Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion #7) - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,76
of the TV. And because the delivery guy had brought paper plates with the order, they had gone ahead and used them.
The reality was that Laurie was exhausted, physically and emotionally. They all were. For a week, they had been giving themselves and one another pep talks while they continued to put one foot in front of the other, doing all that they could to bring Johnny home.
And today, all those efforts had failed.
While writing off Johnny’s adoption as a dead end from the start, they realized now they actually knew nothing about Johnny’s biological mother or the grandmother who had shown up uninvited to Marcy and Andrew’s home. Leo had put a call in to a friend with the Philadelphia Police Department to inquire about Michelle Carpenter’s supposed drug overdose, but he was still waiting for details. Laurie wanted a time machine to go back and start all over again. Or better yet, to stay at the beach with the kids so none of this would have ever happened.
Instead of risking a display of her emotional exhaustion at the dinner table, she had given Timmy his first choice of takeout, along with a proposal that they jump back into their Bosch binge. She knew he was still having nightmares, but he was also doing his best to put on a brave face. Now that Timmy had gone to his room to play a video game, she and Leo were free to speak openly again.
“It was sort of nice to just sit and stare at the TV for two hours, huh?”
Her father chuckled. “We should do it more often.”
She held up a quick finger, pretending to scold him. “We have rules in this house, mister, and they started with you.”
“No, they started with your mother. And trust me, even she would have given us dispensation after this miserable day.”
Laurie carried the pizza box and paper plates to the kitchen, grateful for the easy cleanup, and returned to the living room. “Hey, at least there was a silver lining to today. We exposed Summer Carver and her brother as liars.”
The D.A.’s Office had agreed to charge both of the Carver siblings with felonies. The argument was that even though they did not actually commit kidnapping, they used a threat against Johnny’s freedom and safety to coerce Leo into giving them a false admission—the equivalent of blackmail.
Leo didn’t seem ready to celebrate. “But we still don’t have anything new on Darren Gunther.” According to Summer, pretending they had taken Johnny was her brother’s idea, and Toby invoked his right to counsel as soon as he was arrested. If Gunther was involved in the plan, they had no way of proving it.
“But their arrests were a top story on the local news tonight,” she said, “including their connection to Gunther. Trust me, Dad, I know how media works. The average person hearing the news will think Gunther’s a killer who tried to get these two bozos to tamper with the system.”
“But the judge hearing Gunther’s case isn’t your average person hearing the news.”
Laurie could tell that she wasn’t going to get her father to see the silver lining. Eighteen years ago, he had helped convince a jury that Darren Gunther had murdered Lou Finney. He was determined to prove it all over again.
She was about to offer him a cup of coffee when his cell phone rang on the end table beside him.
“This is Farley.”
“Philadelphia PD,” he whispered.
She was listening to her father’s lengthy series of uh-huhs, eagerly awaiting any actual information, when her own phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number, so she hit the decline button. A minute later, it rang again. This time, she answered, taking the phone to the kitchen so as not to interfere with Leo’s call.
“Hi, Samantha. I hope you got my message earlier.” Laurie had left a detailed voicemail for Samantha about the Carvers’ arrests. Even though it was only indirectly related to her father’s murder, she didn’t want Samantha to learn about the development from the news.
“I did, but here’s the thing. I saw their pictures on the TV, and I know that guy.”
“Which guy?”
“The brother. I think his name was Toby Carver? I know him, Laurie. And so did Clarissa.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Laurie hung up the phone and rushed to the living room to find her father.
Before she could get a word out, he told her that he had just spoken to