Read Online Accused: A Rosato & Associates Novel by Lisa Scottoline - Free Book Online

doesn’t even have us. Allegra has us. Don’t mix your clients, remember?”
    “Okay.” Mary thought a minute. “Remember that Allegra told us she had a reason for thinking Stall was innocent, but she didn’t want to tell us in the meeting?”
    “Sure. Wonder what it was.”
    “We’ll ask her.” Mary glanced over to see Judy deep in thought. “We’re not gonna let her parents close her out of our meeting, are we?”
    “Hell, no.” Judy grinned. “Nobody grounds our clients but us.”
    Mary laughed, then accelerated, heading for open road.
    But for a second, she wasn’t sure if she was speeding from something, or to something.

 
    Chapter Eight
    Houyhnhnm Farm , read the sign, and Mary turned into the driveway, her car tires rumbling over gray cobblestones until they reached a tall iron gate covered with English ivy. Beside it were stanchions of gray stone, with a silvery call box on the left, discreetly hidden in evergreens that flanked the driveway.
    “Can you believe this place?” Mary lowered the window to press the call button. They had arrived after driving through the prettiest countryside she had ever seen, and they weren’t in South Philly anymore. “Think they’ll adopt me?”
    “Just because they have money, doesn’t mean you want to be in this family.”
    “It doesn’t mean I don’t, either.” Mary pressed the buzzer, which crackled instantly. “Hello, it’s Mary DiNunzio and Judy Carrier, here to meet with the Gardners.”
    “Welcome,” said a woman’s voice, warmly. “Come in and follow the road. Take a left, then turn right, toward the house.”
    “Thank you.” Mary raised the window while the iron gates swung open. “The mom sounds nice.”
    “It’s the maid.”
    Mary smiled and turned onto the road, which switched to a grayish gravel. “I’m intimidated.”
    “Don’t be. Remember, they’re just people and we’re lawyers. We can sue them to death.”
    Mary steered the car past groupings of specimen bushes and trees, each with little brass nameplates. “The farm has a name, the trees have a name, everybody has a name.”
    “Birds.” Judy pointed at a white aviary on the right, housing colorful finches that darted about, and a white chicken coop with a long run, where black-and-white hens clustered in the shade. “Look at that. Birds of a feather really do flock together.”
    “This isn’t a house, it’s a theme park.”
    “It’s a petting zoo, but you can’t pet anything. There’s the stables.” Judy nodded at a large hill on the left, and at its crest sat a large white stable, surrounded by fenced pastures where dark horses grazed, the graceful heads bent toward the grass and their tails flicking.
    “Aw, I like horses.”
    “Evidently, so do they. Except that in Gulliver’s Travels , the Houyhnhnm weren’t very nice. They were stern and imperious, like John Gardner on the phone.”
    “Keep an open mind. Rich people can’t help it if they sound like bill collectors. They kind of are.”
    “There’s the house.”
    “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Mary steered the car toward a huge mansion of gray stone, which had three wings, Palladian windows, and a bright white portico over the front door, under which stood an attractive, middle-aged couple.
    “There’s Barbie and Ken.”
    Mary smiled. “I don’t see Allegra.”
    “She’s in shackles in the basement.”
    Mary steered closer, then parked in a cobblestone lot that held a black Escalade, a white Mercedes sedan, and a silver Prius, the same model as Anthony’s. “See, a Prius. That shows they’re good people.”
    “It’s the maid’s.”
    “Do people really live like this?”
    “Let’s find out. You take the lead in our meeting.”
    “Me?” Mary turned off the ignition. She and Judy always ran meetings together as equals, which meant that they constantly interrupted each other.
    “Yes, you. You’re a partner now, and you have a better feel for Allegra than I do.”
    “No, I