Without a Word by Carol Lea Benjamin Read Free Book Online Page A

nightstand. “No one ever said I would feel like this.”
    Waiting for someone to show up and open the office, I wondered how Sally had felt when Madison was born, if she, too, felt that her life was about to begin. Or did she feel it had just ended? Instead of the brightness my sister had experienced, my sister who always felt she’d been born to be a mother, did Sally feel the world closing in? From that moment on, everything she wanted to do would have to be preceded by an answer to the question “What about the baby?” Had the tiny person she held in her arms represented not the freedom to be herself, the way it had for my sister, but a kind of prison, a taking away of everything she’d ever wanted?
    Turning the corner from MacDougal Street, a woman caught my eye. Was it the brisk, no-nonsense walk, the fact that she was heading for the place I was watching, or was it something else, some hard-to-pin-down quality that said receptionist ? Did she somehow appear to be the person whose voice was on all three recordings? Or was it the white uniform, white stockings and white shoes? I wondered if she really was a nurse or if she just played one on the bus coming to work and, perhaps, in the office, doling out sage advice and urgent warnings along with the little white card with the next appointment on it.
    I crossed the street and met her at the gate that led to the garden floor of the town house. When her eyebrows rose, I realized I hadn’t planned what I was going to say. I wasn’t related to Madison. I hadn’t even been hired to do the work I was attempting to do. I had no right to ask anything. Could I tell her I had some questions to ask her because I was just curious? When I didn’t speak, she reached for the latch to open the gate, but her manners and her training took over and she didn’t continue on inside.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” I said, trying to gather my thoughts. Since lying when I was on the job was one of my specialties, in fact, lying for a living was as good a definition of undercover work as I’d ever heard, I was surprised to find myself tongue-tied. I knew what I wanted, but for once in my life, not how to try to get it. “It’s about Madison Spector,” I finally said. “I’ve been hired to find her mother.”
    She didn’t say anything but she was shaking her head, holding her hand out the way you might hold a cross out to ward off a vampire. She looked startled, almost afraid, then angry, her face a slide show of emotions.
    â€œI was the one who found him,” she said. She shook her head again. “Whatever it is you want, I’m not the person to ask.”
    â€œI’m only trying to understand a child who doesn’t talk,” I said. “Her father thinks that if I can find her mother, Madison might be willing to speak again, might be able to tell us what happened.”
    â€œOh, we know what happened.”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œI guess you’re new on the scene,” she nearly spat out at me. “I guess you haven’t spent much time with her.” She cocked her head and waited for my reply.
    â€œThat’s correct,” I told her.
    â€œDo you think this is the first time she’s acted up?” Shaking her head, frowning. “Well, it’s not. Only this time—”
    â€œWas there yelling?” I asked.
    â€œYelling? She doesn’t make a sound.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s just one of her many ways of manipulating the people who are forced to deal with her.”
    â€œSo there was no yelling?”
    â€œWell, Dr. Bechman would never have yelled at a child. At anyone. So the answer to your question is no, there was no yelling.”
    The little tag pinned to her chest uniform said “L. Peach.”
    â€œSo you didn’t hear anything, Ms. Peach, anything at all?”
    She inhaled sharply through