An Accidental Woman (45 page)

“He's in the hospital. He had a heart attack on Friday. I thought you might be the doctor. We don't know whether he'll pull through.”

For a stunned minute, Cassie was silent. She had chosen her words, had been prepared to launch into them as soon as Jonathan came on the line. She had run through various scenarios, including one in which he had rethought his offer to help. She hadn't anticipated this.

“Oh my,” she finally said. “I'm sorry.”

“He's in intensive care. We're telling people not to come to the hospital, because he's not allowed visitors, other than us, of course.”

Cassie thought fast. “I understand, and you're totally right. The most important thing is that he have a chance to recover.”

“The next few days are crucial.”

As indeed they are here,
Cassie thought. “And after that, he'll need to take it easy, get back to work slowly. I don't want to bother him during that time. Is one of his partners covering for him?”

“You know that the firm disbanded.”

Cassie's heart fell. “No.”

“Well, he's still with it, he and another partner, but the rest left a few months back. That's been a source of strain for him. You can certainly call his partner. He's young, but he's good.”

Cassie jotted down the name, thanked the woman, wished her husband a speedy recovery, then ended the call and punched out the partner's number. Alex Fireman might have been both young and good, but he was not pleased to be called on a Sunday.

Cassie explained the urgency, then said, “Jonathan offered to go to bat for us on this.”

“I'm already swamped covering for him. If you call again on Tuesday or Wednesday, I may be able to get a name of someone else who can help.”

“You have the records there, I believe.”

“Not me. Jonathan. I won't go into his records unless he directs me to. I've only been with him two years.”

“He felt strongly about this case.”

“I can't bother him now. I'm sorry.”

The call lasted less than a minute longer, at which point Cassie rifled one-handed through her papers. Her second call was to have been to the assistant attorney general in charge of the case in Sacramento. Given this newest glitch, though, she went over his head to the attorney general himself. One of her law school friends worked for the A.G. from Washington state, who was a good friend of the A.G. from California, which meant that Cassie's friend knew something of the man—although not his home phone number. She got that from the sister of another friend, who worked on numerous committees with the attorney general's wife.

What Cassie learned from the first friend was that the attorney general of California had been adopted at birth and then, in his early twenties, had gone looking for his biological parents on the premise that children needed to connect to their roots. Cassie was hoping that she would find him to be a man whose own life experience might make him more sympathetic to Heather and her cause.

What she got was a man who was beholden either to the DiCenzas or to the letter of the law. “I don't know what you want from me, Ms. Byrnes,” he said after she quietly and efficiently laid out her case. “Are you admitting that Heather Malone is Lisa Matlock?”

“I can't do that until I find the child.”

“Then find the child.”

“That's easier said than done, given what I told you about the situation in Chicago.”

The man sighed. “There are certain accepted avenues here, Ms. Byrnes. Calling me at home isn't one. Have you talked with Mr. Grinelle about this?”

Bud Grinelle was the assistant officially leading the charge. “Mr. Grinelle has been agreeable,” Cassie said. “He hears me out and promises to get back to me. You and I both know that he is checking with you at every step. With a case like this, he would have to. You're too good a lawyer—too responsible an attorney general—not to have him do that. I haven't mentioned the child to him. Did you know about her before?”

“There were allegations at the time. The family denied them.”

“Tests can prove a connection. I'd like the existence of the child brought into the equation.”

“Find the child, and we'll do it.”

“She exists. We know where and when she was born. Unfortunately, with the lawyer who handled the adoption sidelined, it will take longer to find her.”

“Whenever is fine.”

“Not from the point of view of my client. My own resources are limited. Yours are less so. Quite frankly, I'm thinking of the child, too. If she's to be found, it should be done quickly and cleanly. This is a child who was adopted at birth. She's fourteen now. That's a vulnerable age. I'd hate to see the press ferreting her out before I'm able to. You have resources that could make it happen before harm is done to the girl.” If there was any chance that his own experience as an adopted child would enhance his empathy for this one, she had laid the groundwork. She couldn't be more obvious.

But the man was dogmatic and impersonal. He wasn't thinking about the case in human terms. “You don't seem to understand, Ms. Byrnes,” he said, and she knew right then that she'd struck out. “
We
don't need the child.
You're
the one who does. Our case is solid.”

“What about justice? Wouldn't you like to know what really happened between Lisa and Rob?”

“We already know. We have a dozen different statements, all pointing
to the theory that a scorned and conniving woman ran down a good man. We have a thorough case. The core of it will be part of the governor's warrant that we present to the judge there. We're ahead of schedule. You can expect it at the end of the week.”

Cassie was dismayed. At the rate she was going, she would need every one of those thirty days. Playing the game, though, she said, “I was hoping we could talk turkey before then.”

“We'll do that once Lisa's back here, and in any event,
I
don't talk turkey. You'd have to do that with Mr. Grinelle.”

“Thank you,” Cassie said politely. “I will. I'm sorry to have bothered you. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

She ended the call and set down the phone. Where to go now? There was only one place. Lifting the phone again, she called Griffin.

* * *

Micah, of course, knew what he was looking for and therefore saw more than Griffin. As soon as they returned to the house, he sat with paper and pencil, listing the parts that he needed to buy for immediate repairs. His first concern was the lowest portion of mainline that had split under a fallen tree. Its proximity to the sugarhouse would make it easier to repair. Conversely, its proximity to the sugarhouse made it a final destination for the rest of the lines, which meant that it was crucial. No sap at all would make it to the sugarhouse tanks until it was fixed.

While Micah made his list, Griffin accessed his messages. He smiled at the ones from Poppy, which had come in hourly until eleven and were amusing monologues that passed on the good news that help would be at Micah's come morning. Griffin's smile faded, though, when he listened to Cassie's. Moments later, he left another message for Ralph.

“It's crunch time on Lisa Matlock's baby,” he said, meeting Micah's gaze when the man looked up. “The lawyer we thought would help is in
the hospital in intensive care, nothing related to this, but out of the picture, and the A.G. in California would be happiest if the child wasn't found at all. Also, time is shorter than we thought. The governor's warrant will be on its way by the end of the week. Do what you can. Thanks.” He ended the call and was lowering the phone when, with the scrape of his chair, Micah rose, but he did it with a fatigue that Griffin had never seen in him, but totally understood. They had come so far and were so close. It didn't seem fair that when they knew what they needed, they couldn't
seize
it.

“Think your man can find her?” Micah asked.

“Yes. In time to keep Heather from going back to California? I don't know.”

“Micah?” Camille was at the door. She had been staying with the girls while Micah and Griffin were in the woods and, as of ten minutes before, had been asleep on the living room sofa herself. “Star just woke up. Should I go in?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I'll go.” As he passed her, he said softly, “Thanks.”

When his footsteps faded, Camille looked at Griffin. She was alert in a way that belied the hour. Clearly, she had heard the message to Ralph. “If the child is found,” she asked, “would that keep Heather here?”

Griffin suddenly felt as tired as Micah looked. Pushing a hand through his hair, he let out a breath. “I don't know, Camille. The child is a smoking gun. She's proof that Rob lied, and that he lied about an innocent child. The family may not want that coming out. My guess? Heather will have to go back to face the charges at some point, but if we can find the child, the deal will be better.”

Camille considered that. Frowning, she looked at the table. Then she approached it, took Micah's pencil, tore off a piece of paper from the bottom of the pad, and wrote down something. She handed the paper to Griffin. “That's the child you want.”

Griffin studied the paper, then Camille, and suddenly it made sense—the quiet concern, the surrogate grandmotherhood here, the offer of money. “What are you to Heather?”

Camille smiled sadly. “Not her mother. That would have been too
easy. If I'd been her mother, I'd never have left her. I'm her aunt. Her mother was my sister.”

“Was?”

“She died years ago. She was a tortured soul.”

“Because of Heather's father?”

“No. He was just another by-product of her problems, like drugs.”

“Why was she so tortured?”

Pondering that, Camille studied her hands. “I don't know. I never did.” Her eyes came up. “Would you like some tea?” She answered herself. “I'd like some tea.” She went to the stove and put a kettle on to boil.

“Were you the older or the younger?” Griffin asked, one of dozens of questions he suddenly had.

“Older. By four years. We aren't native-born Americans.”

Griffin knew that about Lisa's mother. Now it explained the feeling he'd often had that Camille spoke too well, too carefully, as though loath to make the slightest verbal slip.

“We were born in eastern Europe, in a small town that doesn't exist anymore, at least, not as we know it,” she said. “After our parents died, we came here looking for a better life. I wanted to settle in a small town like the one we had left. Stacia—short for Anastasia, her given name and very theatrical, very fitting—Stacia wanted excitement and glamour.”

“Hollywood?”

Camille nodded, then turned the nod into a slow headshake. “She had no acting ability. None at all. I could never tell her that, of course. She had her dream. Somewhere along the line she met Harlan Matlock. Now, there was another tortured soul.” The kettle whistled; she took tea bags from the cupboard. “They went north to Sacramento and settled down, at least as much as my sister ever could. She was pregnant, but that didn't seem to help. She had a restlessness. She needed to be on the move, only she didn't have the slightest idea where she wanted to go. She disappeared when Lisa was five. She left a note saying that since Lisa was in school, there would be teachers looking after her and doing a better job of it than she could ever do.” Camille poured the tea.