Not My Mother by Miranda Smith (lightweight ebook reader .txt) 📕

my eyes again, Evan is watching us, smiling. His presence tonight was crucial. He didn’t come to my rescue, but he came to Ava’s. If that’s not enough to make me fall back in love with him, I’m not sure what is.

51 MarionNow

There’s a certain type of electricity inside threatening to burst. And yet, I can’t quite label it. Is it excitement? Dread? I suppose the combination of those two emotions would be anxiety. I don’t want to set my hopes too high, knowing there’s a strong likelihood they could all come crashing down.

It’s Mom’s day in court.

Carmen is negotiating a plea deal for the remaining charges against Mom. After Amelia confessed to Bruce’s murder, the most serious charge was dropped. Carmen is hoping to prove that the other crimes Mom committed were done so under extreme duress.

Jamie ended up coming forward, sharing her account of what happened back at Phillips Academy all those years ago. She identified Bruce Parker as the teacher who attacked her, as the teacher who was rumored to have assaulted other students on the campus.

Except now it’s not merely rumor. Once word got out that a deceased Phillips Academy teacher had committed assault, other former students came forward. Back then, they were young girls. Naïve. Ashamed. Afraid. Now, they are women, and at least three of them have agreed to open up about what happened to them, considering how much is at stake.

The press jumped all over it, of course, knowing that the slain father of Baby Caroline was accused of something so terrible. The Baby Caroline saga has a new spotlight; it’s hard to catch a morning news show that doesn’t touch on it. I can’t blame them, really. There are many new developments that have obliterated the narrative spun for the past thirty years.

There is also a storm of questions surrounding Amelia. After she was arrested on the beach, police and press began piecing together her true involvement with the crimes Mom had been accused of committing. Adoption documentation was never found because Amelia never submitted it. She had a legitimate birth certificate for Caroline Parker. When police tried to track down the doctor listed as delivering the baby, they learned he had died over ten years ago. As he was the Parker family’s personal physician, there is no telling how forthcoming his testimony would have been. I’m sure there have been more than a few people paid off over the years. We’ll probably never know the full story, but it feels like we have enough to understand who was really at fault for this tragedy, and it wasn’t Mom.

We’re hoping a judge will agree. Carmen’s presenting her case today, hoping the court will accept her proposed plea deal. Although I’m the first to admit that Mom walking away without some form of punishment is unlikely.

I’m supposed to be at the courthouse within the hour. I arrive at Carmen’s house and knock on the door. As expected, Michael answers. He’s wearing a robe over a T-shirt and sweats.

“You should already be downtown. Carmen left over an hour ago.” He sips the coffee in his hands. “How are you feeling?”

“Scared.”

“It’s almost over, okay? This is the homestretch.”

“Unless the judge denies the deal.”

“Don’t think that way,” he says. “Stay positive. I know nothing is going to make you feel better right now, but she’s been rehearsing what she’s going to say all week. I’ve never seen her more prepared.”

“That’s good to know,” I say, looking across the street at my car, then back to him. “Hey, she told me you’re about to launch your own real estate agency. How’s it going?”

“I’m feeling surprisingly good about it. It’ll take a little pressure off Carmen to have me working again.”

“It doesn’t feel like much time has passed since you left your old job. Now you’re getting ready to start a new one. Lucky.”

“Yeah. I guess it feels longer to me.” He looks back at the open door. We can hear the children’s voices from where we stand. “I should check on them. Good luck today.”

He turns to go back inside, but I follow him. “You know, Carmen has been great about keeping me in the loop. She’s shared almost every detail of the case. Everything she’s uncovered about Mom’s and Amelia’s pasts. Carmen is thorough. Not much gets by her.”

He turns to face me again. “That’s the truth.”

My hands in my pockets, I take another step forward.

“There is one thing she missed, though. It’s small. Won’t help or hurt Mom’s outcome, really. But it’s something I noticed.”

“Oh yeah?”

“After Amelia was arrested at my house, the police did a complete search of her hotel room. They uncovered all the research she did over the years. All the information she’d tracked down after she finally figured out where Mom was hiding.”

“You think she knew you were in North Bay this whole time?”

“Not this whole time. She said she found out where we were after Mom was arrested. Turns out, that wasn’t true. She knew where we were first. She’s the one who told the police. And it’s because someone tipped her off.”

“Wild.”

He looks back at the open door. The children’s voices have quieted. They’ve probably followed each other upstairs. I know he wants to check, but I’ve not finished with our conversation.

“She had all sorts of random stuff. More recently, she had the names of local journalists. Looks like she was the one leaking those stories about me and Ava to the press. She’d kept a careful record of all her contacts. When we were sorting through the evidence photos, I found this.” I slide my hand out of my pocket, revealing a photo of Amelia’s papers in the hotel room. “Why did Amelia Parker have one of your old business cards?”

Michael cocks his head to the side, a quick movement. He squints. “My business card?”

“Yeah. You did a lot of work in New Hutton before you left your job, right? Did the two of you ever cross