Free The Brutal Heart by Gail Bowen Page B

this, but after basketball, I am so hungry.”
    “How’s your team doing?” I asked.
    “Great. Of course, we have the miraculous Brodnitz twins to save us from disaster and show us how the game is played. At least that’s what Coach tells us four hundred times a practice.” Gracie dug her spoon viciously into the ice cream and raised her voice. “ ‘Young women, if you’re serious about the game, watch Em and Chloe. They know how to win. They always respond to the challenge. They never give an inch until the final buzzer sounds. They’re fearless. They pay the price without whimpering. They always give 110 per cent because they know no one ever drowned in sweat. And they know how to focus.’ ”
    Gracie had a talent for mimicry, and as she ripped through the hoary sports clichés, Taylor chortled. I laughed too. Encouraged, Gracie carried on barking in high coach mode. “ ‘Em and Chloe don’t look to me to tell them what to do. They’ve assumed responsibility for their own games. That’s maturity. That’s what makes a winning athlete.’ ” Gracie pulled her spoon out of the ice cream and licked the fudge meditatively. “The coach totally worships those girls, but they’re not human. Even when they get hurt or they get a bad call or the crowd yells at them, they remember to focus, focus, focus. I think they’re robots.”
    “Maybe they just hold everything inside,” Taylor said.
    Gracie nodded. “That’s exactly what they do. A couple of weeks ago, I forgot my watch after practice. When I went back to the change room to look for it, Chloe was sitting on the bench crying. She’d taken this really punishing fall during the game, and I asked if I could help. She just about took my head off! She said she was fine, she didn’t need anybody. Then she jumped up and hobbled off.”
    When I came out of the shower that night, Zack was already in bed, working on his laptop.
    He patted the spot beside him on the bed. “Take a look at this,” he said.
    I got into bed and slid over. The Care Bear website was on the screen. There were postage-stamp-sized pictures of each bear and, at the bottom, a note. I read it aloud. “Wherever the Care Bears go, and whatever the Care Bears do, in their soft, fuzzy, and funny way, they share their special gift of caring with everyone they meet.” I shuddered. “That makes my teeth ache.”
    “Mine too,” Zack said. “But my job is to be Francesca’s advocate and her adviser. I’m supposed to understand what she wants and what she needs, and I haven’t got a clue.” He turned off his laptop and moved it to his night table. “I’ve been able to figure out ways to make justice serve the needs of psychos, sickos, and run-of-the-mill sons of bitches, but Francesca has me stymied.”
    “What’s going to happen to her?”
    “Well, I’m pretty sure I can convince the judge that locking Francesca up is not in her best interests or in the best interests of the community, but my client is going to have to control herself.”
    “Has that been a problem?”
    “Not in the courtroom – at least not yet – but there was another incident in the courthouse when we came back for the afternoon session.”
    “What happened?”
    “I’m still trying to figure that out. After I took Francesca back to the office to show her that her bears were safe, we had to deal with lunch – not a simple matter as it turned out. Francesca can’t eat indoors because the artificial light makes her head buzz, so Norine ordered some sandwiches for us to take to the park. Anyway, Francesca and I had a nice time, listening to the traffic and the birds. She was relaxed, and she was lucid. I thought she was in great shape to prove to the judge that she could live safely in the community.”
    I hugged my knees to my chest. “So what went wrong?”
    “I honestly don’t know,” Zack said. “When we were coming back into the courthouse, we ran into Ginny and Sean, and Francesca went nuts. She