Cole Cameron's Revenge

Faith located Bookman in the Atlanta telephone directory at 4:00 a.m., fell into exhausted sleep at five and awakened at seven. She phoned the lawyer's office, hung up on a machine that told her that Bookman, Rigby and Goldman began their day at nine and placed the call again, at nine-oh-one. After talking her way past a receptionist, a legal associate and Bookman's secretary, she'd finally heard the attorney's booming voice on the line. He'd listened, interrupted her after a couple of sentences and said he had fifteen minutes free at noon. Could she make it?

Faith glanced at her watch as she stepped from the elevator that had whisked her to the twelfth floor in the glass-and-steel high-rise. It was three minutes of twelve. Ahead, double doors bore the name Bookman, Rigby and Goldman in raised black script. She took a deep breath, opened the doors and walked into a small, elegant reception room.

"Mrs. Cameron to see Mr. Bookman," she said, when the receptionist looked up.

"Of course, Mrs. Cameron. Won't you be seated?"

She was too nervous to sit very long but she didn't have to. A silver-haired woman appeared, smiled and held out her hand.

"I'm Leona. Mr. Bookman's secretary." She led Faith down the hall to a large corner office. "Mr. Bookman will be with you in a moment. May I get you something while you wait?"

Courage, Faith thought. "No, thank you," she said. Carefully, she crossed her legs at the ankles, lay her purse in her lap and folded her hands on top of it. "I'm fine."

She wasn't. By the time the door opened again, her stomach was on a roller-coaster ride. Suppose Bookman laughed at her story? Suppose he told her she was wasting his time?

The attorney did neither. He was a pleasant, distinguished looking man who took notes as Faith told him about her brother-in-law appearing after an absence of almost a decade

and threatening to take her son away. When she'd finished, Bookman raised steel-gray brows.

"Because?"

"Because he thinks I'm I'm unfit to raise my child." "And are you? Unfit to raise your child, Mrs. Cameron?" Faith colored. "I most certainly am not."

"I see. In other words, the gentleman wants to take your son for no reason you're aware of?"

She hesitated. "I'm aware of the reasons," she said softly "but they're untrue."

Bookman nodded. "And those reasons are?"

"He-he believes I won't set a good example for my child."

"Because?"

"Because-look, this is very complicated."

The attorney smiled politely. "Uncomplicate it then, Mrs. Cameron."

Faith moistened her lips. "This goes back a long way. The,uh, the problems between..." Cole was her brother-in-law.

Why was it so difficult to call him that? "For one thing," she said, after a moment, "he believes I coerced his brother into-" ,

"Your deceased husband?"

"Yes. He believes I coerced him into marriage." "And did you?"

She shook her head. "No. No, I did not."

"And that's your brother-in-law's reason for thinking you're not fit to raise his nephew?"

His nephew. His nephew...

"Mrs. Cameron? Is that why he thinks you're not a fit mother?"

Faith got to her feet. It was hard, saying these things under a stranger's penetrating stare. She walked slowly to the window.

"There's more to it, Mr. Bookman. As I said-"

"It's complicated. But if you want me to help you, you'll have to tell me more. So far, I can't imagine why this man would even think he could get custody." The attorney scrawled a note, then looked up. "Could he bring witnesses to testify that you're an unfit mother?"

Faith thought about her housekeeper. The townsfolk of Liberty. The rumors and the gossip. She cleared her throat.

"I suppose it's possible he could get people to say things... But they wouldn't be true!"

"Would you have witnesses to refute that testimony?" She walked to a chair, sat and looked down into her lap, at her folded hands. "No."

"I see."

"No," she said again, and looked up at the attorney, "you don't see! He's wrong about me. The people in town are wrong. Look, I know how this sounds but: but that's why I've come to you, Mr. Bookman. I need a lawyer who can take a difficult case and win it."

Bookman pushed aside his notebook, capped his pen and tented his hands on the burled-walnut desk.

"Mrs. Cameron, so far as I can tell, there is no case. Your brother-in-law has threatened to fight you for custody of his nephew. I'll be happy to send him a letter, explaining that his chances of winning such a fight are virtually nil." He smiled.

'That is, if you can assure me your brother-in-law can't prove you're either a child molester or a serial killer."