Act of God (53 page)

She had been so immersed in the trial that it never occurred to her that there would be members of the media who were so desperate
for something to report that it didn’t matter whether it was about the Hill House bombing or not.

She was certain the whole thing would blow over in a few days, as all things tended to do, but she wasn’t so certain that
it would be soon enough for Paul Cotter.

“That son of a bitch,” Joan had muttered, when Dana relayed the gist of the conversation with the managing partner. “If he
takes you off the case now, it’s as good as a conviction.”

“You don’t have confidence in Charles?” Dana inquired.

Joan gave her a look that said it all.

“Are you upset because he skipped over you?”

“I’m upset because I want an acquittal here,” Joan replied. “And I don’t think Charles Ramsey has a prayer of getting it.”

“Why would you say that?”

Joan shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a feeling I get. I’m not saying he’s senile or anything like that. It’s just that he doesn’t
really seem to care about the case. He’s not on top of it like you are. You know, he’s never once looked at the files.”

Dana nodded slowly. “So, what do you suggest I do?”

“Put a statement together,” Joan replied. “Shrug the whole thing off, flat out deny it, fall on your sword, do whatever you
like. But get it over with. And as quickly as possible. Tonight, if you can, because you’ve got the weekend for it to blow
over. In any case, the sooner you deal with it, the sooner it’ll be behind you, and the better your chances of getting Cotter
off your back.”

Although Dana would have preferred never having to deal with the issue at all, she had to agree that Joan had a point, and
the two attorneys spent the next several hours preparing just such a statement.

Now, as she turned the corner onto 28th Avenue, and saw the swarm of humanity trampling across her lawn, Dana was even more
convinced that Joan was right.

She climbed out of her car, walked resolutely up the front steps to her house, and turned to face the crowd. Immediately,
a dozen lights blinded her.

“Ms. McAuliffe, do you have any comment to make about the article that came out in
Probe
today?” someone up at the front asked.

“Did you have an abortion?” someone shouted from the back.

Dana took a deep breath. “I happen to feel that one’s private life ought to be just that—private, and that it should have
no bearing on the conduct of one’s professional life,” she said in a soft voice. “But clearly, there are those of you who
have no respect for others, or their privacy. Those of you whose only interest is in a headline that will sell more copies
than the competition, or a lead story that will earn a higher rating than
the other networks. Obviously, it’s my turn to provide that grist for your mills.” Here, she paused for perhaps two beats.
“The article that appeared in the tabloid is essentially correct,” she continued. “Five years ago, I did indeed terminate
a pregnancy at Hill House. I believe it was the proper decision for me to have made at the time, and I made it for what I
felt were valid reasons. In any case, it was a deeply personal decision that, right or wrong, I have lived with ever since.”

Not waiting for the barrage of questions that were bound to follow, she nodded once, and then stepped quickly out of the glare
and through the front door, locking it securely behind her.

The house was dark and silent. Only one dim light shone from the kitchen. No ten-year-old came rushing into her arms. A chill
ran down Dana’s spine that was so gripping that she gasped. During the past eight hours the only thing she had thought about
was the impact the disclosure of her abortion would have on the trial. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of the impact it
would have on her husband and daughter.

Dropping her briefcase, she stumbled toward the kitchen, hoping for a note that would tell her where they had gone. Instead,
she found Sam sitting quietly on a stool, his eyes cast down, his hands folded on the counter in front of him.

“You
are
here,” she gasped in relief. “There were no lights. I thought you were out somewhere. Where’s Molly?”

“I took her to Port Townsend this afternoon,” he said, his voice dead. “She’s with your parents.”

Dana was surprised for a moment, and then the wisdom of his action sank in. “That’s probably best,” she said, and searched
her brain for something else she could say. “Have you had dinner?”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“Do you want me to fix you something?”

“… no.

“Sam…?” she began. But he wouldn’t look at her. He just
sat there, with his head down, everything gone out of him. She shut her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I am so… sorry.”

And then he did look at her and she wished he hadn’t, because his eyes were as dead as his voice. “That’s just not good enough,”
he said.

“They were about to offer me a partnership,” she tried to explain. “I know that firm. If there’d been a baby, they would never
have given it to me. I’d have been shunted aside, and the offer would have gone to some guy who wasn’t half as good as I am.
I would still be an associate—still second chair, five years later. I worked hard. I deserved that partnership.”

“And what did I deserve?” he asked.

“I thought you understood,” she said. “About me, about my work.”

“Is that all our marriage is about,” he wondered, “understanding you?”

Dana blinked. “You’ve always supported me, in whatever I did,” she said slowly. “I guess I just came to expect it.”

“But you see, I wasn’t just supporting you, Dana,” he told her. “I was supporting
us,
our marriage, our family. At least, I thought I was.”

“But you were, Sam,” she said, wondering why it suddenly felt like she was standing on quicksand. “The only reason it worked
at all was because of you.”

He shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked, alarmed. “Of course, it matters. We need to fix this.
I
need to fix it.”

“No,” he said. “I wanted to wait until you got here, but I’m going now.”

He got up from the stool and started out of the kitchen. Dana felt her heart stop.

“Going? Going where?” she managed to ask.

“I’m not sure,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll have to find a place. I’ll let you know when I’m settled.”

He walked out to the foyer, and she watched as he picked up a suitcase by the front door she hadn’t noticed on her way in.

“Sam, oh God, Sam, don’t leave,” she cried. “We can work this out. I know we can. I’ve said I’m sorry. I am sorry. So terribly,
terribly sorry.”

His hand was on the doorknob. He stopped and looked back at her. “Yes, I believe you are,” he said, his voice weary and full
of pain. “But ask yourself why you’re sorry, Dana. Is it because you killed our baby… or because I found out about it?”

And then he was gone.

I
t was as though a thousand pounds had been lifted from Elise Latham’s fragile shoulders. Her testimony was over, she had done
what she could for Corey, and now she was free. When a taxi dropped her two blocks from Steven Bonner’s Mercer Island house
on Friday night, it was as though she were entering a new life.

“I’m a new woman,” she announced. “The old Elise is history. From now on, I do what I want.”

“Then let’s celebrate,” he said.

“How?” she asked breathlessly.

“Let’s hop down to Cabo for the weekend.”

“Really?” she squealed, her eyes opening wide. “Cabo San Lucas? Like in Mexico?”

“It’s the only Cabo I know,” he said.

“Tell me you’re not kidding. Tell me we could really go there.”

“Why not? I’m free. You’re free. What’s stopping us?”

“Absolutely nothing. All I have to do is go home and pack something.”

“That’s your old life,” he said. “There’s a plane leaving at nine o’clock. Whatever we need, we’ll buy when we get there.”

It was at the airport that she first saw the news, and heard the statement that Dana McAuliffe gave to the media.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said.

“Probably,” Steve told her with a chuckle.

“No, it’s the hotshot who’s defending my husband.”

“What about her?”

“She had an abortion. Just like I did. I knew there was something about her. I just didn’t figure on that.”

Through the long hours of the night, Dana alternately stared out the window and lay across the bed, wanting sleep, but not
wanting to get undressed and crawl under the sheets, because Sam wasn’t there to hold her, and warm her, and protect her from
the world.

The telephone rang repeatedly, and thinking each time it might be Sam, she answered. It wasn’t. It was only a string of awful
people, who didn’t give a damn about the time or about what she was going through, but just wanted her to know how they felt.

“Murderer!” they screeched.

“Baby killer!”

She hung up on them. After a while, she took the receiver off the hook. There was something about the calls that seemed vaguely
familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite grasp what it was, and it was too much trouble to try. Instead, she wrapped herself
in the cold comfort of silence. She had never felt so alone. When it grew light outside, she took a shower, got dressed, and
went to Port Townsend.

Molly seemed surprised to see her. “You haven’t come to take me home, have you?” she asked anxiously. “Daddy said I could
stay all weekend, and I’ve made plans.”

“Stay you may,” Dana assured her. “Are you having fun?”

“Oh yes,” the ten-year-old replied, her eyes shining. “There’s just so much to do.” And she was off with her cousins.

“Thanks, mom,” Dana said, when the girl was gone.

“We’re not entirely cut off here, you know,” her mother told her. “We’re aware of what’s going on in the big city. I don’t
know how long we can pretend that nothing’s happened.”

Dana sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’ll leave, if that would make things easier for you.”

“No need for that,” her mother said. “You raise your children the best you can, but once they’re grown and gone, you no longer
have control over what they do.”

“I know I’ve disappointed you,” Dana said. “I’ve probably disappointed everybody. But I did what I thought I was supposed
to do.”

“God knows we’re not all perfect,” her mother reflected. “Which is why He teaches us as much from our failures as from our
successes. What’s done is done. It’s how you live with it that counts.”

Dana nodded. “That’s what I have to figure out,” she said.

Her mother glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Then I expect you’ll want to see your father. He’s still down at the
office.”

There was no resentment in her voice that her husband would routinely go to work on the weekend, only acceptance of how things
were.

Dana found Jefferson Reid at his desk, poring over legal tomes, searching out precedents.

“A few more years of this, and I’ll be blind,” he grumbled when he saw her. “They keep printing this stuff smaller and smaller.”

“That’s because there’s more and more of it,” she suggested. “If they made the print large enough to be readable, you wouldn’t
be able to lift the book.”

He pushed the tomes aside. “I guess I don’t have to ask you what you’re doing here,” he said.

She dropped into one of his deep leather chairs. “Why?” she asked. “Because I always come running to you when I’m in trouble?”

“Is your case in trouble?” he asked immediately.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “Cotter is making a few noises about moving me out of first chair, but I can’t believe he’s
really serious about doing it. Other than that, all things considered, I think we’re in pretty good shape.”

“Can you handle the distraction?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said. “I made a brief statement last night, and I’m going to wait to see how that plays out before
I decide whether I need to do anything more.”

“Well, if you’re worried about us, your mother’s the religious one in the family, but she’s also a realist. Mind you, it’ll
stick in her craw for a while, but she’ll work through it.”

“I know.”

He peered at her. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Sam’s gone,” Dana said.

“What do you mean, gone?” he asked.

“He left me last night.”

Jefferson Reid contemplated his daughter for a long moment. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

She shut her eyes and shook her head. “I wanted to,” she said. “But I knew how much he wanted a child of his own, and I didn’t
know how to tell him that a partnership in my law firm was more important at the time. I thought I’d take a couple of years,
get established, and then have a baby. But I was always working so hard, I guess the right time never really came.” She sighed.
“I didn’t want him to know that I’d killed his only chance.”

Reid rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Did you tell your mother about this?”

“No,” Dana admitted. “But I was thinking maybe, if it was okay with both of you, that Molly could stay here for a while. Well,
at least until the trial is over. It would make things a lot easier, and she wouldn’t miss that much school. We’re only talking
a few more days.”