Free Pieces of You by Mary Campisi Page B

remember what happened during that initial period, which is probably just as well.” He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Annie, she couldn’t contact us. She didn’t know how.”
    Tears fell down Annie’s face, from eyes, to cheeks, to chin. She clutched her mother’s cold fingers and murmured, “I am so sorry.” Her mother clasped Annie’s hand but her eyes remained on Quinn.
    “After, when she got away, the shame was too great. She felt ruined. She didn’t think Dad would want her, didn’t think she’d have anything left to give us. It had all been stripped away by that bastard who abused her.” His voice rose, his gaze burning into his mother’s, “She wandered, stayed away for us, not for herself, not because she didn’t want to be with us, but because she couldn’t. She sacrificed herself so she could spare us.”
    “And we never knew.” Pain consumed Annie.
    “She thought it would be better if we believed she was dead.”
    “Oh, Mom.” Annie sprang from her chair and buried her face in her mother’s lap. The tears started up again, scalding her eyes, her face, her neck, burning and cleansing at the same time. “I’ve missed you for so long. Stay with us, please, stay. Quinn and I need you. We can be a family, the three of us. We’ll help each other.” On and on the emotion spilled out. “You have to meet Michael, he’s my fiancé. I think you’ll like him. We’re getting married next April. You’ll be at my wedding. Our children will know their grandmother.” She sniffed, cleared her throat. “It’s a miracle.” Annie lifted her head and swiped at her eyes. “Two in one day. I sold a painting this afternoon for more money than I ever imagined. And now you’re here.” Laughter bubbled inside. “Wait until I see Sylvia, Quinn. Beware, indeed. Tonight we’re having a real celebration.” She kissed her mother on the cheek and murmured, “And you’re the guest of honor.”  

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 10
     
    “She’s beautiful.”
    “Of course she is, what did you expect?”
    Evie Burnes sipped her whiskey. “Nothing. It was merely an observation.”
    What a mess. Quinn tapped his pen against the side of his desk. He could use another drink, but he’d already had too many and in twenty minutes he had to get in a car and drive Evie Burnes to a celebration. In her honor. “She’s messed up, do you know that? Because of you, she’s messed up.” She looked so cool and unaffected, sitting there with a cigarette dangling from her fingers.
    “She seemed fine to me.” She took a long drag from her Salem Light, blew out slowly.
    “Of course she would. You don’t know her. She panics when Michael or I are ten minutes late, a full-blown won’t leave the window, calling cell phone, friends, anybody kind of panic that takes a good hour to settle down once she sees us and knows we’re okay. It comes and goes, worse when she reads about a disappearing parent, or now, when she’s working a case with a kid whose mother goes to the grocery store and poof, disappears.”
    “I never meant to hurt her.”
    “Save it. There’s nothing you can say to make it any better. Annie slept with your picture under her pillow for the first year so she wouldn’t forget your face. She even wore your perfume so she’d remember your smell until Dad made her stop because he couldn’t stand the torment anymore.”
    She stubbed out the cigarette and reached in her handbag for another. “If it’s any consolation to you, I didn’t want to see her.”
    “It isn’t.” The woman had nerve.
    “You lied about me to protect her.”
    “I’d kill to protect her.”
    “I see.” She studied her unlit cigarette. “That doesn’t change things, Quinn. I still need your help.”
    “Of course you do, Rita. Let’s keep our priorities straight, right?”
    “Do you really think I would have come here if I had any other option?”
    The coolness of her words chilled him. “An