She picked it up and angled it toward the light.
A pretty young blond. Although they'd moved in entirely different circles during their high school years, Gin recognized Karen Shannick.
The late Mrs. Gerald Canney. Martha's mother.
God, she'd been beautiful. Classic, clean, all-American girl looks.
She married an all-American guy. And they'd had a child. A Happy Days life until . . .
She thought of Harriet Thompson, also gone, but who'd had seventy-eight years. Poor Karen had had maybe a third of that. And what a shame she couldn't see the doll she'd brought into the world.
Life telly sucked sometimes.
Gin stared down at Martha for a moment and was struck by the realization that this was Gerry's child. His alone. This little person was totally dependent on him, and he was completely responsible for her.
She wondered how that would feel.
Scary, she thought. Very scary.
She replaced the photo on the dresser but the leg that angled out of the back of the frame collapsed and it fell flat on the dresser top.
Gin winced. Not a loud noise, but it sounded like a gunshot in the little bedroom.
"Daddy? " Oh, no.
Quickly Gin turned and knelt beside the bed. Martha was sitting up, rubbing her eyes, not quite awake yet. She looked at Gin.
"Where's my daddy? " "He had to go out, " Gin whispered. "He asked me to stay with you.
Remember me? Gin? From Taco Bell? " "You're the doctor."
"Right.
What a great memory you have." . "Where's Mrs. Snedecker? " "She's away. That's why I'm here." Am I doing this right? she wondered. If Martha were sick Gin would know exactly what to do, but she'd never had any younger sibs, so she wasn't too sure of herself here. Getting her back to sleep seemed like the best thing. She straightened the covers.
"Here. Why don't you just lie back down and close your eyes. I'll be right downstairs. If you need anything, you just call and I'll be right here. Okay? " Martha didn't say anything as she lay back and pulled the covers up.
Gin adjusted them around her and then, on impulse, leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"Good night, Martha." As she rose and turned toward the door, she heard a sob from the bed. She knelt back down again.
"What's wrong, Martha? " "I get scuh-scared when my daddy's not here at nuh-nuhnight." She started to cry.
"He'll be home soon, Martha, " she said, searching for a way to comfort her. "What if I stay here with you? " Martha sniffled and sat up.
"Can you? " "Sure. It'll be fun."
"Will you get under the covers?
" She wriggled over to make room. Her fears seemed to have evaporated.
"This'll be like a sleep-over." Gin hesitated, then shrugged. Not much room in that little bed, but what the heck. She kicked off her sneakers and slid under the covers. Martha immediately nestled into the crook of her arm and snuggled against her. In minutes she was asleep.
Gin lay there and listened to the gentle sound of Martha's breathing.
She stroked her soft hair and felt strangely content, at peace.
Peace . . . what a strange sensation. It seeped through her like warm water through a dry sponge. Throughout her brain and her body she sensed all the various engines that were driving her begin to downshift, finally going into neutral, idling.
And through the peace crept an ancient need, long unnoticed amid the adrenalized buzz of her day-to-day life.
She squeezed Martha closer. Is this what I'm missing? Isn't this what it's all about? Her throat tightened. A child of my own? God, I'll be thirty next year . . . Damn! Where are my priorities? What is better than this?
Gerry pulled into his parking space in front of the house. Night was leaching from the eastern sky. Dawn wasn't far off. Somewhere in the trees a bird called.
He headed for his front door, bounding over the curb and up the steps.
He was pumped. And relieved. A successful operation tonight. At the last minute the Bureau had called out every available agent, the kidnapper had made a mistake, and they got the little Walker boy back safe and sound.
Gerry could have stayed and celebrated with the rest of the guys, but this case had made him anxious to get back to his own child.
And it reinforced his determination to move up to a position with regular hours. And soon.
em"K Gerry stood inside his front door and surveyed the empty living room. Gin's raincoat was there, but where was she?
"Gin? ' A little louder.
Upstairs with Martha? Had to be. But an unreasoning fear made him pad up the stairs, taking them three at a time as silently as he could, hurrying to Martha's bedroom. He stopped at the door, struck dumb by the sight of his child curled up under Gin's protective arm. Both were asleep, both faces so smooth, so relaxed, so innocent in the growing light.
He'd taken a chance asking Gin tonight. He hadn't known how she'd react, how it would work out, but he'd sensed a rapport between Gin and Martha during their first meeting and, well, he'd longed to see her.
And who better than a trained physician?
But this?
He stood staring, captured by the nghtness of the scene. It was as if their little duplex, his and Martha's little world, had changed, their fragmented family briefly made whole again.
He realized that tears were sliding down his cheeks.
You belong with us, Gin, he thought.
He wiped the tears away and had to fight the urge to crawl in with them. Besides, there was no room left in that tiny bed.
So Gerry pulled up the rocker Karen had bought for nursing Martha and sat there watching the two women in his life until the sun came up.
THE WEEK OF OCTOBER THE HEARING RELAX, GINA, SENATOR MARSDEN SAID AS HE GATHered the papers on his desk. "You look as if you're about to jump out of your skin." His desk was piled high with folders, reprints, charts, graphs, and detailed analyses of medical statistics. Joe Blair had been in earlier, reviewing his last-minute strategies on networking with other chiefs of staff. He was cool and professional toward Gin but decidedly distant.
And Alicia was a whirling dervish, darting in and out of the office like an overweight hummingbird. She'd conscripted a couple of the officer's legislative correspondents to field the endlessly ringing phones. This was her big day and she seemed to thrive on the pressure.
The past four days had been a whirlwind of activity. Gin felt as if she'd moved into these offices. She'd met Charlie and Zach, the other two legislative aides assigned to the Guidelines committee, and had been impressed with the amount of research they'd collected. They had copies of guidelines and codes of ethics from every state medical board in the country.
The amount of material to be reviewed and absorbed was daunting. But she'd waded in with the rest of them.
"I'll be fine, " Gin told the senator.
And she would be. It was just that not only was this her first day of actually attending a congressional hearing as a participant, but the chairman of the committee would be depending on her medical knowledge to interpret the testimony being given, all of which would occur before cameras broadcasring the proceedings to the nation.
Nothing to it.
Right. That was why her hands were cold and her palms were sweaty and her stomach had shrunk to a walnut-sized knot.
But she was all set to go, She had a pad, a supply of pens, and she had her brand new photo-iD badge slung on a chain around her neck.
"I know you will. Remember, Your job is to listen and take notes.
Alert me immediately, pass me a note, tap me on the shoulder and whisper, whenever you think someone's blowing medical smoke my way. And I do mean immediately. I don't want to find out days later that someone was running double-talk by me. Your responsibility is to keep the medical testimony honest." She held up her steno pad and pens.