"Hi, Allison. This is Joyce Bernstein. I'm sorry our staff wasn't able to help you last night. It was pretty crazy. Now that things are calming down, we're starting to get up to speed over here. We'll be sending someone by to pick your girl up in about twenty minutes. Thanks for being flexible."
"No problem." Allison kept her voice steady. It was illogical, but it hurt to think about giving Estella back. "So you found her parents?"
"Not yet. But she's not the only child who got separated from her family. It's been a mess. Not only did we end up with a half-dozen other kids who were totally on their own, but three day care centers downtown got evacuated. And with the phones basically being down, no one could get in touch with anyone else. We're only just now getting things straightened out."
It seemed important to have Estella fed and presentable before the caseworker showed up. Sensing that her world was about to change, she clung to Allison, refusing to sit on the telephone book that had served as a makeshift booster seat the night before. Allison ended up feeding her on her lap. Then she wiped Estella's face and hands with a damp paper towel and tried to gingerly brush the snarls from her hair. Only then did she think about her own appearance. She quickly changed out of her pajamas.
All too soon, there was a knock on the door. Marshall answered it, while Allison hung back. She told herself it was hormones that were making this so difficult. Giving Estella to the authorities would be the quickest way to unite this girl and her family.
At the sight of the middle-aged stranger wearing a red sweater and a wide smile, Estella started to cry. She buried her head against Allison's chest, her little hands clinging tightly to her blouse. Allison kissed the top of her head, inhaled her sweet aroma, and then gently began to pry her fingers loose. "They're going to find your mami, Estella. Mami."
Her dark eyes were full of confusion and pain. Even if Allison had spoken Spanish, she had a feeling that Estella was too young to understand why her world was changing yet again. As she got one small hand loose, Allison braced herself. Would Estella scream and flail? But instead, when Allison held the girl out to the social worker, Estella gave her a look of dull despair. It was as if she was resigned to always losing the people she needed.
Allison managed to hold it together }until the caseworker had Estella settled in a car seat and was pulling out of the driveway.
Once she was inside the door, she let the tears come.
Chapter 15
Riverside Condominiums
Six hours after she had washed down two Somulex with a glass of wine, Cassidy woke with a jolt. It was daylight. She was freezing, shaking so hard from the cold that she could hear her teeth knocking together. Where was she? She was surrounded by low-burning candles, lying naked in a cold bath from which the bubbles had long ago dissipated.
Blearily, she looked at her watch. She had been lying in deep, cold water, basically passed out, for most of the night. What if she had slipped under the surface? Cassidy jumped up, blew out the candles, and grabbed a towel, vowing never again to do anything so stupid.
In the kitchen, she drank one, two, three cups of coffee, trying to shake off the grogginess that made her eyelids droop. Her body ached from sleeping half sitting up in cold water. She turned on the radio. It was tuned to KNWS, but to her surprise what she heard wasn't a national feed.
The person on the air was Victoria Hanawa. Jim's cohost. Cassidy thought about what Jim had told her about,Victoria. How much of it had been true? How much of it had been designed to make Cassidy do what he wanted? Jim wasn't above shading the truth and even ignoring facts that didn't fit his theories.
Cassidy had a theory about people who spent their working lives entertaining the public. Actors. Comics. People in TV and radio. Secretly they were all just a tad insecure. No matter how many listeners or viewers they had, it was never enough. Like the philosopher who wondered if a tree falling in a forest made any noise if no one was there to hear it, people who made their living as entertainers--and Cassidy counted herself among them--wondered if their lives had meaning once the cameras or microphones were turned off.
Which is why it made perfect sense that Victoria was processing the horror she had just witnessed by talking about it to an eager audience.
"Hello, Kim in Portland," she said. "You're on the air with Victoria Hanawa, and of course we are talking about the tragic, tragic death yesterday of Jim Fate, who I had the honor of working with right up until the end. Kim, what memory would you like to share of Jim?"
"I just can't believe he's gone!" A woman's voice, rough with emotion, edged toward hysteria.
"It's almost impossible to believe, isn't it?" Victoria's own voice broke. "Only twenty-four hours ago we were talking about our weekend plans. And now he's gone." She heaved a shaky sigh. "Is there a story about Jim you would like to share, Kim?"
"It's just--just everything. He spoke up for us, you know? The little guy. He wasn't afraid to say what was wrong with this world. Who will do that now?"