LITMIR.BIZ

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Abigail Stillman, either, when he remembered that he did in fact know someone by that name. Or rather, he used to know someone by that name. Another journalist he’d met in Guatemala about ten or twelve years ago. The two of them had shared a very hot, very heavy, very brief affair. One week, he recalled now, unable to halt the lascivious smile that curled his lips. And what a week it had been.

      “Okay, I do know an Abby Stillman,” he told M. H. Garrett, still smiling at his heated memories. “But I haven’t heard from her in years. Have you seen her recently? How is she?”

      “She’s dead.”

      His smile fell, and something raw and hot knotted in his stomach. “She’s what?”

      “She’s dead, Mr. Venner. A car accident. Drunk driver. She was killed instantly.” The caseworker shifted from one foot to the other a little uncomfortably. “Uh, hasn’t anyone contacted you about this?”

      Still feeling as if someone had just kicked him in the groin, Carver mumbled, “About what?”

      M. H. Garrett pressed her free hand against her forehead and rubbed hard. “About Abigail Stillman. About the child she left behind—a twelve-year-old girl named Rachel.” She dropped her hand back to her side and studied him for a moment before continuing. “According to the girl’s birth certificate…um…you’re her father.”

      Carver’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Ex…excuse me?” he stammered. “I’m what?”

      M. H. Garrett bit her lip and tried—without much success—to smile. “Congratulations, Mr. Venner,” she said, clearly striving for a levity she didn’t feel. “It’s a girl.”

      “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Carver objected, holding up his hand as if he could stop her announcement. “That’s impossible. I couldn’t…I mean, Abby didn’t…and I sure as hell…” His voice trailed off and he stared at the woman in the hall. “This can’t be happening,” he finally concluded.

      “Maybe I better come in and try to sort things out,” the social worker offered. “Someone was supposed to have contacted you by now, but obviously no one has. I’m sure you have some questions, and maybe—”

      “Questions?” he sputtered. “Questions? You’re damned right I have some questions. Not to mention a few choice words.”

      The woman stiffened immediately and pointed a finger at him. Somehow, even before she started wagging it at him, Carver was certain that that was precisely what she was going to do.

      “Look, don’t take this out on me,” she said with a vigorous shake of her finger. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

      He nodded slowly and tried to calm himself. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that this is a little…uh… surprising, to say the least. There’s obviously been some mistake. There’s no way I could be this girl’s father.”

      M. H. Garrett eyed him thoughtfully for a moment before asking, “So you and Abigail Stillman never…?”

      “Never what?”

      The caseworker looked uncomfortable again. “Never… um, you know.”

      “Know what?”

      “Never had…relations?”

      “Relations?”

      The woman sighed fitfully, and he could swear she was blushing. “Of a, um, of a sexual nature?”

      Finally Carver understood. “Oh, sure, we…uh…we had relations. Quite a few times if memory serves, but—”

      “I see.” M. H. Garrett frowned her disapproval.

      Carver didn’t like her tone of voice one bit. “No, you don’t see,” he insisted. “I’m not this kid’s father.”

      The caseworker sighed heavily and tilted her head forward, toward the inside of his apartment. “Maybe I should come in and try to get all this straightened out. I can’t imagine why no one at Welfare has contacted you before now, especially with the child arriving tomorrow, but maybe—”

      “Tomorrow?” he repeated. “This kid’s coming to Philadelphia tomorrow? But I’m not her father.”

      “—but maybe we can get it all straightened out without too much trouble,” the woman finished as if Carver had never spoken.

      He wanted to slam the door in her face, wanted to go back to bed for some much needed sleep and forget that this surreal encounter had ever occurred. Unfortunately, M. H. Garrett’s expression assured him she wasn’t going anywhere until this thing was settled. Reluctantly, he moved aside for her to enter. As she passed him, he caught a whiff of her perfume, a rich, floral fragrance that seemed an unlikely choice for her. He liked it, though, and was pretty sure it was gardenia. His sister, Sylvie, wore a similar scent.

      Impulsively, he reached for his shirt pocket, where he kept his cigarettes, and when his fingers encountered only flesh and hair, he suddenly remembered that he was only half dressed. Feeling inexplicably embarrassed by the realization, Carver began a hasty retreat to his bedroom.

      “Uh, let me just go put on a shirt,” he said, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder in the direction he was already headed. “I’ll only be a minute.”

      When M. H. Garrett seemed to be relieved by his decision, he got the strangest impression that it wasn’t so much because she was offended by his lack of clothing as it was because she was fascinated by it.

      Lack of sleep, he remembered, could give a person the craziest sensations.

      He returned to the living room inhaling deeply on a much needed cigarette and buttoning up a well-worn, plaid flannel shirt that he didn’t bother to tuck in. The woman from the Child Welfare Office had discarded her trench coat on the coatrack by the door and sat in the middle of his couch with a number of official-looking documents spread out on his coffee table. Carver’s furnishings were sparse at bestsecond and third-hand castoffs he’d picked up at garage sales and flea markets. His things were inexpensive, functional and no-frills. And somehow, the woman sitting among them fit right in.

      “Can I get you anything?” he asked her as he headed into the adjoining kitchen. Although he felt as if a good, stiff shot of whiskey was probably more appropriate for the bomb she had just dropped, coffee was what he was craving most. “Coffee? Tea? Soda?”

      “Whatever you’re having will be fine,” she said.

      “I’ll just be a minute.”

      While the coffeemaker wheezed and dripped laconically, Carver returned to the living room to find the infuriatingly familiar Ms. Garrett reading over a file. He wished he could remember where he knew her from, couldn’t quell the certainty that the two of them shared some kind of significant history. But her name was in no way recognizable, and she wasn’t at all the kind of woman he normally dated. He’d never had any cause to work with the Child Welfare Office, and couldn’t imagine anyplace else he might have met her. Maybe she was a friend of one of his sisters, he thought. Though even that seemed unlikely. She just appeared to be too straitlaced to be someone who would run around with Livy or Sylvie.

      He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray after using it to light a second. “I’m sorry,” he said as he expelled an errant stream of smoke from his lungs, “but I just can’t shake the feeling that I know you from somewhere.”

      The woman glanced up quickly at his statement, and he could almost swear she looked panicky again. Her reaction made no sense, but he couldn’t dissuade himself of the feeling that he’d put her on edge somehow. Then she frowned, waving her hand in front of her face to dispel the cigarette smoke he had inadvertently sent her way, and he understood her agitation. Mumbling an apology, he stubbed out the second cigarette, as well.

      “And where might we have met, Mr. Venner?” she asked as she watched him perform the action. He could almost feel her disapproval of what was only one of his many bad habits,

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