be as calm and businesslike as Daniel, to simply admit a mistake, learn from it and move on. But Daniel hadn’t seen Katherine Hannigan in the hospital, the savageries done to her body. “So if I don’t take the Jasperson case, no one will?”
“That’s the truth, I’m afraid.”
Damn it. “Fine,” he gritted out. “I’ll take it.” But at what cost to his soul, he didn’t know.
CHAPTER TWO
“MS. JASPERSON!” CAME the panicked summons. “My pot keeps collapsing.”
Suppressing a smile, Robyn hurried to the aid of one of her summer school ceramics students who was using a pottery wheel for the first time. Yesterday, his “pot” would have meant something else entirely. Today Arnie was lost in the throes of creativity, the feel of the wet clay, the joy of creating something out of nothing.
Sure enough, the tall, thin vessel he’d been painstakingly working on had fallen in on itself and was now a formless lump of clay.
“That’s the fun thing about pottery,” she said. “If you ruin something, you can just add some more water and start over. No need to throw it out. I think for this first pot you might try making something a little shorter and the walls a little thicker.”
“But I was gonna make a vase,” he objected. “For my mama.”
“Vases come in all shapes and sizes.” She loved it when the tough-talking kids expressed their love for their mamas. Arnie was still just a baby. He’d been arrested twice for defacing public property, but it wasn’t too late for him to realize that creating something beautiful was a whole lot more fun than destroying something. She’d started this summer pro-gram after only a year of teaching. At first, she had donated her time. Now she received funding from a grant, enough to buy materials and pay herself a small stipend.
She showed Arnie an example of the kind of vase he might attempt. It was squat with thick walls, but it had a dramatic red glaze with blue streaks. “Can I make mine red like that?”
“Sure.”
“All right, then.” Satisfied, he followed Robyn’s instructions for getting the new vase started, then she left him to his own devices and went to check her cell phone again. It was almost two o’clock, and she hadn’t yet heard from Ford. His forty-eight hours would be up soon.
She didn’t know what had disillusioned Ford. He’d been a serious student and athlete in school, a hard worker. But he’d also had an infectious smile—especially around people who needed cheering up.
He’d had no smile for her last night.
She knew she was right about him. He might have been wrong about her back in high school when he’d laid out her punishment for supposedly stealing those art supplies. But she’d recognized even then that he operated under a moral guidance system that saw no room for compromise. He’d seen things in black and white, right and wrong, just and unjust. And that was exactly the sort of person she needed to free Eldon.
“Okay, kids.” She pulled herself back to the moment. “It’s time to put away our supplies and clean up.”
“What about my pot?” Arnie never took his eyes off the vessel he formed with clumsy hands.
Pleased that he hadn’t given up at the first suggestion that freedom was imminent, she said, “You can finish up. I’ll help you put things away.”
A few minutes later, beaming over his crooked vase, Arnie flashed Robyn a grin. “Thanks, Mrs. J,” he said as he washed his hands, speaking quietly so his friends wouldn’t hear him being polite to a teacher. Then he grabbed his backpack and ran to catch up with the others.
Robyn’s smile faded. Why didn’t Ford call and tell her something?
A soft tap sounded on the door, and Robyn’s throat constricted with apprehension. Could it be Ford? Had he come in person to deliver bad news? But Ford wouldn’t be so tentative, she reasoned, and then she saw who it was.
She wasn’t particularly anxious to see the woman who had replaced her in her ex-husband’s eyes. Trina was everything Robyn was not—petite, curvaceous, exotic. She could also be a royal pain in the rear. But it was her husband in prison, Robyn reminded herself. It had been Trina’s idea to contact Project Justice, and then to approach Ford personally, since he’d grown up in their town.
Robyn opened the door. “Hello, Trina.”
Trina’s eyes were shiny with imminent tears. “I couldn’t wait to hear from you. I was going crazy just sit ting at home and doing nothing.”
Trina hovered at the doorway, peeking past Robyn into the classroom. She wore a short sundress that showed off her spectacular legs and matching sandals, her dark hair stylishly mussed, every eyelash in place. No matter what was going on in her life, she always man aged to present a polished facade in public.
Robyn felt like a bum in comparison wearing her clay-stained jeans, her shoulder-length hair pulled back into a bandanna.
“Come on in. The kids are gone and I was just straightening up. I haven’t heard anything yet.”
Trina fairly vibrated with nervous energy as she click-clacked in on her heels.
“Why is it taking so long?” Trina said on a moan. She looked around, maybe for a place to sit, but in the end she just stood there. “Maybe we shouldn’t have trusted Ford. Maybe he forgot about us and went golfing or something.”
“He didn’t forget.” Of that Robyn was sure, though he probably wished he could. He sure hadn’t looked happy two nights ago.
“Are you done for the day?” Trina fanned herself. The studio was always hot in the summer, both from the kilns and a lack of insulation against the blazing Texas sun. “I’ll buy you a beer.”
Robyn didn’t really feel like having a beer at two in the afternoon. But Trina obviously needed companionship. “Where do you want to go?”
“Somewhere cheap,” Trina said. “I have to watch my spending. The lawyers put a pretty good dent in our bank account, and obviously with Eldon in prison I have very little coming in.”
Robyn tried to hide her surprise. Eldon had been worth millions. All of those appeals must have been costly, but could he and Trina have gone through that much money? Enough that Trina had to watch her pennies?
People had said Trina, a hairstylist, had married El don for his money. Eldon’s high-society friends had never embraced her, and his parents had liked her even less than they’d liked Robyn. But Trina certainly hadn’t balked at spending whatever was necessary to free her husband.
Since Robyn had been similarly judged, she tended to believe Trina really loved Eldon. The two women never would have been friends under normal circumstances, but they’d come to know each other during Eldon’s or deal, and Trina had been kind to Robyn when she’d grieved over the loss of her child.
Robyn never had been one to turn up her nose at friendship. Friends were in short supply right now. Many had deserted her after the divorce. Others had drifted away after the kidnapping, feeling uncomfortable around Robyn and her grief. The few close friends who remained thought she was insane
