Good Little Wives Read Free Page A

wished Kitty would get there before shespent too much time thinking about her father and wondering if he was still alive.
    A heavy door creaked open.
    Kitty stood in the doorway. Her jaw went slack; her eyebrows knitted into a waxed “W”. “Dana,” she said.
    Dana wrung her hands. “Kitty. Are you all right?”
    She didn’t look all right. Her muddy brown hair was sticking up as if she’d had an electric shock; her skin was pale, in grave need of a good foundation and a little blush. The body that Kitty used to hate (no matter what diet or exercise regimen she followed, she could never quite flatten her tummy) had grown thin and frail since Dana had last seen her.
    But Kitty said, “I’m fine,” because that was what the women of New Falls had been trained to say. “The bed’s not very comfortable, but I didn’t feel like sleeping anyway.”
    Dana sat down because her legs were suddenly weak. “Are you cold?” she asked. “You can have my jacket.”
    â€œThat would be nice. I’m freezing.” She wore only linen pants and a short-sleeved sweater, which must have been the outfit she’d had on yesterday when they’d found her standing over Vincent, a trickle of blood oozing from his left ear, a gun slack, still smoking, in Kitty’s right hand.
    Short sleeves and linen, Dana thought. No wonder Kitty was freezing.
    Dana unzipped the jacket and wondered how Caroline would have known that. Did she, too, have a father in another state that she didn’t talk about? She handed the jacket over to Kitty, who slipped it on quickly and huddled against its warmth. A guard in the doorway didn’t seem inclined to take it away. In fact, he didn’t seem to be paying attention to them at all.
    â€œYour arraignment’s scheduled for one,” Dana said as if Kitty didn’t know. She lowered her voice. “Has your attorney been here?”
    Kitty sat down across from her. “I don’t have one.”
    Surely Dana misunderstood. “What do you mean? Of course you have an attorney.”
    â€œOnly a court-appointed one. A young girl right out of law school. I’m her first murder case.”
    Dana leaned closer. “Kitty, that’s ridiculous.”
    Kitty shrugged.
    â€œWhat about the man who did your divorce?”
    But Kitty shook her head. “Sean isn’t a criminal lawyer. I don’t know any of those, do you?”
    Dana could hardly say the only one she knew was back in Indiana. “No. But if you need help…”
    Kitty shrugged again.
    â€œWhat about your children?”
    â€œI guess they’re too busy making funeral arrangements.”
    Dana wondered what her boys would have done if she’d been arrested for killing Steven. Would they rally to her side or his? She stared out the window again.
    â€œIt’s nice of you to come,” Kitty said. “Thank you for the jacket.”
    â€œIt was Caroline’s idea.”
    The eyebrows scrunched back into the “W”.
    â€œWe’re all concerned about you, Kitty.” She said it as if all the women who’d been at the rite-of-spring luncheon were now lined up at the barbed wire with fleece jackets of their own.
    Kitty didn’t respond, perhaps because she knew better.
    â€œI’ll come to the arraignment,” Dana said. She didn’t say she’d post her bail because even tolerant Steven might draw the line at that. “In the meantime, is there anything I can do? Call your kids? Anything?”
    â€œYou can find Vincent’s killer,” Kitty said.
    â€œPardon me?”
    â€œI said you can find Vincent’s killer. You don’t really think I murdered him, do you?”
    Â 
    â€œMrs. DeLano killed her husband?” It was Sam, calling from Dartmouth. He sounded anxious, the most sensitive of Dana’s boys, the one who cared too much about other people.
    â€œMom?”