Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

nodded, undaunted, and continued full speed ahead. “Warren, boy, I thought you hated Chardonnay.”
    “Mary Ellen wanted some.”
    Mary Ellen said, “You didn’t want wine, Warren? Why didn’t you say so?”
    Libby came in. “Where’s the hot chocolate?”
    “Coining up,” I said. “Want to take it upstairs?”
    She spoke softly, as if her feelings were hurt. “I’ll drink mine down here.”
    That was puzzling. I looked my question at Julio, thinking he must have popped into his daughter’s room on the way down. “Esperanza’s gone quiet again,” he said.
    “I’ll take it up.” I was glad to get away. Mary Ellen had reminded me a little of Lady Macbeth, with her take-charge manner and her proud talk of Warren’s ascendancy. I shivered a little at the analogy—there was a spot of blood on someone’s hand, and it was someone capable of jamming a letter opener into a person’s eye. Mary Ellen might have the stuff, I thought.
    Esperanza had the covers over her head.
    “Hot chocolate!” I sang out merrily, as if I hadn’t noticed a thing.
    She peeked out, letting me see she’d been crying.
    “Can we talk?” I said.
    No answer.
    “Honey, you learned something in the bay today. I know you did. I felt it when I was holding you on the boat.”
    “What?”
    “That you don’t want to die. That’s right, isn’t it?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Sit up and drink.” I offered the cup.
    She took it and settled herself on the pillows. When she had sipped a little, I said, “You can tell me about it, really, honey. You know why? Because you’re my client. Have you ever heard of attorney-client privilege?”
    She shook her head.
    “Well, it means that whatever you tell me has to be a secret. I’m not allowed to tell anybody unless you tell me I can. If I do, I could be punished by the bar.”
    “The bar? You mean the place where you drink?”
    “No, sweetheart, there’s another kind of bar that means a lawyers’ professional association. If I told a client’s secrets, I could get in big trouble.”
    She looked at me, sizing me up, deciding whether she was going to hire me. “Are you really a lawyer?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Am I really your client?”
    “If you want to be, I’m taking your case.”
    Tears cascaded. She fell against my breast, spilling hot chocolate all over my T-shirt.
    “Ouch,” I yelled, but I could still hear what she was blubbering: “I don’t want to go to jail.”
    I stroked her hair. “You’re not going to jail, honey. Honest. I guarantee it. Do you believe me?”
    She sat back and looked in my eyes, assessing. This was a girl who would do well in business. I think she decided I had an honest face. She nodded.
    “Sister Teresa says if you steal something, they put you in jail for it, and
Abuelita
—my grandmother—says you go to hell for it, and Sister Teresa says hell is like jail except you have to stay there forever instead of just forty or fifty years.”
    “Okay, let’s start with hell. Now, not everybody believes in it; we already talked about that.”
    She nodded.
    “But I’m not even sure that people who believe in hell think kids can go there. And the other thing they believe is that you can be forgiven. Remember the two thieves on the cross? That Jesus forgave?”
    Her jaw dropped. “How do you know about that? You’re Jewish.”
    “How do you know
that
!"
    “Daddy told me. I asked him if he liked you, and he said he did but you probably wouldn’t go out with him because he isn’t Jewish and you are. Is that true? You aren’t prejudiced, are you, Rebecca?”
    I told my heart to be still and Esperanza that no, I wasn’t prejudiced, but I wasn’t sure lawyers could date their clients’ fathers. And then I asked my client why she was afraid of her father.
    Her gold skin turned almost pale. She whispered, “I told him I found it on the beach.”
    “The white thing? You told him that about the white thing?”
    She stared at her feet. “I lied. I stole it.”
    “And you’re afraid he’ll punish you?”
    “Yes. I’m afraid he’ll be so mad he’ll send me back to Santa Barbara, and
Abuelita
will tell Sister Teresa, and I don’t know what she’ll do! She might turn me in to the police and get me sent to jail.”
    I smiled. “She can’t hurt my client. I don’t know whether kids can go to hell or not, but I guarantee you they can’t go to jail.”
    “They can’t?” She looked utterly unbelieving. “But Sister