The Body in the Cast by Katherine Hall Page

touch with Alan Morris to see if you still have a job?”
    â€œI have to, although I’m not looking forward to it. Charley said Max wants to start shooting again tomorrow. They kept
Evelyn at the Lahey Clinic for observation overnight, but she’s all right now. That’s another thing I don’t understand. Why was she so much sicker than anyone else?”
    â€œBody weight, maybe. Or a greater concentration of the stuff in her particular serving. Nerves. Maybe all three.”
    Faith stood up. “I know you’re busy, darling, and I’ll be going. I just needed to be with you. I think I’ll call my old friend Cornelia and see if I can find out which way the wind is blowing.”
    â€œApt choice of words.” Tom grinned and folded his wife and daughter in a warm embrace. “Need me anytime you want.”
    â€œI feel much better—and madder. Believe me, I’m going to find out who’s responsible. You don’t go fooling around with a woman’s livelihood—not to mention the suffering all those people had to endure.”
    Tom knew his wife well enough to know which fueled her anger more at the moment. It wasn’t that she had a hard heart—merely certain priorities, bordering on maybe a touch too much self-interest. “I may have been slightly spoiled as a child, you know,” she had told him shortly after their wedding in a moment of early marital candor. “Oh, really?” He’d only just managed to keep a straight face.
    Faith trudged back home, her heart lighter but her chest heavier. It seemed Amy was getting larger by the hour. Her birth weight had doubled to fourteen pounds. When Faith strapped the baby in the Snugli now, she sensed the day would soon come when she’d fall face-forward as gravity and the baby joined forces. And if she fell forward here in the yard, she noted ruefully, she’d be covered with the slippery, moldy leaves they hadn’t managed to finish raking last fall.
    The message machine was blinking frantically. Both Niki and Pix had called to find out what was going on. There was nothing from Alan Morris or anyone else connected with A. Faith made brief calls to her two assistants to tell them what she knew—or rather, didn’t know—and asked that they get in touch with the others. Then she called Cornelia and invited her to come over for lunch.

    â€œWell, I don’t have much time. Max has asked me to work on part of the script with him, but I might be able to squeeze a quick bite in. It would be faster if you came here. There’s a little restaurant not far from the hotel called The Dandy Lion. Do you know it?”
    Faith did. It was opposite the huge Burlington Mall and provided decent salad, soup, and sandwich-type fare amidst a forest of ferns populated by the high-tech Route 128 computer crowd that favored it as a watering hole.
    Arlene Maclean and even Faith’s old standby Pix were both out, so Faith was forced to take Amy along to the rendezvous. With luck, the baby would lapse comatose in the stroller, as this was close to her normal postprandial naptime. A more probable scenario was alert wakefulness in a new and exciting place. Faith had packed a bushel basket of toys and various foodstuffs to keep the infant involved while her mom pumped Auntie Cornelia for information.
    After all, what were old friends for—especially old friends like Cornelia? Faith had no problem reassuring herself as she drove down Middlesex Turnpike onto Mall Road, where the restaurant was cosily tucked into a minimall with a panoramic view of vast parking lots.
    Cornelia was waiting at a table in the main dining room and looked slightly askance at the baby. She favored Faith with an air kiss and waved dismissively in Amy’s direction, wafting away any thoughts Faith may have had of baby worship as a way of getting Corny to spill the beans, black or otherwise.
    â€œI’ve already