Keeping Faith Read online

  "All right."

  "You know this means I'm going to have to watch that damn show."

  "I'm sorry."

  Joan sighs wearily. "Yeah," she says. "So am I."

  Lacey Rodriguez believes in starting at the beginning. And as far as she can see, the furor surrounding Faith White blossomed after the incident with her grandmother's resurrection. She takes a small notebook from her tote bag and smiles at Dr. Peter Weaver, the cardiologist in charge of Millie Epstein's case.

  For an attractive man, he's a pill. He flattens his hands on the surface of his desk and glares at Lacey. "I understand that you're only doing your job, Ms. Rodriguez. Which is why you must see that I can't divulge any information about my patient."

  She turns up the wattage on her smile. "And I wouldn't ask you to. In fact, the attorney with whom I'm working is more interested in your knowledge of Faith and Mariah White."

  Dr. Weaver blinks. "I don't know them at all. Except, of course, for the rumors that we've all heard about the child. But medically, I can't substantiate any claims of healing. For me the issue was not how Mrs. Epstein was resuscitated, but simply that she was."

  "I see," Lacey says, pretending to record every single word on a page of her notebook, when in fact the man's said nothing at all of value.

  "The only times I've even come in contact with Mrs. White were at her mother's bedside and subsequent checkups."

  "Did she seem...fragile to you at the time? Emotional?"

  "As much as anyone would have been, given the circumstances. I'd have to say that, overall, my impression of her was one of concern and protectiveness for her mother." He shakes his head, his thoughts spooling backward. "And her daughter."

  "Could you give me an example?"

  "Well," Dr. Weaver says, "there was a moment during Mrs. Epstein's stress test, when the cameraman must have gotten the little girl in his range and--"

  "Pardon me--you filmed the stress test?"

  "No, not me. Ian Fletcher. That television guy. Mrs. Epstein and the hospital had signed waivers to allow it. I'm sure it's already been aired. But the point was, Mrs. White clearly didn't want her daughter filmed, and did everything in her power to stop it. Went after the cameraman, even, screaming and pushing at him. The very picture of a fierce maternal instinct rearing its head." He smiles apologetically. "So, you see, I don't really have much to say that is going to help your case."

  Lacey smiles back at him. Don't be so sure, she thinks.

  November 2, 1999

  Kenzie van der Hoven comes from a long line of legal-minded men. Her great-grandfather had started van der Hoven & Weiss, one of the first law firms in Boston. Her father, her mother, and her five older brothers were all currently partners there. When she was born, the last of the lot, her parents were so sure she was another boy that they simply gave her the name they'd already picked out.

  She grew up as Kenneth, confusing the hell out of school-teachers and doing everything she could to shorten her name to a diminutive, although her parents never bowed to her wishes. Following in the deep treads of everyone else in her family, she went to Harvard Law and passed the bar and litigated exactly five trials before deciding that she was tired of being what other people wanted her to be. She legally changed her name to Kenzie, and she turned in her shingle to become a guardian ad litem, a court-appointed child's advocate during custody cases.

  She's worked for Judge Rothbottam before, and considers him a fair man--if a little partial to Broadway musicals that have starred Shirley Jones. So when he called her yesterday with the White case, she accepted on the spot.

  "I should warn you," the judge said. "This one's going to be a doozy."

  Now, as Kenzie walks wide-eyed around the White property, she understands what he meant. At the time she had not connected the name with the religious revival occurring in New Canaan--most of the papers she read referred to Faith simply as "the child," in some semblance of protecting a minor's privacy. But this--well, this is indescribable. There are small knots of people camped out under pup tents, heating lunch over Sternos. Dotting the crowd are the ill in their wheelchairs, some spiraled with MS, some trailing intravenous lines, some with their eyes wide and vacant. Black-habited nuns patter across the fallen leaves like a flock of penguins, praying or offering service to the sick. And then there are the reporters, a breed apart with squat vans and cameramen, their chic suits as unlikely as blossoms against the frozen November ground.

  Where on earth is she supposed to start?

  She begins shoving through the crush of bodies, determined to get to the front door so that she can see Mariah White. After five minutes of tripping over sleeping bags and extension cords, she finally quits. Somewhere around here there must be a policeman; she saw the marked car at the edge of the property. It would not be the first time she's had her guardian-ad-litem status enforced by an officer of the law, but crowd control has never before been the reason.

  Turning to a woman beside her, Kenzie laughs breathlessly. "This is something, isn't it? You must have been here a pretty long time to get such a plum spot. Are you waiting for Faith?"

  The woman's thin lips stretch back. "No Eng-lish," she says. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"

  Great, Kenzie thinks, hundreds of people and I pick the one who doesn't understand me. She closes her eyes for a moment, remembering the judge's schedule. The custody hearing will be in five weeks. In that time, she has to interview everyone who's had contact with Faith since August and possibly earlier, she has to get to the bottom of the grandmother's resurrection, and she has to win Faith over and convince her that she is an ally.

  Basically, she needs a miracle.

  As I am sticking Faith's shoes in the closet, I realize someone is taking photographs through the sidelight of the front door. "Excuse me," I say, yanking it open. "Do you mind?"

  The man lifts his Leica and takes a picture of me. "Thanks," he says, and scurries away.

  "God," I mutter to myself, standing in the open doorway. My mother's car inches along the driveway, finally parking halfway down when people begin milling too close for her to continue safely. She's gone home to pack a valise and return, deciding to move in for a while. It's easier than trying to shake off the reporters who trail her on the short drive to her home. The man with the Leica is right in her face, too, when she leaves the car. Groupies chant Faith's name. For some reason, today they are all much closer to my house than they ought to be.

  My mother stumbles up the porch steps with her suitcase and turns around. "Go," she says, waving her hands at the masses. "Shoo!" She stalks past me, shuts and bolts the door. "What is with these people? Haven't they got something better to do?"

  I peek out the sidelight. "How come they're all the way up to the porch?"

  "Accident in town. I passed it coming in. A lumber truck jacknifed on the highway exit ramp, so there's no policeman at the end of the driveway."

  "Great," I murmur. "I guess I ought to be thankful they're not rushing the door."

  My mother snorts. "It's early yet."

  Prophetically, the doorbell rings. Standing on the threshold, with more chutzpah than I've imagined possible, is Petra Saganoff. She has a cameraman behind her. Before I can shut the door in her face, she manages to wedge a red pump inside. "Mrs. White," she says, the cameraman recording her words, "do you have any response to your ex-husband's claims that Faith is in danger living here with you?"

  I think about Ian's idea to invite this bitch into my home, about my own reluctant agreement, and I almost choke. This is not the time to grant her access--it must be on my terms, Joan's made that clear. I turn to my mother, whom I can always count on to put someone in their place, but she has disappeared. "You're on private property."

  "Mrs. White," Saganoff repeats, but before she can finish, my mother returns, carrying the antique Revolutionary War rifle that hangs over the living-room fireplace.

  "Mariah," she says, carelessly waving the muzzle at Petra Saganoff, "who's here?"