Come Home: A Novel

by Lisa Scottoline

Overview

There’s no escape from your past…

Jill had married William Skyler for all the right reasons: love and the hope that she was making a family for her daughter, as well as his two girls. But her husband's devastating betrayal ripped their marriage apart and she and Megan lost everything.

Now, years later, her ex-stepdaughter Abby shows up on her doorstep drunk and distraught with the news of her father's death.

But Abby is no longer the innocent girl Jill once knew...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429942324
Publisher:	St. Martin''s Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/10/2012
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	22,764
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author of novels including Look Again, Lady Killer, Think Twice, Save Me and Everywhere That Mary Went. She also writes a weekly column, "Chick Wit," with her daughter Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer. The columns have been collected in Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog and My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space. She has won an Edgar® Award and Cosmopolitan magazine's "Fun Fearless Fiction" Award, and she is the president of Mystery Writers of America. She teaches a course on justice and fiction at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. She lives in the Philadelphia area.

Hometown:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Date of Birth:

July 1, 1955

Place of Birth:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Education:

B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1976; J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1981

Website:

http://www.scottoline.com

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One
 

Jill stopped on the stairway, listening. She thought she heard a voice calling her from outside, but she’d been wrong before. It was probably the rushing of the rain, or the lash of the wind through the trees. Still, she listened, hoping.
“Babe?” Sam paused on the stair, resting his hand on the banister. He looked back at her, his eyes a puzzled blue behind his glasses. “Did you forget your phone?”
“No, I thought I heard something.” Jill didn’t elaborate. She was in her forties, old enough to have a past and wise enough to keep her thoughts about it to herself.
“What?” Sam asked, patiently. It was almost midnight, and they’d been on their way to bed. The house was dark except for the glass fixture above the stairwell, and the silvery strands in Sam’s thick, dark hair glinted in the low light. Their chubby golden retriever, Beef, was already upstairs, looking down at them from the landing, his buttery ears falling forward.
“It’s nothing, I guess.” Jill started back up the stairs, but Beef swung his head toward the front of the house and gave an excited bark. His tail started to wag, and Jill turned, too, listening again.
Jill! Jill!
“It’s Abby!” Jill heard it for sure, this time. The cry resonated in her chest, speaking directly to her heart. She turned around and hurried for the entrance hall, and Beef scampered downstairs after her, his heavy butt getting ahead of him, like a runaway tractor-trailer.
“Abby who?” Sam called after her. “Your ex’s kid?”
“Yes.” Jill reached the front door, twisted the deadbolt, flicked on the porch light, and threw open the door. Abby wasn’t there, and Jill didn’t see her because it was so dark. There were no streetlights at this end of the block, and the rain obliterated the outlines of the houses and cars, graying out the suburban scene. Suddenly, a black SUV with only one headlight drove past, spotlighting a silhouette that Jill would know anywhere. It was Abby, but she was staggering down the sidewalk as if she’d been injured.
“Sam, call 911!” Jill bolted out of the house and into the storm, diagnosing Abby on the fly. It could have been a hit-and-run, or an aneurysm. Not a stroke, Abby was too young. Not a gunshot or stab wound, in this neighborhood.
Jill tore through the rain. Beef bounded ahead, barking in alarm. The neighbor’s motion-detector went on, casting a halo of light on their front lawn. Abby stumbled off the sidewalk. Her purse slipped from her shoulder and dropped to the ground. Abby took a few more faltering steps, then collapsed, crumpling to the grass.
“Abby!” Jill screamed, sprinting to Abby’s side, kneeling down. Abby was conscious, but crying. Jill reached for her pulse and scanned her head and body for signs of injury, and there were none. Rainwater covered Abby’s face, streaking her mascara and blackening her tears. Her hair stuck to her neck, and rain plastered her thin sundress to her body. Her pulse felt strong and steady, bewildering Jill. “Abby, Abby, what is it?”
“You have to … hold me.” Abby raised her arms. “Please.”
Jill gathered Abby close, shielding her from the rain. She’d held Abby so many times before, and all the times rushed back at her, as if her very body had stored the memories, until that very moment. Jill flashed on the time Abby had fallen off her Rollerblades, breaking an ankle. Then the time Abby had gotten a C on her trig final. The time she didn’t get picked for the travel soccer team. Abby had always been a sensitive little girl, but she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and Jill had never seen her cry so hard.
“Abby, honey, please, tell me, and I can help.”
“I can’t say it … it’s so awful.” Abby sobbed, and Jill caught a distinct whiff of alcohol on her breath and came up to speed. Abby wasn’t injured, she’d been drinking. Jill hadn’t seen her in three years, and Abby had grown up; she’d be nineteen now. Abby sobbed harder. “Jill, Dad’s dead … he’s dead.”
“What?” Jill gasped, shocked. Her ex-husband was in excellent health, still in his forties. “How?”
“Somebody … killed him.” Abby dissolved into tears, her body going limp, clinging to Jill. “Please, you have to … help me. I have to find out … who did it.”
Jill hugged her closer, feeling her grief and struggling to process what had happened. She couldn’t imagine William as a murder victim, or a victim of any kind, for that matter, but her first thought was of his daughters, Abby and Victoria, and her own daughter, Megan. The news would devastate all of them, Megan included. William was her stepfather, but the only father she’d ever known. Her real father had died before she was born.
“Babe, what are you doing? Let’s get her into the house!” Sam shouted, to be heard over the rain. He was kneeling on Abby’s other side, though Jill didn’t know when he’d gotten there.
“William’s been murdered,” Jill told him, sounding numb, even to herself.
“I heard. We’re not calling 911, she’s just drunk.” Sam squinted against the brightness of the motion-detector light. Raindrops soaked his hair and dappled his polo shirt. “Let me take her arm. Lift her on one, two, three,” he counted off, tugging Abby’s arm.
“Okay, go.” Jill took Abby’s other arm, and together they hoisted her, sobbing, to her feet, gathered her purse, and half walked and half carried her toward the house, sloshing through the grass, with Beef at their heels.
Jill tried to collect her thoughts, which were in turmoil. She’d always dreamed of seeing Abby again, but not in these circumstances, and she dreaded telling Megan about William. But as agonized as she felt for the girls, Jill wouldn’t shed a tear for her ex-husband. There was a reason she had divorced the man, and it was a whopper.
And evidently, not only the good died young.

 
Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Scottoline

Reading Group Guide

1. Come Home, at its heart, is the story of family, and more specifically, the blending of families. What are the dynamics in your own family like? What do you think the greatest challenge is in blending two families?

2. One of the main themes in this book is leaving home and "coming home." In which ways have each of the main characters (Jill, Abby, Megan, Victoria) left home or come home?

3. Do you understand Jill's emotional response to Abby when she first sees her after several years? Why or why not?

4. Describe Sam's response to the dynamics between Abby and Jill. Do you agree with him? Do you relate to his response? Do you feel he acted appropriately?

5. Have you ever had a situation where you were forced to be estranged from someone you cared about?

6. How do you think Abby's and Victoria's separation from Jill affected them? What do you think Jill could have done differently, given the circumstances?

7. How would you describe William? Why do you think Jill was so easily fooled by him?

8. What rights do you think a person should have if he or she was instrumental in helping raise a child? What do you think is better for the child? How do you think the legal system will deal with this issue in the future given the growing number of blended families?

9. Oftentimes a parent must give the majority of their attention to the child that needs it the most. Do you feel like Jill was neglecting Megan in favor of helping Abby? What would you have done if you were Jill?

10. Now, for fun: Would you help solve the murder of your ex-husband? Go easy--at least until the second glass of wine has been served…

Editorial Reviews

Jill Ruspoli's divorce nearly destroyed her, but now, this hard-working pediatrician is back on her feet, happier than ever, and newly engaged to a kind and thoughtful medical researcher. All that is put implicitly in jeopardy when her ex-stepdaughter Abby arrives at her front door frantic with the news of her former husband's demise. Abby is convinced that her father has been murdered, but even seriously entertaining that question threatens to destabilize everything that Jill has built since her disastrous breakup. Lisa Scottoline's new mystery knots together heart-wrenching personal issues and whodunit suspense. Finely plotted and well-written; a worthy crossover read.

— Jules Herbert

Complex family dynamics and carefully concealed secrets drive this gripping stand-alone from Edgar-winner Scottoline (Save Me). Jill Farrow, a Philadelphia pediatrician, and her teenage daughter, Megan, live with Jill’s calm and forbearing fiancé, Sam Becker. When Jill’s estranged 19-year-old ex-stepdaughter, Abby Skyler, rushes into Jill’s home late one rainy night to tell her that her ex-husband, William, is dead, apparently of a drug overdose, Jill can summon little sympathy for the unscrupulous William. When the distraught Abby insists that her father was murdered and that Jill must help her find his killer, Jill is reluctant to get involved, particularly since the police can find no evidence of a crime. As Jill tries to juggle her duties as doctor, mother, and sleuth, her delving into William’s murky past puts emotional strain on Megan and jeopardizes her relationship with Sam. A surfeit of melodrama and some anemic subplots are unlikely to deter the author’s many loyal fans. Author tour. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Literary Agency. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Maggi-Meg Reed wraps the listener tightly into the suspense and emotional tangle with a powerful performance…Reed propels the story with drive and energy, and a near frenzy of emotional turmoil. She astutely projects the near-hysteria of sudden loss, the cold rage of rejection, and the angst of teenage uncertainty. Listeners believe each emotion, and root for Jill to survive and come out whole on the other side." - AudioFile Magazine

"Maggi-Meg Reed's reading of this very emotional thriller is outstanding." - Sound Commentary

From the Publisher

Save Me is thrilling and infused with love. Brilliant, I couldn't put it down.

author of Bury Your Dead Louise Penny

Pediatrician Jill Farrow lives an ordinary suburban life with her 13-year-old daughter, supportive fiancé, and well-fed golden retriever until a midnight visitor turns her idyllic life upside down. Jill's ex-stepdaughter Abby arrives with the news that Jill's ex-husband, William, is dead and she suspects foul play. Despite distaste for her ex and a three-year estrangement from her two stepdaughters, Jill begins investigating William's death to help Abby obtain closure. Fueled by her strong maternal instincts, Abby's quest for the truth propels her into a dangerous cat-and-mouse chase that risks her closest relationships and threatens her life. VERDICT Scottoline (Save Me; Look Again) deftly speeds readers through a dizzying labyrinth of intrigue with more hairpin turns and heart-pounding drops than a theme-park ride. This thrilling testament to a mother's relentless love may well be Scottoline's best novel to date. Her many fans and other mystery/thriller aficionados will want to read it. [300,000-copy first printing; national tour; see Prepub Alert, 10/31/11.]—Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Library Journal

Another stand-alone suspenser that rams home the point that there's no such thing as an ex-mother. Pharmaceutical rep William Skyler blamed his divorce on his wife, Dr. Jill Farrow. He told his daughters, Victoria and Abby, that Jill had cheated on him and forbade them to keep in touch with her or her own daughter Megan. Now, three years later, William is dead, overdosed on prescription medications Abby is convinced he didn't take himself. What's Jill supposed to do when Abby drives unannounced to the home she shares with diabetes researcher Sam Becker, drunk, weeping hysterically and begging for help? Nothing, maintains Sam, who tells Jill that she's choosing continuing loyalty to Abby (and to Victoria, who makes it witheringly clear at William's funeral that she still wants nothing to do with Jill) over her commitment to him and his son Steven. Nothing, say the Philadelphia police, who insist that William's death was no homicide. Nothing, Jill's penny-pinching medical-practice manager Sheryl Ewing says--or would surely say if Jill, already playing out a losing hand in office politics, ever brought it up to her. Naturally, Jill, protesting, "What's a mother, or a stepmother?...Isn't it forever?," takes it upon herself to investigate anyway. Scottoline backs her increasingly beset supermom ("It wasn't a juggling act, it was a magic act") into sleuthing mode with practiced expertise, giving her exactly the right motivations and qualifications for the specific questions she asks. And there'll be a lump in every throat when Abby disappears and when Jill fights to diagnose a baby who keeps getting ear infections. As usual with Scottoline, though, the complications are a lot more satisfying than the windup, in which reason and plausibility take a back seat to tearful family affirmations. Connoisseurs of mother love imperiled will prefer Save Me (2011). But it would be a mistake to count Scottoline out; she's sure to be back next year with another dose that might be even more potent.

Kirkus Reviews