Authors: Sharon Buchbinder
He kicked in the door; Sandra raced in behind him. Strapped to a table, Erin struggled and kicked at Louise’s attempts to restrain her feet. A man in a white coat stood at the head of the table, holding a paddle over Erin’s head.
“I said shock her, God Dammit!” Webster shouted from the corner of the room.
“Nobody move!”
Ignoring Harrington’s order, Sandra slipped to Erin’s side to remove the restraints. She was only able to loosen one wrist before someone grabbed her arm and twirled her around.
“You interfering bitch!” Spittle hit her face as Webster shook her hard enough to make her teeth rattle.
“Don’t hurt Mommy! I’ll be good! Don’t hurt Mommy!”
Everyone froze.
Between sobs, Erin repeated, “Please don’t hurt Mommy! I’ll be good!”
Webster shoved Sandra out of his way, before bolting for the door.
Arm extended, Harrington stepped in and clothes-lined him, then pinned him to the wall. “C'mon. Gimme a reason to kill you.”
Webster’s eyes bulged—but he didn’t move.
~*~
On Monday, Sandra walked over to Cottage D to see Allie Johnson
one last time, before she departed. The walkways were cleared now that the real maintenance man, not the undercover cop, had returned from vacation. Friday evening, once all the excitement had worn down, Harrington had found the cop, unconscious and duct-taped, in a closet.
Webster was under arrest. The local court refused to set bail. Louise Carson was also under arrest for an assortment of crimes, including assault for drugging the police officer, and false imprisonment. The unlicensed psychiatrist, along with the shock therapy paddles, awaited deportation back to his home country somewhere in the Balkans. The Cure Center was closed indefinitely, pending further investigations.
Erin had recovered the ability to speak in complete sentences. She was going to make an excellent witness for the prosecution.
“Enough about everyone else,” Allie said as she filled a box with personal items. “What about you?”
“I have a plan.” Sandra was both relieved and excited by the prospect. “My soon-to-be ex-husband has agreed to help me apply to become Erin’s legal guardian. He’s so happy I’m only asking for the house, my car and money to cover my living expenses, he’s promised to pull some strings to expedite the process. She’s about the age of one of the children I would have had, if I hadn’t miscarried, and she already calls me Mommy.”
Allie nodded. “What about the rest of your life? Children grow up and move away, you know.”
“When Jim and I married, I gave up on law school, became a paralegal, and helped him build his practice. I’ve decided to pick up where I left off.” She smiled. “I’ve become very attached to the Adirondacks. With any luck, I’ll be accepted at Albany Law School. Jim has offered to pay my tuition. Can you believe it? He said it’s an investment in
his
financial freedom.”
A horn honked. “There’s my ride. Thanks for everything.” Sandra walked outside into the diamond bright sunshine, squinting at the outline of a man leaning against the limousine—and felt a sharp pang of disappointment when she realized it was only the chauffeur.
Did you really think he’d be here to see you off?
“Ready to go, Ms. Blake?”
“Yes, thanks. You have all my things?”
He nodded.
She turned and took one last look around Lake Placid as her eyes welled up with tears.
Damn, damn, damn the man!
He had really gotten under her skin. “Let’s go,” she choked out.
The chauffeur opened the back door and Sandra slid into the dark leather interior, eyes blinded, head bowed as she wept. Needing time alone, she pressed the button and closed the divider. Too soon, the car stopped. Despite pressing all the knobs in the back seat, the divider wouldn’t go down.
The back door flew open; Harrington stood on the curb.
He reached in to take her hand. “Come with me.”
“What’s going on?”
He led her up the steps of the gray courthouse, through a metal detector, and into a judge’s chambers—all without a word.
A gray-haired man in black robes looked up from a stack of papers. “Ms. Blake?”
“Yes,” she answered, anxious that something had gone terribly wrong.
“I’ve spent the last two hours on the phone with Family Court judges in New York City, each and every one of them singing your praises. A bossy lawyer named Jim Radcliff has called here so often, I’ve told my secretary not to put him through anymore. And this fellow—” the older man shook his finger at Harrington. “Has been badgering me to death.”
Sandra looked back and forth between the judge and Harrington, and opened her mouth. All that came out was a weak whisper, “Why?”
“Because a certain young lady needs a foster parent, and everyone in the State of New York seems to think
you
are the best person for the job.”
Erin burst into the room, leaped into Sandra’s arms and hugged her, rocking and repeating, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
“I thought you’d like some company on your trip back to Manhattan,” Harrington said with an enormous smile.
Eyes swimming, Sandra took the pen, and signed the paperwork with shaking hands.
As the beaming judge looked on, Harrington embraced Sandra and Erin in a giant bear hug.
“Do you believe in miracles?” Sandra whispered.
“Yes, I do,” he replied, and sealed her destiny with a kiss.
~*~
Baltimore Metropolitan University’s football stadium thundered with the footsteps of homecoming fans rushing to get out of the torrents of a heavy late November rain. Car horns honked, and revelers shouted a drunken chorus of, “BMU BEAT YOU! WILDCATS RULE!”
Levisa Harris and her best friend, Claire, crowded under the eaves, pressed back against the closed concession stands with what seemed like hundreds of other fans who peered glumly out at the rain. A post-game ambiance of hot dogs and beer, mixed with the smell of wet wool, swirled around them.
Hair soaked, Levisa attempted to push her flattened copper-colored curls out of her eyes and noted Claire’s short blonde hair hadn’t fared any better. “We look like drowned Wildcats.” Levisa glanced at the unending rain and hoped it would stop soon.
Claire looked at her friend and laughed. “Thank God, for hair dryers and flat irons.” A young man jostled up against the petite blonde. “Hello, I’m standing here!” Claire shouted.
“I know,” a man wearing a nautical windbreaker retorted with a soft southern drawl. “We came over to offer ya’ll a lift.”
Levisa spoke without thinking. “Richmond, Virginia.”
“Beg your pardon?” A look of surprise crossed his clean-shaven face.
“You’re from Richmond, right?” Levisa noted he was attractive in an old money, preppy kind of way, but he didn’t appeal to her at all.
“Yes, but how’d you know?” He leaned in a tad too close, expelling beery breath as he spoke.
Levisa leaned away, seeking fresh air as Claire spoke up. “She’s an expert on accents.”
“Parlor tricks! Oh, this is fun!” the Virginian said. “Sam, say something.”
“Chip, we need ta go.” Sam’s deep voice held a note of irritation. “I have ta study fer my CPA exam.”
“Baltimore—Pigtown.” Levisa looked at Sam with interest, and not just because of his accent. High forehead, half-covered with a shock of black-brown hair, he possessed long straight nose and full lips. A small scar curved around his strong chin.
She touched the scar on her own chin and wondered if he had fallen off his bicycle as a child, too. She pulled herself up short. Stop thinking about how adorable he is. Focus on the brass ring: finish the research project, graduate, and get a good job. “You’d be perfect for my Speech-Language Pathology Master’s research project.”
“I ain’t no guinea pig.” Sam pulled at Chip’s arm.
“One quick question—Sam, is it?”
He turned and faced Levisa directly, towering over her, his broad shoulders and wide chest straining at his ratty sweatshirt.
An image of him without his shirt, all rippling muscles, flashed into her mind. She forced herself to look directly into his deep-set eyes the color of dark chocolate. She swallowed hard, and asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “How far do you think you’ll get with that accent in an accounting firm?”
Sam’s face flushed. “I’m really good at numbers. That’s what matters in bidness.”
He was so good-looking, but he wouldn’t be hired, much less promoted, with that accent. Why didn’t he get it? Frustrated, she heard herself blurt out, “What company wants a CEO who sounds like a hick?”
He glowered at her. “Yew callin’ me a hick?”
Claire stepped between Sam and Levisa. “Please don’t be offended. She’s saying she can help you get a better job—if you reduce that Bawlamer accent, Hon!”
“It’s not nice ta make fun of people,” Sam snapped and grabbed Chip’s arm. “Let’s go.”
She felt short of breath, as if she’d run up a flight of stairs, instead of standing here, arguing with this hardheaded man. “If you change your mind,” Levisa shouted after him, “come to the Speech, Language, and Hearing Clinic. It’s in the middle of campus.”
As the two men walked off, collars pulled up against the wind, Claire turned to her friend. “You know, he’s not half-bad looking.”
“Chip? The preppy? Not my type,” Levisa watched the two men climb into an old Ford Taurus and focused on the back of Sam’s head and the way his dark hair tapered down his neck.
“No, the other one—Sam, with those dreamy brown eyes and that wavy black hair. Whew!” Claire fanned her face. “I’d love to give him a few private lessons, if you know what I mean!”
“Put a lid on your id, girl!” Levisa laughed and shook her head in an attempt to dispel her own disturbing responses to Sam. “I don’t have time for a man in my life. If I don’t finish my research, I won’t graduate in spring. All I need is one more Pigtown subject for the study and I’ll be done. Too bad, he’s the one that got away!”
~*~
“Look at this email.” Levisa pushed away from the computer, so Claire could read the screen.
“Dear Levisa—I hope you don’t think me too bold, but I can’t stop thinking about you since we met at the stadium on Saturday. You are the most interesting woman on this campus. Would you please meet me for coffee at the library? I’d love to get to know you better.
Warmest regards, Chip.”
“You have an admirer. Isn’t that sweet?” Claire giggled. “I wish I had someone who wrote me fan letters.”
Levisa strummed her fingers on the desk. “How’d he get my email address?”
“The clinic website?” Claire suggested.
“If it was Sam,” she murmured, “I’d be there in a heartbeat.”
Claire smirked at Levisa and harrumphed.
She caught herself, and put on her studious face. “No—Not that. I’m still short one subject.” Levisa looked at the calendar over her desk with the days numbered in a countdown to graduation. “I’m running out of time.”
“So, are you going to meet Chip?”
“No. It wouldn’t be fair to lead Chip on just to try to get to Sam. I’ll write back and tell him thanks, but I’m too busy with my research.”
Levisa spent the rest of the day working with her clients and entering data for her project.
At five in the evening, Claire stuck her head in the doorway. “Ready to go?”
“One sec. I’m going to check my email before I leave.” Levisa logged in and gasped.
“What’s wrong?” Claire peered over her friend’s shoulder. “Oh, Chip’s AHOY!”
“I have over thirty emails from him—one every fifteen minutes!” Levisa clicked the mouse, scarcely able to believe her eyes. “Look at this! They all say the same thing
—‘Please reconsider. I’ll just keep begging until you give in!’
This is creepy, I’m blocking his messages.”
“Wow!” Claire exclaimed. “How come I never get a guy that’s mad about me?”
“This is the wrong kind of ‘mad’! Let’s go to the Rusty Bucket. I need a drink.”
~*~
The next day, Mrs. Pierce the receptionist, called back to Levisa’s office. “There’s someone here to see you.”
“Does he have a Pigtown accent?” Levisa crossed her fingers, sat on the edge of her seat and hoped it was Sam.
Mrs. Pierce chuckled. “Always on the lookout for good material, aren’t you? No, he’s just the usual.”
Disappointed, she wondered who would ask for her by name. Levisa walked out to the front counter, scanned the noisy waiting room crowded with mothers and preschool children and stopped short.