“On a first-name basis, are we?” asked Martin suspiciously. “How old is he?”
“I don’t know. Fortyish.”
“Married?”
“Martin, for God’s sake.”
“I repeat, married?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I knew it. Next you’re going to tell me he wears black, skinny jeans and that he chain-smokes Gitanes. Where do you find these guys?”
“Very funny. If you’re trying to cheer me up, it won’t work.”
“Not at all. Farthest thing from my mind. I am curious, though, whether Dr. Sprockets has taken you techno dancing yet?”
Despite myself, I smiled. “Trust me, he’s not the skinny-jeans type.”
“Or should I call him Dieter?”
“Martin! He drives a Jeep and he listens to Johnny Cash.”
“Aha! So you’ve been in his car? Front seat or back?”
“Will you listen?” I exploded. “I’m not dating him. I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you about a serious subject—”
“Fine. Want to know what I think you should do?”
“I’m beginning to regret asking, but yes. Go ahead.”
“I think you should get your butt on a plane back up here and go see that surgeon. The one Dr. Sprockets has hooked you up with. Personally, I would have done that before jetting off to Atlanta, but whatever. Go see him and schedule the surgery to get the bullet removed. And before you do any of that, for chrissake, call Mom.”
I sighed. “I know. It’s just—I thought I was finished down here, and suddenly it feels like I’m not. Think about it: I’ve found out more about my parents since I woke up this morning than I have in the last thirty-four years combined—”
“Your birth parents.”
“My what?”
“Your birth parents. Not your parents. Because that would be Mom and Dad.”
“Of course,” I said more gently. “My birth parents. That’s what I meant. But that kind of underscores my point. My whole life I’ve thought that we had this idyllic, perfect childhood—”
“We did, basically.”
“No. You did. I think we can agree that mine turns out to have been quite a bit darker than that.”
“But hang on, how does it—”
“Could you shut up and listen for a minute without getting defensive? I’m saying I always believed I had the perfect childhood in Washington, and it turns out that that was a mirage. And then I come down here to Atlanta, and—and I guess I constructed another version. That my birth parents were this storybook couple, gorgeous and in love, and tragically cut down in their youth. And now it emerges that maybe that wasn’t true, either.”
“Why not? Because maybe Sadie Rawson had an affair?”
“Yes.”
“But who cares if she did? Who cares if she wasn’t an angel? I mean, not to sound harsh, but does it matter at this point?”
He was right, but I was still upset. I struggled to find the words to make him understand. “The cop—Beasley—he said Sadie Rawson pushed me down behind her. That it looked like she had tried to protect me.”
“Well, it sounds like she did.”
“Right, but what if it was from a threat that she brought into our home? Don’t you see, Martin?”
“Not really.”
“The neighbor told police that she was cheating on my dad, and that they should question the man she was sleeping with. And then apparently I pointed at a picture of the same guy. The same guy! If it’s true, and if it’s in any way related to the shooting . . . then sure, she protected me,” I said bitterly. “Kind of like a mother hawk protecting her young from a live snake that she herself has dropped into the nest.”
Eighteen
* * *
Cheral Rooney looked surprised to find me on her doorstep again.
After hanging up with Martin, I had checked my watch and calculated that I might yet make my flight if I floored it to the airport. That would be the sensible thing to do. My brother was right: I needed to get home, get my neck seen to, and forget about the past. But I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Instead I backed out of the newspaper parking lot, pointed the car toward Cheral’s house, and stepped on the gas.
From the car I made two phone calls to Washington. The first was to my mother, to reassure her that I was still alive. The second was to Will Zartman, to let him know I wouldn’t be on the flight this afternoon after all. His response was uncharacteristically subdued. He didn’t protest and he didn’t ask why. He merely inquired into how I was feeling, and whether I needed a refill on painkillers. He hung up before I’d even said good-bye. Strange. I wondered whether I’d misread his intentions. The way he had touched my hair the other day, and that comment about my body. I’d been sure he was building up to something. But today, he could not have sounded less interested.
Cheral Rooney, by contrast, lit up when she saw me.
“Caroline!” She pulled me in out of the rain. “Come in, come in. You’ll get soaked out there.” She stood back and inspected me. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again. I thought you’d already left town? Let me put on a pot of coffee. Or, no, you’re partial to tea, aren’t you?”
“Cheral. Leave the drinks for a minute. Come here and sit down.” I led her back into the living room where she’d received me yesterday.
“Did you see the article in this morning’s paper?”
She nodded.
“Apparently a lot of people did. And one of them told me some things about Sadie Rawson that I didn’t know. Some not very nice things. He told me that before she died, she might have been having an affair.”
Cheral stiffened. “Who told you that?”
“One of the cops who investigated the murders. He said you were the source for that. That you were the one who told police about it. Is that true?”
She was looking strangely at me. “Does it matter? Why would that even come up now?”