by Isobel Bird
“Hey,” Annie said. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Meg turned around. “I’m just writing a story,” she said. “For Mr. Dunning,” she added. “He liked the one I showed him while they were here, so I thought I’d write him another one.”
“Now we’ll have two authors in the family,” Annie said. She stepped into the room. “Speaking of family,” she said, “I have something to show you.”
She handed Meg the photograph of Juliet. Meg took it and looked at it for a moment. “Is that her?” she asked.
Annie nodded. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
Meg shrugged. “Not as pretty as you,” she said.
Annie watched Meg looking at the picture. Telling her sister about Juliet—and about why they’d never known about her—had been difficult. Meg was a very smart girl, but at ten there were things that were still difficult for her to understand. Annie knew that she didn’t entirely comprehend why their parents had given Juliet up for adoption. She suspected that Meg was a little angry about it but didn’t know why, and she’d been careful not to talk about the situation too much. She figured when Meg was ready to discuss it she would.
Meg handed the picture back to Annie. “Is she nice?” she asked. Meg still hadn’t spoken to Juliet on the phone, nor had she asked to.
Annie nodded. “She’s really nice,” she said. “I think you’re going to like her.”
Meg didn’t say anything in response. Annie wondered what she was thinking. There were so many changes going on in their lives at the moment, what with Aunt Sarah’s marriage to Grayson and now the discovery of Juliet. Annie knew it was a lot for anyone to take in, much less a ten-year-old girl. After all, Meg had only ever lived with Aunt Sarah and Annie. She hadn’t really known their parents. Now she had not only a new father figure, but another sister. Two new sisters, counting Becka.
“You know what?” Annie said. “We should do something tonight, just you and me.”
“Really?” Meg said, sounding a little suspicious.
“Yeah,” said Annie. “Anything you want—a movie, dinner, whatever.”
“Anything?” repeated Meg.
“Anything,” said Annie.
Meg grinned. “I want you to teach me some magic,” she said.
Annie looked at her, taken aback. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Come on,” said Meg. “I’m not stupid. I know you and Kate and Cooper are doing magic up there. I want you to show me what you do.”
Annie looked at her little sister. She knew that Meg had seen little bits and pieces of her Wiccan life, but she didn’t know how much she knew or how much she understood. Was it time to tell her more about it? Was she old enough to understand that it wasn’t just a game? Maybe it was.
“Okay,” said Annie. “That’s what we’ll do. Tonight I’ll show you what real magic is.”
Meg nodded. “And pizza,” she said. “I want pizza.”
Annie laughed. “You drive a hard bargain,” she said. “But okay. Pizza and magic it is. Now I’ve got to go.”
“And I have to write a story,” said Meg.
Annie left the room and went to her own room. She set the photo of Juliet on her bedside table and grabbed her coat. Then she went downstairs to leave. She found her aunt standing in the entryway again, looking at the walls.
“Maybe blue,” she said to Annie. “Or what about a nice brown? Brown is classic. Something earthy?”
“Got to run,” Annie said lightly, opening the door and waving to her aunt.
“Some help you are,” Aunt Sarah said, making a face.
Annie shut the door behind her and walked to the bus stop. She had agreed to meet the other girls at the hospital to visit Mallory. Sasha had called on Friday night to say that Mallory was finally coming out of her drugged state and could talk a little. She didn’t remember anything about being attacked, and she was still in a lot of pain. But she didn’t seem to have anything wrong with her that couldn’t be fixed in time, and everyone was breathing more easily now that she was awake and speaking.
The bus ride was uneventful except for the fact that Annie ended up sitting next to a woman who insisted on telling her in unwelcome detail about her fifteen-year-old pug dog’s digestive problems. Annie was relieved when they came to the hospital stop and she could escape, although the woman seemed to take her getting off the bus as some kind of personal attack and said, “Well, really,” when Annie stood up to leave.
As it happened, Sasha, Kate, and Cooper were just arriving at the hospital as well. Annie saw them getting out of Cooper’s car, and she waited for them at the entrance.
“We called to see if you wanted a ride, but you’d just left,” Cooper said as they walked up. “Oh, and your aunt says she’s decided on yellow, whatever that means.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “She’ll change her mind,” she said.
They went inside and took the elevator to the fourth floor. As they passed the nurses’ station the woman on duty looked up. “Oh, hello,” she said when she saw Sasha.
The girls stopped. The nurses all recognized Sasha, and she had gotten to know most of them by name. “Hi, Dolores,” Sasha said. “How’s Denise doing?” They were still using the phony name that Sasha had come up with, more out of habit now than out of any real need.
“She’s fine,” the nurse replied. “Her brother is here.”
“Brother?” Sasha said, confused. “What brother?”
It was the nurse’s turn to look confused. “You don’t know about her brother?” she said.
Sasha shook her head. She knew that Mallory had a brother, of course, but there was no way he could be there. No one had even contacted him.
“He seems very nice,” the nurse said. “Although he had a nasty bruise on his forehead, poor guy. He said he had a motorcycle accident a few days ago. That’s why he hadn’t come to see her yet, I guess.”
Sasha looked at the others in horror. “Ray,” she said.
“That’s right,” said the nurse. “I think that’s what he said his name was.”
“When did he get here?” Cooper asked.
“About ten minutes ago,” said the nurse. “He’s in there with her now.”
“Call security,” Cooper said as Sasha started racing for Mallory’s room and the startled nurse looked after her. “Call them now!”
CHAPTER 15
“Get away from her!”
Sasha dashed at Ray, who was bent over Mallory. He took one look at the girls piling into the room and a nasty snarl crossed his face.
“Back off!” Cooper screamed at him.
Ray lunged past her and bolted from the room, shoving Annie and Kate in the process and knocking them down. As two security guards saw him and began running toward the room, Ray darted in the other direction. Cooper emerged from the room just in time to see him disappear around the corner.
“Is everyone okay?” the first guard to arrive asked.
Cooper glanced at Mallory and at Sasha. “Yeah,” she said to the guard. “We’re okay.”
The guard nodded and left, chasing after Ray. Cooper went to Mallory’s bedside. The girl was trying to sit up.
“I was asleep,” she said, her voice raspy. “Someone shook me awake, and when I opened my eyes it was Ray.” She paused, trying to swallow. “He told me he was going to kill me,” she said. “Then he laughed.”
Cooper grabbed Mallory’s hand. “It’s okay,” she said gently. “He’s gone.”
“He’ll be back,” said Mallory, closing her eyes and leaning back against the pillows. “As long as he’s alive, he’ll come back. He won’t give up until I’m dead.”
Cooper looked at Sasha, who was now standing beside the bed.
“You okay?” Cooper asked her.
“I think so,” Sasha said. She looked at Mallory. “She’s right,” she said. “He won’t give up.”
Annie and Kate had come to stand beside them. “So much for our ritual,” said Kate glumly.
Several nurses ran into the room, looking anxiously at the girls.
“What happened here?” asked one of them, who was clearly in charge.
“Someone tried to kill her,” Sasha told the nurse.
“He said he was her brother,” said the nurse who had first spoken to them when they’d arrived. “He seemed so nice.”
“It’s okay,” Cooper told the obviously distraught woman. “You didn’t know.”
“You four need to clear out of here for a while,” said the head nurse to the girls. “We need to make sure the patient is okay.”
Cooper bristled at the woman’s treatment of them, but she didn’t say anything. She knew the nurse was just doing her job. And anyway, Mallory’s well-being was more important than her pride. She nodded at the others and they filed into the hallway. As they were standing there the security guards who had come to their assistance appeared.
“Did you get him?” asked Sasha.
One of the guards shook his head. “He took the stairs,” he said. “We lost him somewhere.”
“Great,” Cooper said, throwing her hands up. “Nice job.”
The guards gave her a look. “I’m sorry,” said the one who seemed to do all the talking. “There are a lot of hallways in this place, and a lot of doors. We aren’t usually chasing would-be killers around here.”
Cooper sighed. “We need to call Detective Stern,” she said to her friends. Before they could reply she stormed off, giving the security guards a final disgusted look.
“Thanks for trying,” said Kate to the guards, who were looking at each other sheepishly.
“What do we do now?” Sasha asked Kate and Annie.
“We can’t really do anything about Ray,” Annie said. “So we have to think about Mallory and what we can do for her.”
“She needs to be somewhere safe,” Kate said.
“Clearly that’s not anywhere with us,” said Sasha miserably.
“You said she had a brother,” Annie said. “A real brother. Do you know where he is?”
Sasha sighed. “Not really,” she said. “I mean, Mallory is from Maine. I guess he could live there. Their parents are dead, I know that. Mallory lived with her grandmother, but I don’t know her name.”
“Do you remember the name of the town?” Annie asked her.
Sasha thought. “It was a funny name,” she said. “I remember thinking it sounded like something you would call a dog.”
“Like Fido?” suggested Kate.
Sasha shook her head.
“Spot?” suggested Annie. “Rex?”
“King?” Kate said. “Digger? Fluffy? Humphrey?”
“Humphrey?” said Annie and Sasha together, looking at her.
“We had a dog named Humphrey once,” said Kate.
“None of those are right,” Sasha said.
They stood for a while, thinking and throwing out more names.
“Barkley?” Annie tried.
“Spike?” said Kate.
Sasha kept shaking her head. Then Annie said, “Rover?”
“That’s it!” Sasha exclaimed.
“They live in Rover, Maine?” Kate said dubiously.
“No,” Sasha said. “It sounded like Rover. That’s why I thought of a dog name.” She thought for a moment. “Dover. That was it. Dover, Maine.”
“Let’s go call information,” Annie said. “And let’s hope there’s a Derek Lowell in Dover, Maine.”
The three of them turned to go to the pay phones and almost smacked into Cooper.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We’re going to try to call Mallory’s brother,” Kate explained.
“Did you get Detective Stern?” asked Annie.
Cooper nodded. “He’s sending some guys over here to search the hospital,” she said. “That’s about all he can do.”
The door to Mallory’s room opened and the nurses came out. The head nurse walked over to the girls. “Your friend is fine,” she said. “A little shaken up, as you can imagine, but fine.”
“Thanks,” Sasha told her. “Can I see her?”
The nurse nodded. “I think she’d like the company. Oh, and I’ll get security to send someone up to guard the door, in case her ‘brother’ decides to make another appearance.”
“I hope whoever it is does a better job than the other two,” remarked Cooper under her breath, but Sasha said, “Thanks.”
“You wait here with Mallory,” Annie told Sasha. “We’ll go see what we can find out about Derek Lowell.”
Sasha nodded. “I’ll stay, too,” Cooper said. “Just in case.”
Annie and Kate left the two of them there and headed for the phones. When they reached them, Annie plunked some change into the coin slot and dialed information. She gave the operator Derek’s name. As she waited for the computer to search for the number, she looked at Kate. “I hope this works,” she said.
“Here’s the number,” the operator told her. He read it to Annie and she recited it to Kate, who scribbled it on the back of a pamphlet on colonoscopies she found lying near the phones.
Annie hung up and Kate handed her the number. “Here you go,” she said. “You call.”
“Why me?” Annie asked. “I got the number.”
“Because you sound the most stable,” Kate said, and Annie rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she said. She put more money into the phone and dialed. As the phone rang and she waited for someone to answer, she suddenly became nervous. They didn’t know anything about Derek Lowell except that he was Mallory’s brother. He might not care where she was or what had happened to her. After all, she’d run away for some reason. Maybe he was it. Perhaps they were making a huge mistake. Annie started to hang up so that they could think it over.
“Hello?” said a woman’s voice.
“Um, hi,” Annie said, at a loss for words. “Is Derek Lowell there?”
“Just a minute,” the woman said. Then Annie heard her say, “Honey? It’s for you. I don’t know. A girl. Maybe one of your students.”
A man’s voice came on the line. “Hello?”
He sounds nice, thought Annie, trying to reassure herself.
“Mr. Lowell?” said Annie. “You don’t know me. My name is Annie Crandall.”
“If this is about the boating class, I’m afraid it’s all filled up for the next session,” said Derek.
“No,” Annie said. “It’s not about any lessons. It’s about your sister. Mallory.”
There was silence on the other end. Then Mr. Lowell said, his voice flat and hard, “Is this some kind of joke? Because if it is, it isn’t funny.”
“It’s not a joke,” Annie told him. She wasn’t sure where to start. “Mallory is in the hospital,” she began.
“Oh, my God,” Derek said, sounding frightened. “Is she—” He left the question unfinished, but Annie knew what he was asking.
“She’s okay,” she said. “She just had a little accident.”
She then told Derek the story, or at least the important parts. He had a lot of questions—questions she couldn’t answer. “I wish I knew what she’s been doing and where she’s been,” she told him, “but I don’t.”
“I’m coming out there,” Mr. Lowell said. “I’m coming to bring her home.”
Annie told him where they were. She also gave him her phone number at home so he could call if he needed any more information. He said he would call as soon as he’d confirmed a flight, and then Annie hung up.
“Well?” Kate said.
“He seems nice,” said Annie. “I guess Mallory ran away more than two years ago. They had no idea where she was. For a while he was offering a reward for information about her, but no one ever called. At first he thought I was trying to get money out of him.”
“So, he’s coming?” Kate said.
Annie nodded. “As soon as he can get here,” she said.
“Do you think we should tell Mallory?” asked Kate as they walked back toward her room.
“No,” Annie said. “It might make her more upset. We still don’t know exactly why she ran away, and she might not like it that we called Derek.”
They reached the room, where a security guard was now standing by the door. He looked them over as they approached and then nodded at them to go in. When they entered they found Cooper and Sasha talking to a police officer.
“You have the sketch, right?” Cooper was asking the officer.
He nodded. “We’re searching the parks and the usual places,” he said. “I doubt this guy is stupid enough to go to any of them now, but you never know.” He shut the notebook he was writing in.
The girls went to stand beside Mallory, who had her eyes open.
“You guys are like my personal bodyguards,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Ray really doesn’t seem to like you all that much,” said Cooper.
Mallory closed her eyes and opened them again. “He used to,” she said. “Or at least he pretended to,” she added, looking at Sasha. Sasha was looking at the floor, her face completely neutral.
“What exactly is it that you know that he doesn’t want you to tell anyone?” Kate asked.
Mallory let out a long sigh. “There’s a list,” she said. “Take your pick. Robbery. Dealing. Assault.” She blinked as tears started to flow from her eyes. “Murder,” she said softly.
“Ray is your basic all-around no-conscience bad guy,” said Sasha.
Mallory turned and looked at Sasha. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” she said, her voice sad. “I didn’t want to think he could do something like—what he did to you. I should have listened.”
Sasha took her friend’s hand. “It’s okay,” she said. “Forget about it.” She looked at Annie. “Did you make that call you needed to make?” she asked, obviously changing the subject.
“Yeah,” Annie said. “Everything is fine. We’re all set.”
Sasha nodded. Mallory had closed her eyes again, and seemed to have fallen asleep. Sasha started to let go of her hand, and Mallory opened her eyes. “Don’t go,” she said. “Stay with me, okay?”