After Anna by Lisa Scottoline
About the Book
Everyone deserves a second chance at happiness.
Dr Noah Alderman, a widower and single father, is finally content after marrying Maggie. And they’re both thrilled when Maggie gets an unexpected chance to be a mother to Anna, the daughter she once thought she’d lost forever.
But when seventeen-year-old Anna arrives everything changes – and the darkest turn of events will shatter their lives in ways no one could have imagined.
What if your perfect family becomes your worst nightmare?
For Francesca, with love
Acknowledgments
Here’s where I get to say thank you, but because this book has a twist or two, I’ll thank people here without explaining what they did to inform this novel. I owe them a huge debt of thanks, and all mistakes herein are my own.
Thank you to Steve Gordon, Patti Emmons, Dr Lisa Goldstein, Matt Smyth of Land Rover Jaguar Main Line, educator Kathleen Buckley, and at my alma mater, Lower Merion High School, thanks to Doug Young, Anna O’Hora, and the great gang in administration. Thank you so much for all of your help to Jessica Kitson, Esq., and my brilliant goddaughter Jessica Limbacher, Esq., of Volunteer Lawyers for Justice. And thanks to my dear friend, legal genius Nicholas Casenta, Esq., Chief Deputy District Attorney of the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.
Thank you to my goddess editor, Jennifer Enderlin, who is also the Senior Vice President and Publisher of St Martin’s Press, yet she still finds the time to improve every one of my manuscripts. And big love and thanks to everyone at St Martin’s Press and Macmillan, starting with the terrific John Sargent and Sally Richardson, plus Jeff Dodes, Lisa Senz, Brian Heller, Jeff Capshew, Lisa Senz, Brant Janeway, Erica Martirano, Tom Thompson, John Karle, Jordan Hanley, John Edwards, Jeanette Zwart, Anne-Marie Tallberg, Kerry Nordling, Elizabeth Wildman, Talia Sherer, Kim Ludlum, Rachel Diebel, and all the wonderful sales reps. Big thanks to Michael Storrings, for outstanding cover design. Also hugs and kisses to Mary Beth Roche, Laura Wilson, Samantha Edelson, and the great people in audiobooks. I love and appreciate all of you!
Thanks and love to my terrific agent, Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group, for his dedication and enormous expertise, and thanks to Nicole Robson and Trident’s digital media team.
Many thanks and much love to the amazing Laura Leonard. She’s invaluable in every way, every day. Thanks, too, to Nan Daley for all of her research assistance to this novel, and thanks to George Davidson and Katie Rinda for doing everything else, so that I can be free to write.
Finally, thank you to my amazing daughter (and even coauthor), Francesca, for all of her support, laughter, and love.
Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
– Benjamin Franklin
You can’t believe people when they look you in the eyes.
You gotta look behind them.
See what they’re standing in front of.
What they’re hiding.
– Sam Shepard, Curse of the Starving Class
Chapter One
Noah, After
TRIAL, DAY 10
Dr Noah Alderman watched the jurors as they filed into the courtroom with their verdict, which would either set him free or convict him of first-degree murder. None of them met his eye, which was a bad sign.
Noah masked his emotions. It almost didn’t matter what the jury did to him. He’d already lost everything he loved. His wife, Maggie, and son, Caleb. His partnership in a thriving medical practice. His house. His contented life as a suburban dad, running errands on Saturday mornings with Caleb. They’d make the rounds to the box stores and garden center for whatever Maggie needed. Potting soil, deer repellent, mulch. Noah never bought enough mulch and always had to go back. He actually missed mulch.
The jurors seated themselves while the foreman handed the verdict slip to the courtroom deputy. Noah would finally know his fate, one way or the other. It had been hanging over his head every minute of the trial and the almost seven months prior, in jail at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility. He’d done what the inmates called ‘smooth time,’ becoming a jailhouse doc, examining swollen gums, arthritic wrists, and stubborn MRSA infections. He’d kept his head down and hidden his emotions. Pretty soon he was hiding them from himself, like now.
Judge Gardner accepted the verdict slip, causing a rustling in a gallery packed with spectators and reporters since the horrific crime and its unlikely defendant had drawn media attention. Judge Gardner put on his glasses and read the verdict slip silently. His lined face betrayed no reaction.
Noah felt his lawyer, Thomas Owusu, shifting next to him. Thomas had put on a solid defense and been a friend as well as a lawyer. But Noah’s best friend was his wife, Maggie. Or at least, she had been. Before.
Noah turned around to see if she’d come to hear the verdict. The spectators reacted instantly, recoiling. They hated him. He knew why.
He scanned the pews, looking for Maggie. He didn’t see her, so he turned back. He didn’t blame her for not coming, of course. He wished he could tell her that he was sorry, but she wouldn’t believe him. Not anymore.
‘Will the defendant please rise?’ Judge Gardner took off his reading glasses and set the verdict slip aside.
Noah rose, on weak knees. The courtroom fell dead silent. He could almost hear his heart thunder. He was about to know. Guilty or innocent. Prison or freedom. If they convicted him, he could be sentenced to death.
Noah wished he could run time backwards, undo every decision until this moment. He’d made so many mistakes. His life had exploded like a strip of firecrackers at a barbecue, igniting the patio furniture and spreading to the house until everything was blazing out of control, engulfed in a massive fireball.
His entire world, destroyed.
It had all started with Anna.
Chapter Two
Maggie, Before
‘Anna, is it really you?’ Maggie felt like shouting for joy. She couldn’t believe it was really happening. She’d prayed she’d hear from Anna someday. It was her last thought every night, though she kept it to herself, a secret heartache.
‘Yes, it’s me. Uh, hi –’
‘Oh my God, I’m so happy you called!’ Maggie felt tears spring to her eyes. She grabbed a napkin from the drawer and wiped them, but the floodgates were open. It was a dream come true. She couldn’t wait to tell Noah. He was in the backyard with Caleb, planting rosebushes.
‘I hoped you’d be happy I called.’
‘Of course, of course I would be! Wow, it’s so great!’ Maggie’s throat thickened, and her nose started to bubble, which she hated. She was Queen of the Snotty Cry, which was even uglier than the Ugly Cry.
‘I know it’s kinda random, to call out of the blue.’
‘It’s not, it’s wonderful, it’s amazing! You’re my daughter! You can call me anytime!’ Maggie held the napkin to her eyes. She hadn’t seen Anna since she was an infant, only six months old. That was seventeen years ago, the darkest time in Maggie’s life, when she’d entered the hospital. It started coming back to her, a dark counterpoint to her elation.
I can’t sleep even though I’m exhausted.
‘Uh, Mom, I wasn’t even sure what to call you. Is Mom okay?’
‘Yes, Mom is okay! Mom is more than okay.’ Maggie wanted to jump up and down, but held it together. She had just been called Mom. She never dreamed she’d hear Anna call her Mom. She’d never been called Mom before, by anyone. Caleb called her Mag.
‘Good, great. I hope it’s okay I called on a holiday.’
‘It’s fine!’ Maggie dabbed at her nose, trying not to make weird noises into the phone. ‘So, Happy Easter!’
‘To you, too.’
‘What did you do for the holiday? Are you at your dad’s?’ Maggie kept her tone light, even though she hated her ex, Florian. She knew he was behind Anna’s decision never to see Maggie, estranging mother and daughter permanently.