Page 42 of Every Step She Takes
“Hey, baby,” Mom says. “How are you doing?”
“You didn’t find anyone, did you?”
Two heartbeats of silence. Then, “Not yet, but I will.”
“What did they say?”
Three heartbeats this time.
“They’re being silly,” she says. “Absolutely ridiculous.”
“They say I should have stayed at the scene.” I lower my voice as I rise to leave the coffee shop. “Or at the hotel.”
She sputters, but I know I’ve nailed it. The lawyers don’t like the way this case smells, and they don’t want to get tangled up with me after I’ve evaded police.
“I’ll find someone,” she says quickly. “It could be a career-making case, and someone will want…”
She trails off, realizing that I might not want to hear that this could make a lawyer’s career. Not when it could also ruin mine. Ruin my entire life.
I am being accused of murder.
“I meant that it’ll be high profile,” she says quickly. “A decent lawyer will easily win a dismissal, and that’s good business. The police have made a mistake, and a lawyer will benefit from that incompetence. They’re about to learn the truth of the saying ‘Act in haste, repent in leisure.’ Someone will lose their job over this.”
There’s satisfaction in her voice when she says it. This time, someone will pay for hurting her baby girl.
“I’ll handle this,” I say. “I’m not eighteen anymore. I can find myself a–”
“Let me, baby. Please. Just let me do this for you.”
I should resist, but I’m too numb. I might not be eighteen anymore, but I’m not in the mental state to do this.
Murder.
I’m being accused of murder.
Mom promises she’ll find a lawyer, and I barely hear her. I disconnect and stand on the sidewalk, holding my phone.
I always thought that the one advantage to my Colt scandal was that it “only” involved actors. It was tabloid fodder, and respectable media steered clear.
Isabella’s death is that perfect blend of scandal and news. A murder with a delicious backstory that will sell papers and earn clicks.
I stare down at my phone.
My finger touches a button. My browser springs open. I tap the search bar. A few keystrokes, half of them wrong, my finger suddenly huge and clumsy.
I try again, slower, and I fill the bar with search terms.Isabella Morales. Death.I hesitate on the last, inhale, backspace and replace it withmurder. My finger poises over the Go button.
Then I add two more words, as hard as they are to type.
Lucy Callahan.
I hit Go, and I pray – literally pray, something I don’t believe in. I won’t say I’ve lost my faith. There certainly were times when I swore never to set foot in a church again, but eventually I felt like a furious child, swearing never to talk to a friend again because she failed to come to my defense in a schoolyard fight.
The truth is that even without my ordeal, I’d still have become an Easter-and-Christmas Catholic. I don’t pray because I don’t think there’s anyone up there actively listening. My God is not a genie who grants wishes. My God is not Santa Claus, rewarding me for good behavior.
In that moment, though, I cannot help praying just a little.
When I hit this button, please show me nothing.
