Free Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline Page B

putting a hand on her shoulder. “They’re worried. I spoke to them before I called you back.”
    “Who worried them?” Nat blurted out, anger flaring in her chest. She had been hoping for a quiet dinner at home and a good talk, but that idea was circling down the drain. “I didn’t call them. I called you. And why’d you call them before me?”
    “Don’t be silly.” Hank pressed the phone into her palm. “Please. Talk. It’ll only take a minute.”
    “TELL HIM YOU’RE FINE. HE’S CONCERNED. HE LOVES YOU.”
    “I told them I’d call as soon as we got in.” Hank looked apologetic, but Nat was upset all over again. She’d need another bubble bath to recover from everybody’s love and concern.
    “Dad?” she said into the cell phone.
    “What the hell happened?” Her father’s voice echoed Paul’s, or maybe it was the other way around. “They said there was a riot in a prison. Were you caught in that? What were you doing there in the first place?”
    “I’m fine. I just have a cut on my cheek.”
    “A cut! How many stitches did it take? You got a good plastic surgeon, I hope.”
    “I didn’t need stitches.”
    “Which hospital they take you to? Don’t tell me one of those butchers in Philly. They only know from gunshots.”
    “I didn’t go to a hospital. I don’t need stitches. It’s just a little cut.”
    “On your face, no cut is little. You don’t want a scar. You’re not one of the boys.”
    Oh please. “Dad, it won’t scar.”
    “I’m calling your mother’s skin doctor. Dr. Steingard, from the club. She’s the best. Leave now, you can be at her office in an hour. It’s in Paoli on Lancaster Avenue, the same building as the dentist. We’ll meet you there.”
    “Dad, I’m fine. Please, don’t call the doctor.”
    “Your mother’s worried sick, between you and Paul. Go to the doctor, so she can sleep tonight. We’ll meet you there, then you and Hank can come home and have a nice dinner.”
    “Dad, listen, I have to go. I don’t need to see the doctor. Love to you both.” Nat handed the phone back to her brother. “I’m not driving out to the suburbs.”
    Paul said into the phone, “DON’T WORRY, DAD. WE’LL MAKE SURE SHE GOES. SEE YA SOON.”
    “Why’d you say that?” Nat exploded. “I’m not going!”
    “DON’T YOU THINK SHE SHOULD GO?” Paul looked at Hank, who turned to Nat in appeal.
    “Honey, what’s the harm? You’ll get a specialist to look at it. If you don’t need stitches, you don’t have to get them.”
    “It’s not the stitches.” Nat felt like screaming. “It’s that I’m fine.”
    “THEY’RE ON THEIR WAY ALREADY. SO WILL THE DOCTOR BE. YOU CAN’T NOT SHOW UP.”
    “Babe?” Hank said, cocking his head. “Make your parents happy. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
    “TRUE THAT,” Paul added.
    Nat sighed inwardly. Sometimes she loved that Hank got along so well with her family, and sometimes she hated it. On the days she got caught in a prison riot, she hated it.
    “Okay,” she said, going to get her coat.

     

    They got back to the apartment from The Greco Show around midnight, overfed and exhausted. Hank had gone to bed already, and Nat lingered in the bathroom. She needed time alone. The lightbulb panel flooded the small room, and she examined her infamous cut in the mirror. It looked the same as it had four hours ago, having survived the poking and prodding of the Main Line’s best plastic surgeon, who ultimately decided that it required no stitches and reapplied a veil of Neosporin.
    Nat felt a knot of resentment tighten within her chest. She reached for the electric toothbrush Hank had bought them for Christmas and pressed the green On button, starting the frantic motion of the brush and its generally menacing bzzzz. She buzzed her teeth, pining for her old low-tech toothbrush. She needed silence after all the Greco noise.
    At dinner, she had told them the sanitized version of what happened at the prison, or at