Face Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Author:Hank Phillippi Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780765384799
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I can’t leave my mother. I don’t think there’s anything actually threatening her, but I can’t just run out when she seems to be so upset and fearful. I go back into her room, where she’s now sitting up, hands clasped, eyes wide open, staring grimly at the muted television. She’s changed the channel away from home improvement. Now she’s watching Forensic Files.

“Mom,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “I did a little research with that nurse. You know, your chocolate guy?”

Mom looks at me, waiting. Her stretchy white bandages, still wrapped around her face, make her look like an owl. An owl with two black eyes.

“And you know, I really think you might have misinterpreted something.”

Even in owl mode, Mom’s face sets, like it used to do when I was pleading to stay up later or explaining why I was reading Mad magazine instead of doing homework. Not what she wants to hear.

I touch her arm, insisting. “Really, Mom. Don’t worry. And I’m sure I can find out what’s going on. If there’s something going on. But I’m convinced it’s nothing dangerous. Really. But I have to call Franklin, okay? I’ll stay with you as much as I can, I will, but I’m supposed to be at work. So I’ll have to explain where I am. And I can’t use my cell phone in here, so—”

Mother waves at the vintage princess phone on her nightstand. “Perfectly good phone right here,” she says. “Is it not?”

It is, but I’m going to be discussing murder. And dead husbands. And I don’t want to do that around her.

I back out of the room, talking all the way. “I’ll be back in a flash,” I say. “Nothing is going to happen. Watch TV. Just stop watching those forensics shows. They’re making you paranoid. Watch something upbeat instead. Positive. You love Martha Stewart, right?”

And before she can answer, I’m out of the room and down the hall. I pull my cell phone out of my bag as I almost run to the front entrance. By the time I power through the revolving doors, the phone is ringing.

“Franko,” I say. I begin to pace the sidewalk in front of the surgery center. “It’s me. It’s the daughter. I mean, the daughter did it.” I gulp, knowing I’m talking too fast for Franklin to make sense of it. Still, I have to spill this. “Dorinda knows her daughter—Gaylen something? The one who was asleep at the time of the murder? You know. Did it. She’s guilty. Her mother is protecting her. We’ve got to track her down.”

Silence on Franklin’s end of the line. I can almost hear his brain churning through the evidence we’ve uncovered so far. “Oh, man,” he says. “And that could explain why the tapes and the time sheets seem correct—they are. Dorinda was actually there. At work.” He pauses. “Okay, Charlotte. I think I’m with you. But devil’s advocate, okay? Why did the bartender and those witnesses pick her out of the photo lineup? Dorinda, I mean?”

“Well, here’s the easiest answer,” I say.

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