At Risk of Being a Fool (18 page)

“You can’t be far along, just a few weeks—”

“I’ve been thinking.” Sorrel’s tone was dreary, exhausted. “But I can’t do it. It’s like, if it were Tiffany.”

Or Geoff, or Keith. A wave of kinship washed over her. She stretched out an arm across Sorrel’s back, and leaned her cheek against Sorrel’s fevered one. “We’ll work it out. There’s always ways.”

Sorrel’s keening sobs rocked Jeanie back and forth to the beat of the crashing music from Tonio’s radio. After a time, the tremors eased. Jeanie sat up, letting her free.

“God, I must look like crap,” Sorrel muttered.

Jeanie smiled involuntarily. “Just about,” she said. “How about you go clean up some, and we’ll figure things out. Go out through the office,” she added, remembering Brynna’s eager look. “Sorrel?”

Sorrel’s eyes looked like Tonio’s: deep, mesmerizing, a dark cave with a bottomless pit. Jeanie kept her footing. “We’ll figure something out,” Jeanie said. “We will. Believe it, Sorrel.” The cave wavered and disappeared, leaving behind a girl, stunned and bereft. Sorrel nodded and fled.

Jeanie watched her go. A month ago, she’d gotten this job, walked through the door, and started going through the motions. A student acted this way, and the professional teacher reacted that way. It was a complex dance, the moves choreographed through years of practice. When had that changed? When had these six students wormed their way into her heart so completely? Randy Firman and Dolores Cuthbert weren’t going to hear about this, not from Jeanie. They were colleagues, but on opposite sides of the same fence.

How could she help Sorrel hide her pregnancy? The girl’s clothes emphasized every curve. That had to change. Then there was the Writing test. She was nearly ready. If she could recover her balance, she could take it Friday. It was best to get that over with as soon as possible, since it took so long to get the scores back. She could study for the math test while waiting.

How far along was she? It was a second pregnancy, and she wasn’t showing yet. She might have another month of grace. Of course, if she failed either test, they were up a creek. The problem would be obvious before she had time for another try. Meantime, the main problem was keeping her out of the sight of suspicious people. At least Estelle, with her sharp eyes, wouldn’t see her.

Jeanie’s mind stilled. Her fingers rattled on the desktop, the sound indistinguishable from the crashing music.
Oh dear Lord, she couldn’t have.
She half-rose, eyes frozen on the door through which Sorrel had escaped. Surely not. Sorrel couldn’t bear the thought of an abortion without getting sick. She couldn’t order a pipe bomb set for Estelle, just to get her out of the way. Could she?

But there was that man she’d attacked at the party. She severed an artery, nearly castrated him, and left him in the bedroom. If no one had found him, he’d have died. He hadn’t recovered the use of two of his fingers, and walking remained uncomfortable a year later. Sorrel said she’d defended herself. The guy said that she’d answered a joke with a knife.

That was different, wasn’t it, from a pipe bomb? A knife attack was an instant’s fury, slashes with the knife close at hand, and the instinct to flee. Arranging a bomb took planning and intent. Or perhaps it didn’t, if all it took was a phone call. Had she called someone because she was scared Estelle was onto her, would kick her out, and toss her back into Corrections?

No. She couldn’t have.

Sorrel came in and sat down, drawing the shreds of her dignity around her. Her freshly scrubbed face looked naked without its customary armor of makeup. She looked at Jeanie, with hope and fear mingled.

“All right, here’s what I’m thinking,” said Jeanie. “Stop me if you disagree. I know you have to pass the tests to get out of Bright Futures, right? I’m assuming you can handle living there, and working for a while? You’re going to take the Writing test on Friday, so you’re going to have to live and breathe writing for the next two days. We’ll have to wait from one to three weeks for those results, and I figure that’s all the time we’ve got. Now for the math test, that’s bad news. To get to that level, in a month, means a lot of work, lots of concentration on your part.” Doubts rose. Sorrel had the basic skills and the intelligence, but not the patience to apply them. “More than you’ve shown me in the past.”

“I will, I will. I can do it. If I don’t, God, I’m back in Corrections and the baby’s in foster care. I want my baby.” She clutched her abdomen protectively. “It’s ours. Tiffy’s and mine.”

“And the father?”

Sorrel sealed her lips and shook her head. “He’s got nothing to do with this. The baby’s mine.”

“But Sorrel—” Sorrel half-rose, looking ready to bolt. Why was the father such a touchy issue? “All right then. That’s your business, not mine. Sorrel, you’ll need to fill me on a few things, especially on how your sentence reads. Then I’ll hit the phones while you hit the books. I’m going to line you up enough homework to keep you out of trouble.”

Sorrel gave a watery chuckle. “A little late.”

~*~

Randy replayed his voice mail. He shifted his shoulders against the car seat, propped the bag of fries on the dashboard, and took another bite from his hamburger. Fast food parking lots were his second office. He gathered the burger into one hand and thumbed his cell phone with the other.

“
GED
School
.” Jeanie sounded a little strained.

“It’s okay,” Randy said, through a mouthful of burger. “Sorry.” He swallowed. “They’ve cleared him, at least for now. He’ll be there soon.”

“Dillon?” She sounded startled. “Oh, right, he got back a while ago.”

“They got a search warrant for his house.”

“His house? Dillon would never build pipe bombs in his grandmother’s house.”

Randy grinned at the acerbic tone. “Yeah, well, they don’t understand about Mrs. Otero.”

“If they think he did it, they should be checking his friends’ houses.”

“They’ll get there.”

“Yeah,” she said, depressed. “Actually, I called about Sorrel.”

“Sorrel? I saw her yesterday. What’s she pulling now?”

There was a momentary silence. “She’s working really hard. She’ll be taking the Writing test this Friday.”

“Wow, she’s really putting the pressure on. Can she pass it?”

“I hope so. Probably.”

Possibly, Randy corrected her mentally. Sorrel must be pushing Jeanie, too.

“She’s really eager to get out. We were talking about ways she could increase her chances. There’s work, school, and a positive report from Bright Futures, right?”

“That’s the basics, yes.”

“What about community service?”

Randy paused, a load of fries halfway to his mouth. Ketchup dripped onto his shirt. “Say what?”

“If she were to put some hours in, on community service, wouldn’t that help her chances? Show she’s a reformed character?” The chuckle was subtly reassuring.

Randy munched, brain spinning in a new direction. “Maybe. But I haven’t got time to arrange stuff like that. And transportation’s impossible from Bright Futures, with Torrez out of commission. They’re short-handed. Mary Mahoney’s about out of her mind.”

“How’s Estelle doing?”

“She’s off critical, out in the wards. She’ll be off work for a while. Six weeks, minimum.”

“Oh dear. Poor thing. Sorrel said something about license plate numbers. Have the police had any luck?”

“If they had Mrs. Otero’s, I’d have heard about it. Otherwise not. Jeanie, I don’t think community service is workable. She has to be under constant supervision. Once she meets the criteria, she’ll be better off. Down to supervised probation, like Dillon, but in her case, that’ll be up in
Portland
where her family is.”

“Ah. Well, about community service, I had a sudden notion. There’s this memory loss facility near my home. I do a lot of volunteer work there.” The strain was back in her voice.

“They’ll let a felon work in a nursing home?”

“If I bring her, they will. Talk about short-handed! Retirement homes are so depressing, a lot of people won’t work there, and the ones who do are collapsing under the load. So I thought, why not kill two birds with one stone? I’ll take Sorrel with me sometimes in the evenings, to help with dinner and activities. Maybe a Saturday or two? If that’s all right?”

“She’s okay with this?” He heard the suspicion in his voice, and tried to downplay it. “She
wants
to volunteer?”

“She seems to. I suppose it’s mostly the idea of getting out of Bright Futures. It’s not the most congenial environment, especially now. Besides, I can make her study more if she’s under my thumb.”

“Ah, so you’d be there all the time. You’d have to sign papers and stuff, acknowledging supervisory responsibility. Are you sure you want to bother?”

“Yes, I do. Most definitely.”

“Listen, it sounds to me like she’s trying something. She was pushing me a day or two ago, but I didn’t give her any happy answers. If she is pulling something, she’s going to get bounced right back to Corrections. She’ll be worse off than she is right now.”

“Randy, I know what you’re saying. But this is important.”

Randy reran the conversation in his mind. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

“Possibly.”

“Do you know what this is about? For real, for sure?”

“I think so.” More strongly, “Yes, I know for sure.”

“So tell me.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I have to ask.”

“You have to ask, but you don’t want to know, because you won’t want to write it down in her file. So you won’t ask.”

“Am I going to be sorry?”

“Hold on.”

Sorrel’s voice sounded on the other end of the line. “Randy?” It didn’t sound like her at all. “Randy, please, let me do this. I really want to.”

“Sorrel. I’m going out on a limb for you. So is Jeanie, big time. You hear me?”

“I hear you. I know it.” She sounded strange, a little hoarse.

“Are you going to let us down?”

“No. I’m not.”

Randy closed his eyes. Past experience argued fiercely against it.

“I swear to you, it’s for Tiffany. It’s so I can be with my family again. Randy, am I going to screw that up? I love my grandma. These people at the old age home, they’re like my grandma, and they need help. I know I’ve lied to you before. But I’m not going to hurt my chances of going home. Am I?”

“Not if you realize that you’re doing it, no.”

“If I louse this up, if I run away, or take stupid chances, I’m back in Corrections until I’m twenty-one. Right? I’m not going risk that.”

In spite of his better judgment, Randy found that he agreed. “Well. I’ll put through the paperwork, and Jeanie’s going to have to sign her name in blood about a dozen times.”

“I will too.”

Sorrel’s signature wasn’t worth a piece of scrap paper. She loved her daughter, though. He trusted her love for Tiffany, but that was about it. “Okay, girl. Put Jeanie back on. And don’t louse it up.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

“She’ll be glad to see you,” the nurse said. “She hasn’t had many visitors.”

“No?” Jeanie said.

“None at all, in fact, except for policemen. Not even phone calls.” Suppressed satisfaction lurked in the nurse’s voice. Estelle had made her usual saintly impression.

“Oh.” Jeanie considered the paperbacks in her hand. It was just a thought she’d had, to drop off some books, whiz in, and whiz out. Books were better than flowers.
Here, Estelle, something to read, get better soon, bye.

“You can go right in.”

“Thank you.” Jeanie walked slowly down the hall.

“You’ve missed it,” the nurse called, “it’s just behind you.”

“I know. I mean, I have something to do first.” Jeanie scuttled to the small waiting area at the end of the hall, and looked blindly out the window. Estelle had been here for three days. She had no friends. If she had family, they didn’t want to visit her. Jeanie fingered the paperbacks in her hands. Books had always been friends to her, but they hardly compared to someone who actually cared if you hurt. Jeanie could have fed pets with a willing heart, watered flowers, or brought books. The wisp of a notion to question Estelle vanished at the thought of Estelle’s trauma. Questioning Estelle was a minefield better left untrodden. And apart from thorny subjects of students and pipe bombs, what on earth could she say?

Jeanie found her feet leading her down the hall. Oh God, not again. Her feet had minds of their own, and dragged her into countless problems. There was no point in fighting them. Feet were stubborn, and they hurt a lot when they were mad at you. Jeanie paused at the doorway.
Here goes nothing.

“Hello, Estelle. It’s Jeanie McCoy. We met at Bright Futures.”

Blankets covered a metal framework over Estelle’s body, and hid most of the damage. A white shield of gauze covered one side of her face, the rest of it prickled and swollen, as though she’d run into a cactus. Bandages swathed her right arm, elbow to wrist. The bomb, Jeanie remembered, was behind the accelerator. The floor took the greatest force of the explosion. Like Bryce Wogan, either she’d been lucky, or the bomb was deliberately nonlethal.