at Thora. She was staring intently at Shane Lansing. Lansing was watching the game, though. After several moments, Thora turned toward the restroom and spied Chris watching her. He looked back at her long enough to let her know he'd seen her watching Lansing, then turned and walked on.
He was standing at the kid-size urinal when a female voice hissed, 'Chris! Can you hear me?'
He almost pissed on his jeans as he whipped left to find the source of the voice. When it came again, he realized that the cinder block wall dividing the men's and women's restrooms stopped six inches short of the tin roof. The voice was coming from the crack there.
'Agent Morse?'
'Who else?' she whispered. 'What did you do this afternoon? You didn't show Thora the picture, did you?'
'No.'
'Did you confront her about Lansing?'
'No. Not directly.'
'What did you say?'
'Don't worry about it. It's not what you think, okay?'
'Christ, Chris. Are you kidding me?'
'Just leave me alone, damn it!'
'I wish I could. But I can't.'
'I'm going back to my seat.'
'Call me tomorrow,' she said. 'As soon as Thora leaves town.'
Chris flushed the urinal.
'Will you call?' Morse asked as he washed his hands.
'Who the hell is talking?' drawled a deep male voice.
A man wearing grease-stained overalls had walked into the men's room behind Chris. Chris smelled alcohol, which was forbidden at the park but which always seemed to be a part of Little League games nevertheless.
'Some chick in the ladies' room,' Chris said. 'I think she's looking for some action.'
The man in the overalls was trying to climb onto a lavatory to see through the crack by the roof when Chris walked out of the restroom.
Alex was late logging on to MSN. Discouraged by Dr. Shepard's response at the baseball field, she had stopped at a liquor store and bought a $12 bottle of pinot noir. Before she reached the motel with it, one of her mother's nurses had called and informed her that the oncologist was moving her mother back to the critical care hospital because of worsening liver involvement. Alex had started packing and drinking at the same time, all the while checking her computer to see if Jamie had gotten online. She drank more than she'd intended to-a lot more- and as a result had passed out in her clothes, only to startle herself awake at 11:45 p.m. with a full bladder and a terror of having let both Jamie and her mother down.
A flood of relief went through her when she saw the little green man that signaled Jamie's presence on the network. Before she could type a word, an invitation for a videoconference popped up on-screen. She accepted, then watched the miniature video screen appear. When Jamie's face materialized, her voice caught in her throat. The boy's face was red, and there were tears on his cheeks. Bill must have told him that his grandmother was going back into the hospital.
'What's the matter, little man?' she asked, hoping it was only a lost baseball game. 'What happened?'
'Missy's moving in with us.'
Alex felt a thunderclap of shock. '
'She came over to eat with us tonight. She was acting all weird, like she's my new best friend or something. Then Dad said something about how great it would be for me to have a lady around again. They both watched me really close after he said it. I'm not stupid, Aunt Alex. I know what they're doing.'
Alex almost got up and walked away from the webcam. She couldn't conceal her emotions in this situation. But maybe she shouldn't hide them. What the hell was Bill thinking? His wife hadn't been in the ground six weeks, and he was planning to move his mistress into the house with his bereaved son? The man had no shame!
'What should I do?' Jamie asked, and in that moment Alex felt the full weight of responsibility for his future.
'You hang tight, bub. That's what you do.'
Jamie wiped his eyes. 'Do I have to stay here if she moves in?'
Alex gritted her teeth and fought the temptation to give him false hope. 'I'm afraid you do. According to the law, anyway.'
He winced, but anger seemed to be getting the better of his sadness, now that Alex was online.
'Can you do anything to help?' he asked. 'Is there any way I can come live with you?'
'Maybe. I'm working on that every day. But you can't say anything about it. Not to your dad, and not to Missy.'
'I hate her,' Jamie said with real venom. 'Hate, hate, hate.'
'I didn't do my homework,' Jamie said uneasily. 'I told Dad I did, but I didn't. I couldn't think about it.'
'Do you think you can do it now?'
Jamie shrugged. 'Can you stay on while I do it?'
Alex needed to start for Jackson. She was already late, and it was a two-hour drive. But how could she turn away from the confusion and fear in Jamie's eyes? What choice would her mother make in this situation? Alex forced herself to smile as though she had all the time in the world.
'Absolutely. Just let me run to the bathroom.'
Jamie giggled. 'Me, too! I was afraid I'd miss you, so I waited right here in this chair. I almost peed in my Coke can.'
'See you in a minute.'
Jamie held his opened hand up to the camera, their substitute for physical contact. Alex held up her hand in reply, but she had to turn away to hide her face.
As she walked away from the computer, she spoke softly but with conviction, in a voice that could have come from her father. 'That boy is a Morse, not a Fennell. And he's going to be raised by somebody who gives a damn.'
Five miles from Alex Morse's hotel room, Chris lay in his adopted son's bed, listening to the slow, rhythmic sound of Ben's breathing. He was exhausted, and he'd about decided to sleep right where he was. Today had been one of the worst days of his life, and he had no wish to continue it by getting into further discussions with Thora before bed. His mind was spinning with Morse's accusations and Thora's explanations, and beneath that storm of words was an inchoate terror of having screwed up yet again. He had dated his first wife for five years before marrying her, and he'd thought he knew her well. But in a few short years, life had proved him wrong.
Kathryn Ledet had been a physical therapy student at UMC in Jackson when Chris married her. A native of Covington, Louisiana, she'd attended Tulane as an undergrad, and thus was ecstatic when Chris was able to secure his residency at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans. But when the time came for Chris to repay his school loans by practicing two years in the impoverished Mississippi Delta, Kathryn had been less than ecstatic. Still, she toughed it out, until Chris was informed that his replacement would be four months late. Chris was ready to leave the Delta, too; he had a plum job waiting with a premier internal medicine group in Jackson. But despite this, he did not feel that he could abandon the near-desperate patients he'd been treating for two years. Kathryn felt no such obligation. When Chris told her that he felt obliged to stay on until a replacement could be found, she packed up her things and drove back to New Orleans. After his replacement arrived, Chris went after her to try to save the marriage, but there was no point. He had already proved that he was not the man Kathryn wanted. By the time he'd worked three months in Jackson, he realized that neither Kathryn Ledet nor boutique medicine were for him. But
