Chapter 21: Sweetheart

Four hundred heads turned toward the glass doors.

Jessa did not shrink back.

She let go of her aunt's arm and started down the center aisle.

Her hand went to her stomach.

Her heels sounded on the marble, one and then the other.

"Jessa, honey, you're overwrought," Carlton said, standing. "Sit down."

"No."

She passed him without looking.

She climbed the three steps to the stage and stopped in front of the detective.

"I typed the deed," she said. "I'll say it to you, and I'll say it to them."

"Ma'am, you don't have to..."

"I know."

She turned to the microphone Diane had left on the podium and pulled it down to her height.

"My name is Jessa Doyle," she said. "I'm thirty-six. I was a title clerk for eight years, and I'm five months pregnant by a married man."

A murmur went through the rows and died.

"In September, Diane Weatherby brought me a folder."

"She told me the house belonged to a woman who didn't deserve it."

"She said it was the house my mother should have left me."

Diane stood with her pearls and her silk and her face composed.

"Sweetheart, you aren't well," she said.

"Stop calling me that."

Jessa's voice rang under the glass roof.

"You called every one of us that. Claire, me, the nurses. So nobody would notice what you were taking."

"Your own mother gave you up," Diane said, softly, so that only the front rows heard it. "I'm the one who looked for you."

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