Hell to Pay

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “She wanted to!”

  “That doesn’t matter. The law—”

  “What are you gonna do, Coach, report me?”

  Jeremy falls silent, regroups. This is shaky legal and ethical ground and he’d better tread carefully.

  “Is it yours?” he asks Miguel, who promptly nods.

  “I told Carmen she’s got to have it. Because, you know, our religion, it don’t let us . . . you know.”

  Right. Jeremy knows. He also knows that religion and choice aside, an eighteen-year-old boy having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl constitutes statutory rape.

  “Did you tell her how you feel about it, Miguel?”

  “Hell, yeah, I did. But she don’t want to listen. She says if I want to have the baby, I can. Yeah, right. But her, she don’t want to have it.”

  Jeremy shakes his head. “She’s young, Miguel, and I’m sure she’s scared, and—”

  “Nah. That’s not it.”

  “Then what is it? Is she afraid to tell her father?”

  “That, and she don’t want to get fat. That’s what her friend Brenda told me she said.”

  Jeremy stares at Miguel in disbelief, his gut clenching.

  He thinks of Lucy, sick, sobbing, bleeding. He thinks of the precious new life growing inside her right now, and of how badly they both want the baby to survive, and he wants to lash out at Miguel. But that’s the wrong thing to do. Dangerous. And anyway, Miguel’s the one who wants to have it. It’s Carmen who’s infuriatingly self-centered and callous—according to her friend Brenda, anyway.

  But Carmen isn’t here, and she’s just a kid, and Jeremy has to do his job and focus on Miguel right now.

  And breathe.

  He has to breathe.

  “Coach, can you talk to her for me?” Miguel is asking. “Tell her she gotta have the baby, and then she can give it to me and I’ll take care of it.”

  Give it to me.

  It.

  Like a thing, as opposed to a fully formed human being.

  Think before you speak, Jeremy.

  Breathe before you speak.

  In. Out. In. Out.

  “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple, Miguel. You—”

  “Maybe I ain’t never had a father, but I’ll figure out how to be one. A good one.”

  The kid is so damned earnest—and so damned misguided. He’s committed a crime that could send him to jail. Look at him, just eighteen, living in a group facility, without any extended family, education, or job skills to fall back on.

  And yet . . .

  He so desperately wants to love and be loved.

  Maybe he would be a good father. Who the hell knows?

  It’s not up to you to tell him he would or wouldn’t be, Jeremy reminds himself. And it’s definitely not up to you to talk Carmen out of—or into—an abortion.

  “Coach?”

  He sighs inwardly. “I can’t talk to her for you, Miguel. But I can give you some information about resources that are available to both of you, and I need to put you directly in touch with someone who can help you make informed decisions.”

  Ignoring the disappointment in Miguel’s eyes, Jeremy gets up, walks around the desk, and jerks open a file drawer. It’s the best option—the one that will bring the least harm, if you look at it that way—yet he can’t help feeling as though it’s a supreme cop-out.

  He thumbs through the folders, grabs handouts from several, and turns around. “Here, these are—”

  Miguel is gone.

  Jeremy tosses the papers aside and presses his fingertips into his throbbing temple.

  Turndown is Myra Wilson’s favorite time of day on the job. The hotel corridors are quiet, with most of the guests still out sightseeing or at dinner, and her shift just about over.

  In less than an hour, she can trade the maid uniform for jeans and heels and head up to the Bronx to see her man. Maybe they’ll hit a couple of clubs. Or maybe they’ll just stay in and smoke. She wouldn’t mind that. It’s frickin’ cold out there tonight.

  She parks her housekeeping cart outside the next door and lets herself into 2715, leaving the bar latch tucked between the door and the jamb. The bed is still neatly made, not a wrinkle on the duvet, and Myra wonders if the occupant has even been here since she cleaned the room earlier. If not, she’ll be out of here in no time.

  In the bathroom, she finds a damp towel on the floor, toothpaste goo and shaving cream residue in the sink; hair in the tub drain. So he’s been here. Whatever. He left a couple of dollars tucked with a bookmark beneath the drinking glass that holds his toothbrush and razor.

  She gladly pockets the money. Tips at turndown aren’t all that common. You get a lot of cheapskates, clueless tourists—especially at this time of year—and expense account travelers who aren’t reimbursed out-of-pocket cash without receipts.

  She checks out the bookmark. There’s a photo of a man accompanied by a book cover: I Told You So by Richard Jollston.

  Myra has never heard of the book, or of him. She tosses the bookmark into the bathroom garbage can, removes the bag, and scoops up the wet towel from the floor. About to return to her cart to dump the laundry and trash, she stops short, hearing a voice from the next room.

  “Hello?”

  Myra pokes her head through the bathroom doorway to see a tall, heavyset redhead. Funny—she’d been sure the room had only one occupant, and that it was a man.

  “Is this your room?” she asks.

  The woman hesitates slightly before nodding.

  “I need you to show me that your key works in the door, then.” It’s a standard security procedure. Otherwise, anyone could just walk into a room that’s being cleaned—and, after the maid leaves, walk right out again with whatever they feel like stealing.

  “Actually, it’s my husband’s room. He’s here on business and I wanted to surprise him.” She shifts her considerable weight and a little warning bell goes off in Myra’s brain. This chick doesn’t look like a thief, but do they ever?

  Whatever—Myra’s pretty sure this isn’t the guy’s wife. A call girl, probably. Myra’s seen them hanging around the hotel countless times before.

  She’s overweight for that . . . but she has a decent face, and that long red hair looks suspiciously like a wig. She’s wearing glasses, like maybe she’s doing some kind of naughty librarian routine. Yeah, and that tote bag she’s carrying in her leather-gloved hand is probably full of sex toys.

  “Sorry,” Myra tells her, “I can’t just let you stay here without—”

  The woman reaches into the pocket of her beige trench coat. For a split second, seeing a steely glint in her eyes, Myra tenses.

  But when the hand emerges, it’s holding a wad of cash.

  A few seconds later, the money is in Myra’s pocket alongside her meager turndown tips, and the wife or call girl or whoever she is looks pleased that her little bribe was a success.

  “I’ll just grab a couple more towels and put a new bag in the trash can for you before I go,” she tells the woman, and starts toward the hallway.

  She notices immediately that the door is now closed, and the latch that was holding it open is now fastened across the inside.

  That’s strange. The woman must have seen her cart outside and realized housekeeping was in the room.

  The cart—Myra is stunned to see that it’s inside the room, half stashed inside the closet near the door.

  Myra turns, puzzled. “Why—?”

  It’s the last word Myra Wilson will ever utter; the last thought that will ever scream through her terrified, bewildered brain.

  Whhhhyyyyy?

  After Ryan leaves, Lucy changes into sweats and curls up in bed with a book. Not What to Expect When You’re Expecting, though. When she unpacked that from the boxes they moved from the old apartment, s
he was initially tempted to put it on the bedside table. Instead, she placed it with the other books on the shelf in the study.

  She knows some of it by heart—the first few chapters, anyway, which are organized chronologically, covering each month of pregnancy. But twice now, she’s had to skip past several months to the back, where there’s a section on coping with pregnancy loss.

  She can’t bear to open the book again until she’s able to read a new chapter. Until then, it can stay on the shelf.

  Tonight, she’s picked up an espionage thriller she bought on a whim at Hudson News in Grand Central back when she was still commuting from Westchester. Now that she’s only a couple of short, connecting subway rides away from the office, she has little time to read.

  Her father, Nick, was a Robert Ludlum fan. Not long after he moved out, Lucy decided to read one of the spy novels he’d left behind, thinking she could discuss it with him. She’d never had the chance—to finish the book or discuss it with her father. She’d never seen Daddy again.

  Lately, she’s started reading spy novels again.

  Lately, she’s been thinking about her father a lot more than usual.

  Not that he hasn’t always been there, somewhere in the back of her mind.

  But specific childhood memories keep coming back to her out of nowhere. Memories of happier times, when her parents’ marriage was intact. Daddy cheering her on from the soccer field sidelines. Daddy proudly snapping her picture the first time she went to school, lost a tooth, rode a pony. Daddy taking her and Ryan out for ice cream twice in one day while Mom was in the hospital after having Sadie . . .

  Daddy.

  I miss you, despite what you did to Mom. To all of us.

  Lucy realizes she’s been staring at the same page of the book for at least five minutes and it’s suddenly swimming before her.

  Frustrated, she tosses the book aside and plucks a tissue from the box on the nightstand to wipe her eyes. Her emotions are all over the place now that she’s pregnant. Yesterday, she found herself crying over a sappy song she heard not on the radio, but as background music for a canned soup commercial.

  Pathetic.

  “Sometimes you just need a good cry,” her friend Robyn said when Lucy told her about it on the phone last night.

  “Not me. I never need a good cry. I hate crying.”

  “Oh, please, everyone hates crying. But we all have to do it sometimes.”

  Not Lucy. Not if she can help it.

  She didn’t even cry at Daddy’s memorial service. She remembers sitting dry-eyed and numb in church with her mother breaking down on one side of her, tears rolling down Ryan’s cheeks on the other side, and little Sadie sobbing hysterically on her lap.

  Holding her little sister close throughout the service, her neck soaked with Sadie’s tears, Lucy had a fierce lump in her throat, so huge and painful she could barely swallow, yet she managed not to cry.

  Looking back, she isn’t sure how—or why.

  Maybe she was afraid that if she started, she’d never stop.

  Maybe she was just trying to keep it together so that she could support the others.

  Or maybe she was more angry than sad about her father back then.

  Sometimes, she still is, even after all these years.

  How could you?

  How could you have left us?

  If he hadn’t gotten involved with that woman, Beth, and moved out and wrecked his marriage—their family—he’d still be alive.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she’d have lost him anyway.

  Chances are he wouldn’t have been murdered, but things happen. People die. Dad’s father did, of cancer, when he was a lot younger than Dad would’ve been right now.

  But his mom—the grandmother Lucy didn’t even meet until a year after Dad died—is alive and well. She still lives in Hawaii, where she moved after she ran off and left her husband and child when Dad was just a little boy.

  You’d think, having been abandoned by his own mother, that Nick Walsh would have made sure he didn’t do the same thing to his wife and children.

  Or maybe it makes sense that he would. Maybe those kinds of things run in the family. Maybe . . .

  No. Absolutely not. Never.

  There is no way Lucy can fathom that one day, she in turn might walk out on Jeremy—let alone Jeremy and their child. Or that he might walk out on her and their child. Children.

  Please, God, let us have a child. Children.

  Again, Lucy’s eyes sting with tears. Again, she takes a tissue from the box and wipes them away, shaking her head at the unfairness of it all.

  Some people have everything, and throw it away.

  The elegant hotel lounge is bright with twinkly white lights and crowded with tipsy tourists, post–office party revelers, nightcap-sipping business travelers, and, at the far end of the bar, a newly famous author who has yet to be recognized—though he’s been hoping and waiting for someone to come up and ask for his autograph.

  Taking a leisurely sip of his single-malt scotch—a sublime eighteen-year-old Glenlivet, on the rocks—Richard Jollston keeps an eye out for other celebrities. There must be some staying here. Where do they go at night?

  He feels his phone vibrate in the pocket of his Brooks Brothers blazer. He changed into it earlier, between his bookstore signing and dinner at Smith & Wollensky.

  Classic, navy, gold buttons—Sondra picked it out for him.

  At least two other men at the bar are wearing the same jacket, which pleases Richard. The last one he’d bought himself, probably at least five years ago, was a polyester Sears special—much more appropriate for a lecture hall than a high-class book tour.

  Richard sets down his glass and pulls his phone from his pocket, wondering if it’s Kristina. After the bookseller dinner—stilted conversation, but the best filet he’s ever had—the publicist told him she’d be calling him with an update on tomorrow’s appearances. It’s the last day of his tour. This time tomorrow night, he’ll be on the shuttle home to Boston for Christmas.

  But it’s not the publicist calling him after all; the word “home” is displayed in the cell phone’s caller ID window.

  Home, these days, is no longer a third floor walk-up in Quincy. Nor is it the Cape in Taunton. He and Sondra just moved into a three-thousand-square-foot house in Brookline. Far more house than they need for just the two of them, and they’re not interested in starting a family at this late date, but, as Sondra says, “if you got it, flaunt it.”

  Finally, they’ve got it. All. He stopped at Tiffany’s before dinner and bought a pair of diamond earrings for Sondra for Christmas. The little blue box, tied with a satin ribbon, is tucked into the pocket of his blazer.

  “Hi, babe,” Richard says into the phone, patting his blazer pocket to make sure the box is still there.

  “Hi, babe. Where are you?”

  “Hotel bar. Where are you?” he returns, though he knows the answer: home, sweet home. He can even picture her there in the house, perched on the family room couch with its heavenly new-leather smell. Behind her are towering vaulted glass panels overlooking the spotlighted landscaped yard. It’s going to be beautiful in a few months, when they put furniture out on the patio and uncover the in-ground pool.

  Meanwhile, they really do need to get curtains for the windows. As much as they enjoy looking out over the property, anyone can see in.

  “So?” Sondra said when he pointed that out, right before he left. “Let them look. They can’t get in.”

  No, that’s true, thanks to the elaborate alarm system the previous owners had installed. The house is perfectly safe. Even, as far as Richard is concerned, earthquake-proof—not that another quake is statistically likely to strike that part of Massachusetts anytime soon.

  But that’s the thing about earthquakes. And life, for that matter.

 
You just never know.

  “How was the dinner?” Sondra asks.

  “Kind of dull. Everyone wanted to talk about himself, not my book. But the food was great.”

  “Good for you. I had a Lean Cuisine.” He can just see her pretty face pouting.

  “Next tour, I’ll get them to let me take you along.”

  “Next tour?”

  “Why not? I’m sure I’ve got another book in me. Maybe even a novel.”

  “Really?”

  “Why not?” Richard repeats, and grins to himself, giddy with scotch and success.

  This bustling midtown hotel has been around for years. In fact, her father used to come here sometimes on business—fitting, because it was his money that initially bought her way into this suite on the twenty-seventh floor.

  After escaping from Bridgebury, she was leery about going anywhere near the vacation house that had once belonged to her father.

  What if the authorities somehow suspected she was alive and had the place under surveillance? That seemed far-fetched, though. Of all the places from her past, why would anyone ever expect her to return to that one?

  “They won’t,” Chaplain Gideon assured her. “You have to go back. You have to get it. It’s the only way.”

  Get it: the money.

  “It’ll be our little secret,” Daddy had told her on the long-ago day when he showed her the stacks and stacks of bills hidden beneath the floorboards in the carriage house loft. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Not even Mommy?”

  “Especially not Mommy. Promise?”

  “Promise,” she’d said solemnly, only ten years old, but already aware of the growing tension between her parents. “What’s it for?”

  “A rainy day.” Daddy had flashed her a smile.

  It was raining—an icy, drenching downpour—on the day she finally dared to return to the country house. She took that as a sign that she was doing the right thing.

  Signs—they’re everywhere, if you look for them.

  The money was still there—far more of it than she had hoped or imagined.

  “It will serve our mission well,” Chaplain Gideon told her.