Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion #7) - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,81

was a wreck.”

“Like someone had ransacked it?”

She shook her head. “No, more just… really messy. There was an open bottle of vodka on the nightstand with a glass tipped over. A bag of chips was left out on the coffee table. Dirty dishes scattered around. Little odds and ends she would normally have tucked away were sprawled all over the place. It just wasn’t like her at all. I found her in the bedroom. The needle was still next to her on the bed, a thick rubber band around her arm.”

Laurie could tell that Lindsay was still haunted by the discovery. “When was the last time you had seen her?”

“Only three days earlier. I had run next door to borrow some red pepper. And I’m telling you, she was clean and healthy, and her apartment was spick-and-span, just like normal. I told the police that I thought someone had staged the scene to make her seem like a drug addict or something, but they didn’t want to listen. It was easier to write her off as yet another junkie.”

“According to Sandra, Michelle struggled for years after her pregnancy. Isn’t it possible she had another relapse and hid the warning signs from you?” Laurie knew that the chances of an overdose were often highest when addicts relapsed after a period of abstinence, because of a decrease in their tolerance for the drug.

“I don’t buy it, not for a second. Michelle was on such a good track. She was actually starting to make a decent living selling her jewelry online. She was trying to sell her designs to one of the big department stores. One of my law partners helped her draw up business plans.”

“Sandra made the jewelry sound like a pipe dream.”

“Of course she did. Michelle had a real talent. She made this bracelet, in fact.” Lindsay held up her right wrist to display a cuff bracelet made of hammered metal. “She was totally committed to her new life. She practiced yoga almost every day, kept a healthy diet, the works. She was trying to make amends, going so far as to track down people from her past to apologize for any grief she caused them. At one point, she was even thinking about apologizing to that jerk who got her pregnant. I told her she didn’t owe him a single thing, but, like I said, she was hell-bent on atoning for every possible sin.”

“Wait a second. Sandra said—”

“Ugh. Enough with Sandra said!” Lindsay recomposed herself after a flash of impatience. “Sorry, she’s not exactly a reliable narrator when it comes to Michelle.”

“Okay, but apparently Michelle told her that she didn’t even know the identity of the baby’s biological father. It was a one-night stand.”

Lindsay scoffed. “Michelle? A one-night stand—with a stranger? Um… no. That would never happen.”

“Then why would she tell her mother that?”

“Because the guy turned out to be married with a kid of his own. When Michelle realized they weren’t going to be raising the baby together, she decided to go through with an adoption. To avoid any complications, she said she didn’t know who the father was.”

“She couldn’t tell her own mother the truth?”

Lindsay shrugged. “Michelle was worried that her mom would cause a major scene with the married man who sullied her daughter. All Michelle wanted was to do the right thing and move on. She managed to avoid the public drama she feared, but didn’t realize her mom would put all the blame on her instead. To be clear, Michelle had no idea the guy was married. They met at yoga, where he’d look for any opportunity to strike up a conversation with her. She was reluctant to date him at first. I think he was a little older? Maybe he was thirty, and she was twenty-two? When he finally convinced her to go out for one dinner, it became a whirlwind romance. She said he was smart and sophisticated and had a good sense of humor. Even all these years later, I could see her eyes light up when she recounted their time together. They were only together one summer, but they were already talking about getting married and having children once Michelle went back to school and graduated from college. The pregnancy was unplanned, but initially she was excited about it. Thrilled, in fact.”

“Was he?”

“She never even told him. She went to his office to surprise him with the good news, and there he was, walking out with a family of his own.