An Accidental Woman (49 page)

“Oh, for heaven's sake. What's the point of that? The boy is dead.”

Cassie couldn't believe he'd said that. The remark was totally biased,
totally unprofessional. Livid now, she didn't need to look at her notes. Everything she wanted to say was on the tip of her tongue. “You're right. He's dead. This whole
case
should be dead, because Rob's death was nothing more than a tragic accident. That's what a jury will find, only to prove it, we'll have to bring up all the rest. Will the family like that? I doubt it. But that's their problem. They've brought this on themselves. They certainly didn't have any trouble bad-mouthing Lisa Matlock—or now, Heather Malone—in a very public way. They've looked for the limelight in this case, and that's exactly where this new information will come out if we don't settle it within the next day, in a quiet and fair way.”

“The next
day?
”

“Okay, I'll give you two. Forty-eight hours. After that, I'll have to go to the press.”

“I can prevent that with a gag order.”

“Do that, and you'll
really
have the charge of a cover-up in your lap, only it'll have nothing to do with your predecessor and everything to do with you. Let's talk about free speech and freedom of the press. Let's talk about my client's civil rights. Thanks to the DiCenzas, there's no way that Heather can get a fair trial. Only one side has come out. The other side needs an airing.”

“In court. Before a jury.”

Cassie refused to buckle. “If it doesn't come out now, it'll come out then. And in open court, with all the hoopla that the DiCenzas were hoping to use to get a conviction. You need to talk to them. Ask if they want their son dragged through the mud. Ask if they want a financial claim made on them by a fourteen-year-old child who may be proven to be their grandchild. If we don't get a deal by Thursday afternoon, that's what'll happen.”

“Okay,” the attorney general said, clearly humoring her, “what kind of deal do you want?”

Cassie aimed high. She had nothing to lose. “I want the case dropped.”

“Dropped?”

“Dropped.”

“I
can't do that. Not with a
murder
case.”

“Of course you can.” She had thought this through. “You can either say that after reviewing the case, given the amount of time that's passed since that night and the potential for fuzzy memories, there isn't enough evidence to convict. Or you can say that new evidence has emerged that casts doubt on any murder charge.”

“The press will want to know what that ‘new evidence' is, which does all the dirtying, anyway. The family will never go for that.”

“Then take the first option. You, as attorney general, advise the family that it's in their best interest to let this case die. You save face by coming forward as the compassionate arbiter of the situation. The family saves face by taking the lead and
requesting
that the charges be dropped. They can say that it is simply too painful for them to have to relive this tragedy.”

“You want her to go scot-
free?
”

“I want the charges dropped,” Cassie insisted. “All of them. It wasn't murder. She was fleeing for her life, and he ran in front of her car on a dark night in a crowded, unlit parking lot. Drop those charges, and if there's no crime, there's no charge of flight to avoid prosecution.”

“Christ, you don't budge. Give me a crumb, here. What about vehicular homicide?”

“It wasn't that. He was drunk, and he ran out from between parked cars. There's no vehicular homicide here. My client has paid dearly for knowing Rob DiCenza. If she weren't as quiet and gentle as she is, and if she didn't have a quiet and gentle life here, I'd have her turn around and sue the DiCenza family for defamation of character. But she
is
quiet and gentle. All she wants is to return to her family here. I don't even want her going to California to appear in court for dismissal of the charges. There's no need for that.”

“Give me something, Ms. Byrnes.”

“Agree to all of the above, and my client will agree not to divulge anything related to Rob DiCenza or this case, but I want her released from prison as soon as we make our deal. She isn't a danger to society. She shouldn't have to spend even one more day in jail. That's why I want this
done fast. I want every part of it done fast. You can make that happen.” He might be a lousy lawyer, but he surely knew about political expediency.

“You give me too much credit,” the man muttered. “I don't have the final say here.”

Cassie understood that. “The DiCenzas are in town. I've checked this out and know they are. I also know that you can be very persuasive when you want to. If you want,” she added, knowing that he was an adoptee himself, “you can make the argument that a fourteen-year-old who has a loving adoptive family shouldn't have to relive the sins of her birth parents. I'll look forward to hearing from you.”

* * *

She arrived home to find a note on the kitchen table saying that he had taken the kids to Concord for fast food and a movie.

Feeling a letdown, and the irrational sense that her family was moving on without her, she made herself macaroni and cheese from a box, built up the fire in the living room, and settled in on the sofa to wait. In less than twenty minutes, she was asleep.

* * *

“How's this depth?” Griffin asked. He was standing over the finish pan, which was newly replenished with sap that was nearing the syrup stage. Skimmer in hand, he was at the ready should anything start to foam.

Micah glanced over and nodded that it was fine, but quickly returned to the task at hand. The sweat that trickled down his body wasn't only from work. Much of it was the product of fear. He was behind in the process. Having to filter everything by hand was slowing up the works. Even with Griffin helping, he would be working past midnight. He wouldn't mind that, if it wore him out enough so that he could sleep for five hours straight, something he hadn't done in a while. Niggling problems kept waking him up.

One problem was solved. As of late afternoon, all of the tubing was clear and running.

That created another problem. If he was backed up now, after a day's sap flow from barely half his trees, with everything running tomorrow he would be twice as backed up. He needed the electricity back on for the filter press, but the power company wasn't promising help for another two or three days.

By then he would be dead on his feet, and maybe that was okay, too. If he was too tired to think, he couldn't think about Heather, and if he didn't think about Heather, he wouldn't have trouble breathing. He took a breath now and tried to relax, but the tightness was still there. It was the product of fear—fear of Heather returning, fear of her not returning, fear of his not knowing the person she was when and if she did return.

Cassie said they had to wait. He was in purgatory.

The sugarhouse door barreled open, and Skip Houser backed in. Micah hadn't seen Skip since that day at the gas pumps, and was about to ask what in the
hell
he was doing, when he saw that Skip and another man were struggling to carry in something that looked familiar enough.

Micah continued pouring syrup through the filters.

Glancing behind him, Skip backed up to the nonfunctioning electric filter. He squatted to put his end of the small generator on the floor.
When his partner had done the same, Skip straightened. He pulled off his gloves and stared at Micah.

“This was s'posed to go up to the job site. I figured no one'd notice if it was a couple days late. You didn't see
me
bring it, though,” he warned and set to hooking it up to the machine. In less than fifteen minutes, the filter press was running and he was headed out the door.

“Hey,” Micah said. “Thanks, man.”

Raising a hand in acknowledgment, Skip disappeared.

* * *

Wiping down the sink, he hung the rags to dry, then knelt by the little lumps buried in sleeping bags and gently shook the girls awake. “Time for bed,” he whispered, and started gathering the sleeping bags as soon as they crawled out. “Boots on,” he prompted. When it was done, Star put her arms up. He set her on his hip. “Get the lantern, Missy, and stay close.”

There was an instant then—just an instant—when the warmth lingered, the scent of sugar wafted from the rafters, and the three of them stood so very close that he felt a fullness near his heart. Right here, right now, his past, present, and future coalesced. Only one thing could have made it better.

Guiding Missy along, he closed the sugarhouse door on shelves that were neatly lined with new tins of syrup. “Quick, quick,” he whispered once they were outside, because though the moon lit the path, it was cold. The house wasn't much better, but the sleeping bags retained warmth. Missy went right to bed and was asleep in minutes. Star left an arm around his neck when he would have tucked her into bed.

“Daddy?” she whispered.

He sat, pulling the sleeping bag around her to keep her warm.

“Does Momma have a baby?”

He had a flash of that instant back at the sugarhouse, when the only thing that could have deepened the fullness he felt would have been Heather and a baby of their own. Of course, that wasn't what Star meant.

“She did once,” he told her, because he knew that if the women had talked of this at the house, Star would have picked up on it.

“What happened to it?”

“She couldn't take care of it, so she gave it to some people who could.”

“Why couldn't she take care of it?”

“She was too young.”

“Did the baby cry when she gave it away?”

“I think the baby was too little to know.”

“I'd cry if you gave me away.”