Free A Perfect Life: A Novel by Danielle Steel Page A

and her look.
    Two weeks after Susie arrived at the network, Blaise was working on a story, when the phone rang and Mark was out to lunch. She picked it up herself. All she could hear at the other end was incoherent sobbing, and she had no idea who it was, or if the call was even for her.
    “Hello?… Who is this?” Blaise asked the unknown caller from a blocked number, sounding confused. “I’m sorry.… Are you there?” And then she heard a familiar scream. It was a sound she hadn’t heard in years. Salima. She had screamed that way as a baby, and when she started to go blind and was scared. Blaise’s heart started to race. “Salima?… Talk to me.… Is that you?” And then the voice broke down in sobs, she was talking incoherently and sayingsomething about Abby, but Blaise still couldn’t understand what it was. “Baby, come on.… Slow down.… What happened?” With a feeling of panic, she wondered if Abby had quit, or been fired. It was the only reason Blaise could think of for Salima to fall apart. And if she’d been fired, Blaise would force Caldwell to bring her back. There was nothing they couldn’t fix. “Where are you?” Blaise asked her, wondering if Abby was there. Had they had an argument? Was Abby hurt?
    “At the cottage,” she said in a tone of anguish. It was the first thing she had said that Blaise could understand.
    “Where’s Abby?”
    In answer to the question, Salima broke down in sobs again. It was several very long minutes before she could speak again, while her mother told her to breathe.
    “She got sick.… She woke up this morning with a fever.… I called Mrs. Garner and asked her to send the nurse. She called the doctor and they took her away. They took her to the hospital, and they wouldn’t let me go with her.”
    “Baby, she’ll be all right,” Blaise said in a soothing tone, but Salima only cried harder. “It’s probably just a really bad flu, and they don’t want you to catch it.”
    “They said she had meningitis. I called the hospital, and they wouldn’t let me talk to her. They said she was sleeping. I never got to say goodbye to her, Mom.” Her voice was raw, and a chill ran down Blaise’s spine.
    “Why would you say goodbye to her?” her mother asked her, sounding frightened.
    “She’s dead,” Salima said, and then dissolved in sobs again asBlaise sat clutching the phone in disbelief. She had died within hours, which Blaise was aware happened with meningitis, but it was impossible to believe. She looked at her watch and knew what she had to do.
    “I’ll be there as fast as I can. I’ll leave the office in a few minutes. Hang in, baby. I’m on my way. I know this is awful, beyond awful, it’s unthinkable. I’ll be there in three hours.” It took a few minutes, but she got Salima off the phone and called Charlie. She told him she had a family emergency and had to leave immediately. And with a lump in her throat, she told him she couldn’t do her broadcast the next day. “I know this is short notice, and I’m sorry, but I have no choice.”
    “What happened? Is your daughter okay?” He sounded concerned. Blaise never left the office without plenty of warning, nor missed her broadcasts, ever.
    “The woman who takes care of her just died. She’s hysterical. She loved her more than she loves me.” She said it without rancor, and he was one of the few people at the network, other than Mark, who knew Salima was blind and diabetic.
    “Just go,” he said kindly. “Call me tonight and let me know when you’re coming back.”
    “It might be a few days,” she said honestly. “This is going to be really hard for my kid. And Charlie,” she said as an afterthought, “please don’t give Susie Q my morning spot to fill in.” Blaise knew better than anyone that this was no time for her to disappear, and she had never done that before. It might give Susie her big break. But she couldn’t face that now too. Not yet.
    “Don’t worry. It