All Day and a Night by Alafair Burke Read Free Book Online

of them had ever heard of, and she always suspected it was because of Donna’s death.
    He shushed her and rubbed her forearm. “That’s not fair. Besides, that stupid prize didn’t even matter. You and I are where we are today because we were willing to look beyond the only narrow slice of life we knew and deal with the larger world. I’ll always be there for Melanie, but let’s face it: she never made that leap.”
    She knew what he meant. At one level, Melanie had to grow up faster than either of them when she’d delivered a baby boy three months after their high school graduation. But in many ways, she was still stuck in that same place.
    Carrie, on the other hand, sometimes felt like she and Bill had each lived three lives since then. She arrived at Cornell believing she’d won a golden ticket, only to discover that the other students were way beyond her academically. She was already struggling in her second semester when she got the phone call on March 17. Her father had pulled the refrigeration truck in front of the grocery store, just like normal. Then he stepped out of the cab and walked directly in front of an oncoming SUV. The company was blaming the fatal accident on her father’s own negligence, claiming that he was tired and distracted because of a prohibited moonlighting gig he’d taken on the side.
    Carrie always suspected, but her mother would never admit, that her father had taken the second job because Carrie had told him about some dormies’ upcoming plans for a spring break jaunt to Cancun. She had mentioned it only because she was shocked at the ability of eighteen-year-olds to whisk away on a beach vacation, but it would have been just like her father to do whatever he could to help her fit in with her new peers.
    Suddenly, Carrie had to worry not only about her classes, but now about her mother being able to keep up with rent, car insurance, and utilities. She took a waitressing job. She went home more often. Her GPA dropped. Within a year, she had lost her scholarship. She moved back to Utica with three semesters of mediocre grades under her belt.
    She lost the golden ticket. It would take her ten years in total to graduate from college.
    Bill was the one who helped her get on her feet and back in the classroom again. He was the one who got her to see: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. While Carrie was at Cornell and Melanie was changing diapers, Bill had spent his postgraduation year in rehab, battling a drug dependency he had successfully hidden until then, even from her. He managed to turn the setback into a new beginning, committing himself to helping other kids who were trying to get clean. He followed his father into law enforcement, continuing to speak openly about his past struggles. At his induction as the youngest chief of police in Rochester’s history, he talked about the terror and the thrill of holding a crack pipe for the very first time. He brought the audience to tears and was invited to serve on the governor’s advisory council on public safety issues. Then last winter, he had been appointed lieutenant governor when a stroke disabled the previous officeholder.
    His path may not have been direct, but he was exactly where he wanted to be: serving as a statewide public official. There were already whispers about him running for governor in eight years. “I’m happy for you,” Carrie said.
    “Then why do you sound so sad?” he asked. “All this talk about Red View and high school?”
    She shrugged. “You’re right. It’s dumb. Just the drama of leaving the firm. I guess it has me feeling melancholy.”
    Bill was probably her closest friend. So why couldn’t she tell him that she had walked away from a perfect job to represent Anthony Amaro?
    As they hugged goodbye outside the restaurant, it hit her: it was because she was wondering whether she’d made a terrible mistake.

CHAPTER
SIX
    E llie came home to find Max standing on the sofa, holding a tape measure