Follow the Stars Home (58 page)

Stella meows. She knows too.

My kitty jumps up on the window ledge. Orion pads across the kitchen floor, cries for Granny to give him some attention. She pets his head, saying, “There boy, there, boy.” That is enough for him, and he circles once and lies down on the floor. But Stella waits.

She keeps her vigil. Her turquoise eyes blink, gazing into mine. I blink back. Our eyes speak to each
other, as we have learned to do over the years. She is telling me she knows how I feel, that I want my mother to come home. She misses my mother and Amy too, and she will call to the stars tonight, trying to bring them home.

Granny sees.

“Stella,” she says, her voice barely a breath. “Are you watching Orion in the sky?”

I wave my hands, telling Stella to call the stars.

“Oh, kitty,” Granny said, “you think you live in that constellation, don't you?”

Stella says nothing. With regal elegance she turns her back on us. She gazes toward heaven, her body tense with longing. She implores her friend, the hunter in the sky, to make my mother well again.

“Gaaa,” I say.

“Sweetheart,” Granny whispers, kissing my head.

I wave my hands, wanting to comfort my grandmother.

Granny is so smart. She knows stories and plays. She knows poems by heart, and watching my cat, Stella, she thinks of one and recites it now.

She says out loud:

“Evening Star,
Hesperos,
you bring all good things.
You bring home all the bright dawn disperses,
bring home the sheep,
bring home the goat, bring the child home to its mother.”

“Bring my daughter home!” my grandmother implores the evening star in the velvet sky.

“Gaaa,” I say to let her know that all will be well.

I close my eyes and think of the four apple dolls. They each wear a different dress, made from Mama's curtain fabrics. But it's their faces I love. Their faces are made from the wrinkled, withered apples Amy picked up in the apple gardens.

Granny has hidden the dolls.

They will be a surprise for us on Christmas morning. Me, Mama, Amy, and Granny herself. As Amy once said, those apples are us: funny looking, fallen from the tree, not good enough for pie.

My granny's crying now, and I want to tell her:

All will be well.

We are all, all of us, approaching the end of our time on this earth. We all have gifts to bestow, but not one of us is finished yet. We are girls of spirit, angels in broken bodies, apple dolls come to life. We've seen sand castles built, and we've seen sand castles wash away.

Mama has more left to do here, and she's not leaving yet.

I need her too much.

About the Author

LUANNE RICE is the author of
True Blue, Safe Harbor, Firefly Beach, Dream Country, Follow the Stars Home, Cloud Nine, Home Fires, Secrets of Paris, Stone Heart, Angels All Over Town, Crazy in Love
(made into a TNT Network feature film), and
Blue Moon
(made into a CBS television film). Her next novel,
The Secret Hour
, will be published by Bantam Books in February 2003. She lives in New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut.

In THE SECRET HOUR, Luanne Rice applies her bestselling blend of love and family to a riveting story of two people searching for the truth, for the true meaning of justice, and for each other.

Luanne Rice
The Secret Hour

On sale wherever hardcover books are sold.
February 4, 2003

from
BANTAM BOOKS.

Please turn the page for a
special advance preview.

One

T
HE KITCHEN WAS
quiet. The kids were trying so hard to help. Sitting at the breakfast table, his back to the cove, John O'Rourke tried to concentrate on the legal brief he'd stayed up last night finishing. Maggie buttered a piece of toast and slid it across the table. He accepted it, nodding thanks. Teddy hunched over the sports section, scowling at the scores, as if all his teams had lost. Brainer, the dog, lay under the table, growling happily as he gnawed an old tennis ball.

“Dad,” Maggie said.

“What?”

“Are you finished reading yet?”

“Not quite, Mags.”

“Is it about Merrill?”

John didn't respond at first, but his stomach twisted in a knot. He thought about his eleven-year-old daughter knowing about Greg Merrill, his all-time most time-consuming client, the Breakwater Killer, the star of Connecticut's Death Row and, as such, the talk of
barrooms and courtrooms everywhere. John wanted people talking; it was part of his strategy. But he didn't want his daughter knowing.

“It is, honey,” he said, lowering the brief.

“Are they going to kill him, Dad?”

“I don't know, Maggie. I'm trying to make it so they don't.”

“But he deserves it,” Teddy said. “For killing those girls.”

“Everyone's innocent till proven guilty,” Maggie intoned.

“He admits he's guilty,” Teddy said, lowering the sports section. “He confessed.” At fourteen, he was tall and strong. His eyes were too serious, his smile a shadow of the grin he used to flash before his mother's death. Sitting across the wide oak table, John reflected that Teddy would make a fine prosecutor.

“He did,” John said.

“Because he did those things-murdered girls, ruined families. He deserves what's coming to him. Everyone says he does, Dad.”

Outside, the wind blew, and a shower of autumn leaves fell from the trees.

John stared at his brief. He thought about the confession, the sentencing-to death by lethal injection, the months Greg Merrill had already spent on Death Row; and he thought of his current strategy-to argue before the Connecticut State Supreme Court that Merrill deserved a new sentencing hearing.

“Ruined families?” Maggie asked.

“Yes,” Teddy said, glancing at his sister. “But don't worry, Maggie. He's in jail now. He can't hurt anyone anymore. People want to make sure it stays that way, which is why our phone rang ten times in the middle of the night-even though we have an unlisted number.
You should hear what people say when we go by. They want you to stop what you're doing, Dad.”

“Okay Teddy,” John said softly.

“But it's his job,” Maggie said, her eyes filling. “Why is it his fault,
our
fault, that he's just doing
his job?”

“It's not your fault, Mags,” John said, staring into her deep eyes. “Everyone in this country has rights.”

She didn't reply, but nodded.

John took a slow breath in and out. He felt the outrage of his friends and neighbors and strangers alike, and he hated that his children were being made to suffer for it. The critical issue in Merrill's case had always been his mental condition at the time of the crimes; John intended to argue that Greg Merrill suffered from a mental illness that made him physically unable to control his actions. John's unpopular work would, he hoped, result in Merrill being resentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility of release.

Teddy stared at his father, green eyes dark with gravity and sorrow. Maggie blinked, her blue eyes-the same shade, exactly, as Theresa's-framed by the raggedy bangs John had trimmed the night before. His daughter's bad haircut filled him with shame, and his son's solemn gaze seemed an admonishment of the worst, truest, most deserved kind. Since his mother's sudden death, Teddy had become the self-appointed protector of women everywhere.

“It's your job, right, Dad?” Maggie asked, squinting. “Protecting everyone's rights?”

“You'd better get ready for school,” John said.

“I am ready,” Maggie said, suddenly stricken.

John surveyed her outfit: green leggings, a blue skirt, one of Teddy's old soccer shirts. “Ah,” John said, inwardly cursing the last baby-sitter for quitting but-even more-himself for being so hard to work for.
He'd called the employment agency, and they were supposed to send some new prospects out to interview, but with his track record and late hours, John would probably just work her ragged and blow the whole thing by Halloween. Maybe he should just move the whole family over to his father's house, let Maeve take care of them all.

“Don't I look good?” Maggie asked, frowning, looking down and surveying her ensemble.

“You look great,” Teddy said, catching John's eye with a warning. “You'll be the prettiest girl in your class.”

“Are you sure? Dad didn't even think I was ready for school—”

“Maggie, you look beautiful,” John said, pushing the papers away and tugging her onto his lap.

She melted into his arms, still ready to cuddle at a moment's notice. John closed his eyes, needing the comfort himself. She smelled of milk and sweat, and he felt a pang, knowing he had forgotten to remind her to take a bath after the haircut.

“I'm not beautiful,” she whispered into his neck. “Mommy was. I'm a tomboy. Tomboys can't be beautiful. They—”

The peace was shattered by breaking glass. Something flew through the kitchen window, skidding across the table, knocking milk and bowls and cereal all over, smashing into the opposite wall. John covered Maggie's body with his own as squares and triangles and splinters of glass rained down. His daughter squealed in terror, and he heard himself yelling for Teddy to get under the table.

When the glass stopped falling, the first sound was Brainer barking, running from the broken picture window to the front door and back. A big wave crashed on the rocks outside, down by the beach-the sound, un-muffled by window glass, was startlingly loud. Maggie began to sob-whimpering at first, then with growing
hysteria. Teddy crawled out from under the table, kicked glass away and scuttled across the room.

“It was a brick, Dad,” he called.

“Don't touch it,” John said, still holding Maggie.

“I know. Fingerprints,” Teddy said.

John nodded, realizing there wouldn't be any. People, even noncriminals, had gotten sophisticated about evidence. Even the local hotheads-whose prior worst crime might have been overzealous letters to the editor or loud protests outside court-had absorbed plenty about fingerprints and hair and fiber from the cop shows they watched and legal thrillers they read.

Four drops of blood splashed on the floor. Panicked, John examined his daughter to make sure she hadn't gotten cut. When she looked up into his face, her eyes widened with horror and she shrieked in his ear.

“Dad, you're cut!” she cried. Touching the side of his head, he felt a spot of warm liquid; grabbing a green and blue napkin, he held it against the gash. Teddy ran over, pushed Maggie aside, looked at his father's head. John rose and, holding his kids' hands, walked into the bathroom.

“It's not too bad,” he said, peering at his reflection in the mirror. “Just superficial-looks a lot worse than it is.”

“Oh, Mommy,” Maggie cried spontaneously.

John hugged his daughter. His heart ached horribly for her. She missed her mother all the time, but something as traumatic as this was bound to bring thoughts of the accident back. He had brought this on himself. Wanting to salve his own wounds, he had taken on the busiest case in his career-not even two years after his children lost their mother. He was a selfish jerk, and his kids were hurting for it.

As if Teddy felt the same way, he edged John aside and took his sister's hand. Two spots of blood had
stained her soccer jersey, and Teddy grabbed a washcloth and began to clean them off.

“I know you're a tomboy Mags,” he said, “but people will think you got roughed up on the field if we let you go to school like that.”

“I don't get roughed up,” she sniffled.

“That's right,” Teddy said, scrubbing the shirt. “Any roughing that gets done, you're the one doing it-right?”

“Right,” she said, tears streaming from her clear blue eyes.

God help me, John thought, backing away. He touched the cut on the side of his head. Maybe it was deeper than he had first thought. It was bleeding heavier now; he swore inwardly, not wanting to go to the emergency room for stitches. He had meetings scheduled at the office as well as cases to read and the brief to finish.

The doorbell rang.

Had one of the kids dialed 911? Had John-and forgotten? Starting for the door, he stopped in the hallway. What if it were the person who had thrown the brick, one of the shoreline residents angry with him for pursuing Greg Merrill's emotionally charged case to the state supreme court?

Over the years, John O'Rourke had received many threats. His work made people angry. He represented citizens accused of the worst acts a human being could do. Their victims had families and friends, sweet lives and beautiful dreams. People saw John as a champion of monsters. He understood and respected the public's rage.