla looks worried. She lays Jo down in the crib, and I do the same with Ji. “Max, you’re not involved with drug lords or the Mafia or anything, right?”
I snort. “Darla. I don’t think the Mafia employs a lot of high school kids.”
Her cheeks go pink and droopy, like one of those half-dead roses that gas stations sell around the holidays. I know she’s given up hoping I’ll start referring to her as “Mom” someday, but she still wilts occasionally when I say her name. I don’t call her Darla to be mean. It’s just that my real mother died giving birth to me. It seems like the least I can do after that kind of sacrifice is not replace her with someone else. Besides, as hard as she tries, Darla just doesn’t feel like a mom. More like a cool aunt, but I know that isn’t what she wants to be.
“No drugs?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No drugs.” I sigh. “I need to ask you a favor, though.” The kind of favor a mom wouldn’t do but a cool aunt just might.
She raises a finger to her lip and heads for the hallway. I follow behind her. She goes into the kitchen and fills the coffee carafe.
I check the clock. It’s cruising toward midnight. “Seriously? Coffee now?”
“Something tells me you’re not going to sleep anytime soon, and I could drink an entire pot of coffee and still be out before my head hit the pillow.” She yawns. “What do you need?”