Snakes and Ladders

by Matty Dalrymple

  “He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would spill his guts to the authorities,” said Owen.

  “Maybe not intentionally, but you know that people are confused when they regain consciousness after a trauma like that. He could easily say something before he has his wits about him. And if he dies, the police are going to be digging for details about why he was out here. Either way, it looks less suspicious if we’ve acknowledged the connection than if the police find out on their own. We could say that you had taken Lizzy to Sedona to recover from her father’s death, she had gone to Castillo for counseling and benefited from it, you guys came back here thinking she was better, she had a relapse, and you asked Castillo to come out here for more counseling.”

  “Why was he in Kennett Square at Dos Sombreros?”

  Andy shrugged. “Had a hankering for good Mexican.”

  Owen considered. “It’s a little thin, but not totally unrealistic. I’m sure Lizzy would be happier with that approach than having us just abandon him—regardless of the outcome.” He looked down at her again. “She’s going to want to go to whatever hospital they took him to one way or the other.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not sure enough that Louise Mortensen has hit the road to leave you here alone.”

  Owen smiled weakly. “An insoluble dilemma.”

  Andy suddenly grinned. “Not necessarily.”

  When Lizzy finally woke, she was blinded for a moment by the bright morning sun pouring in the window. When she had blinked away the dazzle, she saw three sets of eyes examining her with concern.

  “Ruby!” Lizzy tried to jump up, but every part of her body protested. She limped to the woman who stood at the end of the bed.

  When Lizzy was four, Gerard Bonnay had arranged for Ruby DiMano to get a job as the Ballards’ housekeeper so she could report back to him on Lizzy’s behavior and Charlotte Ballard’s gradually deteriorating condition. Ruby had been with the Ballards through Charlotte’s death from a stroke and until Patrick’s death at George Millard’s hands. Patrick’s death had been the turning point for Ruby. She had secretly withdrawn from her unwilling alliance with Bonnay and assisted Owen and Andy McNally in getting Lizzy away from Bonnay and Mortensen.

  She folded Lizzy in her bony arms, then held her out at arm’s length. “Your hair is very short.”

  Lizzy ran her hand across her head. “Yeah.”

  “And very red.”

  Lizzy smiled. “Yeah.”

  “It’s fetching,” said Ruby.

  Lizzy laughed. “You think so?”

  Ruby smiled. “I do.”

  “What time is it?” asked Lizzy.

  Andy glanced at his watch. “About ten o’clock.”

  Lizzy gave a start. “Ten o’clock? We have to find Philip!”

  “I found him,” said Andy. “He’s at Mercy. I’ll take you there.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s hanging in there. I couldn’t get much detail over the phone. It’ll be easier to get information in person.”

  Lizzy turned to Ruby. “Why are you here? Not that I don’t love seeing you, but I didn’t want to get you involved again.”

  “She’s just here on babysitting duty,” said Andy. “So Owen won’t get lonely when you and I go to visit this Castillo character.”

  “And I brought you some fresh clothes,” said Ruby, holding up a bag.

  “Thanks,” Lizzy said gratefully.

  She went into the bathroom, bringing Philip’s duffel bag to put her old clothes in, and pulled the new clothes out of the bag. There was a pair of jeans decorated with a pattern of tiny rhinestones on the back pockets, a fuzzy pink sweater, socks with a pink and orange floral pattern, a pair of pink sneakers, and a puffy pink jacket. She also found underwear, a prim cotton nightgown, a toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, and a comb and brush. She smiled—evidently no one had told Ruby that, with her new hairstyle, she hadn’t had to comb her hair for a month.

  She brushed her teeth, then removed her clothes. When she tried to take her shirt off, though, she found with a stomach-turning jolt that it was stuck to her back. She would have to soak the shirt off later—once she could find a bathtub, and the time for a long, hot bath.

  She pulled the pink sweater over her shirt and donned the rest of the new clothes. The pink sneakers were too small, so she put her boots back on. She removed the contents of her jacket pockets, including Philip’s wallet, and put everything into the duffel bag.

  She stepped out of the bathroom, carrying the parka, just in time to hear Andy tell an irritated-looking nurse, “Just a couple more minutes, I swear.”

  “That’s what you said an hour ago, Dr. McNally.”

  “Oh, so now I’m ‘Dr. McNally’?”

  “That’s what you said an hour ago, Andy.”

  Andy saw Lizzy and heaved a sigh of relief. “Okay, we’re almost ready to go. Except that Miss DiMano”—he indicated Ruby—“is going to stay with my brother.”

  The nurse grimaced. “Andy—!”

  “Robin!” he parroted back, then leaned toward her. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As long as you’re gone in five minutes, I’ll try to exercise some latitude.” She turned and marched away.

  “Dr. McNally, it looks like you’ve lost your touch,” said Ruby.

  “Nonsense,” said Andy. “She’s just playing hard to get.” He turned to Lizzy. “Look at you, all gussied up!”

  “I love the clothes. Thank you, Ruby,” said Lizzy, crossing to Ruby, who blushed with pleasure.

  Lizzy couldn’t contain a wince when Ruby hugged her, and Ruby stepped back. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, just sore, I guess,” replied Lizzy, then turned to Andy. “Can we go now?”

  “The sooner the better,” he replied. “Before I get in more trouble.”

  76

  The emergency room at Mercy Hospital, where the ambulance had taken Philip, was the same place that Owen, Andy, and Ruby had arranged Lizzy’s escape from Gerard Bonnay and Louise Mortensen three months earlier. However, it was unfamiliar to Lizzy, who had been in no condition—either arriving or departing—to notice her surroundings.

  When Andy pulled into a space in the parking lot of the hospital, Lizzy had the door open almost before the car came to a stop.

  “Hold on there, Wonder Woman.”

  Lizzy turned to him, impatient. “What?”

  “I should go in by myself. I know a couple of the people in the ER from back in December, and I can probably find out more if I talk to them one-on-one.”

  Lizzy scowled at him, then sighed. “I guess you’re right. Let me know as soon as you find out anything, okay?”

  Andy had been gone only a few minutes when she got a text.

  Lost a lot of blood and is in ICU now. Will see if I can find out more.

  Lizzy texted back: Can I see him?

  Not yet.

  A few minutes later, Andy emerged from the hospital and gave her a thumbs-up. He crossed the parking lot and dropped into the driver’s seat.

  “I don’t have a lot more to tell you—he was in rough shape when he arrived, but they got him patched up and they seem pretty confident that he’ll recover.”

  Lizzy slumped back in her seat and felt tears of relief spring to her eyes. “That’s good. That’s really good.” She sat forward. “Will I be able to see him when he’s out of ICU?”

  “Yes.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Probably not for a day or two.”

  Lizzy chewed her lip. “Maybe someone should stay with him, like Ruby is staying with Uncle Owen.”

  “I think he’ll be fine as long as he’s in the ICU. The police are obviously going to be interested in him, which has its drawbacks, but also its benefits in that they’ll be keeping a close eye on him. When he gets out of ICU, we can ask Ruby to keep him company until he’s discharged.”

  A small smile smoothed the lines on Lizzy’s forehead. “I�
��d like to be around to see how that goes.”

  “Want to get back to Owen?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “First we need to stop for—” Andy glanced at his watch. “—a very late breakfast. That sound okay?”

  “Yeah, it does—I’m starving.”

  At Lizzy’s request, Andy drove to Jimmy John’s while Lizzy sent Ruby a text message about Philip’s condition. Any route from Mercy to anywhere east inevitably took a traveler via Route 1 through Kennett Square, and as they passed Dos Sombreros, Lizzy saw two police cars in the back parking lot, with an officer taking down the crime scene tape.

  “That seems like a good sign,” she said to Andy.

  “Let’s hope so,” he replied.

  After a meal at Jimmy’s—several frankfurters for Andy and a breakfast sandwich for Lizzy—they stopped in King of Prussia to pick up Owen and Lizzy’s luggage and check Lizzy out of the Motel 6, then returned to Penn U Hospital. They found Owen sleeping and Ruby perusing the news sites on her phone.

  “Looks like that fire did quite a number on the house,” she whispered. She showed Lizzy and Andy a video of an aerial view of the remains of the Pocopson house.

  As Ruby and Andy watched the video, Lizzy lowered herself into a chair and felt her eyes drifting shut.

  “You need a better place to have a rest than the guest chair of a hospital room,” whispered Ruby.

  “Why don’t we get you a room at the William Penn Hotel?” said Andy. “It’s close by, and you can stay there until Owen’s discharged.”

  “That sounds good,” said Lizzy, her voice revealing more weariness than she intended.

  “Want to go there now?” asked Andy.

  “I think I’ll sit with Uncle Owen for a little bit.”

  “I could go reserve the room so it’s ready when you are,” he said.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Ruby. “I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs.”

  Andy turned to Lizzy. “Do you mind being here alone?”

  “No.”

  Ruby spoke up. “I think that having Lizzy standing guard will be the best protection the two of them can have.”

  “True,” he said. He crooked his arm. “Miss DiMano?”

  Ruby blushed and hooked her hand over his elbow.

  They left the room, and Lizzy smiled at the thought of the odd couple they would make at the reservation desk. She pulled the chair nearer to Owen’s bed, got out her phone, and pulled up the video Ruby had shown them.

  Most of the upper structure of the Pocopson house had burned away—only the kitchen was still intact—exposing the basement rooms like a structural cutaway. She leaned back in the chair. She could imagine how it had happened: Louise in the room behind the metal door at the end of the basement hallway, Millard setting a trap for Philip in the movie room using a video of Louise at a conference; Louise leaving the safe room after Millard was dead and turning off the power at the panel in the utility room while Lizzy tended to Philip in the movie room, then climbing the stairs and locking the door behind her. Then she must have set the fire—there was no other explanation. From there she had made her way to the shed where Mitchell had said Uncle Owen’s SUV was hidden. Maybe she had looked back and seen the flames spread from the house to the maple tree to the detached garage, behind which, if Mitchell were to be believed, she knew he lay.

  And where was Louise Mortensen now? Far away, she hoped—the queen retiring from the game now that her knight and pawn had been removed from the board.

  But had they both been removed? They no longer had to fear George Millard—her stomach flipped at the memory of that moment in the basement when she had struck him down—but what about Mitchell Pieda? Had she been right to let him go? Not that she had much choice—she couldn’t imagine how else she could have gotten Philip away from Pocopson without his help. But was Mitchell no longer a threat? Wasn’t there a move in chess where the pawn could be transformed into the most powerful piece on the board?

  She thought of the phone number Philip had given her, and repeated it again to cement it in her mind. Philip had said she could call the number if she needed a new identity. Would she need to use it? She would ask him when he was out of the ICU.

  She thought of the vial and syringe she had taken from Mitchell. She unzipped Philip’s duffel to examine them more closely, then noticed Philip’s wallet. She pulled it out, turned it in her hand, then opened it a bit guiltily. It contained a driver’s license, a bank debit card, and a healthy supply of cash. She was about to close it when she noticed a small interior pocket. She opened it and pulled out a photo.

  It showed two men—one younger, one old. The younger man was Philip Castillo, one arm slung around the old man’s shoulders, the other giving a thumbs-up. The old man, grinning widely, had his arm around Philip’s waist and was holding a hand-lettered sign: 3 Months To Go! The 3 was smudged, as if other numbers had been written in that space and erased. The bit of background suggested an institutional setting. Lizzy flipped the photo over. A date had been handwritten on the back—the picture had been taken in December.

  Lizzy leaned her head back on the chair. This had to be Oscar. Oscar, who was in prison for twenty years for murder. Whose friend, Philip Castillo, had evidently visited once a month with an updated sign, counting down to what could only be Oscar’s release date. A release date that would have been this month. And sometime between 3 Months To Go! and the end of his sentence, Tobe Hanrick had knifed Oscar in the cafeteria line. She felt tears burn her eyes. No wonder Philip wanted revenge.

  She thought of George Millard, her own Tobe Hanrick, and the list of assignments that Gerard Bonnay and Louise Mortensen had sent him on. What if rather than running away from him when he had caught up with her in Smoketown, she had squeezed him? It was likely that neither Uncle Owen or Philip would have ended up in the hospital, fighting for their lives. What if she had squeezed Gerard Bonnay not after her father was dead, but before? What if someone with her ability had squeezed Louise Mortensen before she had made that first, horrifying modification to the fertility treatments to which she had subjected her unknowing patients—the treatments that resulted in freaks like her and Mitchell Pieda. And no doubt others.

  How much suffering and how many deaths of innocent people could have been avoided if Gerard Bonnay and Louise Mortensen had been killed before they started down the path that had led to here?

  How much suffering and how many deaths of innocent people like Oscar could be avoided if Tobe Hanrick were killed before he went further down the path that he would take?

  Owen stirred and she sat forward.

  He opened his eyes, saw her, and smiled. “Pumpkin. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. We checked on Philip. He’s in the ICU at Mercy Hospital but it sounds like he’s going to be okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Owen fumbled at the controls on the side of the bed.

  “What do you want?” asked Lizzy.

  “I want to make this thing go up so it’s easier to talk.”

  Lizzy stood and operated the control and the top of the bed whirred up. She looked him over carefully. “You look better,” she said.

  He made a small hrumphing noise.

  “No, it’s true—you have a little bit more color in your face, and you look a little more rested.”

  “I could hardly help but look a little more rested—I haven’t been doing anything other than napping.”

  Lizzy extracted a pillow from behind his head, fluffed it up, and repositioned it. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Now you have two invalids on your hands,” he said apologetically.

  “You’re not an invalid, and Andy and Ruby are here to help.”

  He patted her hand where it rested on the metal gate of the bed. “You’re a sweet girl, Pumpkin.”

  She pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down.

  After a moment, Owen asked, “What now? I’m still not thinkin
g straight. Do we have a plan?”

  “Let’s wait for you and Philip to get better, then we’ll decide.”

  “Back to Sedona?” he asked, a tired smile on his lips.

  “Not for me,” said Lizzy. “I’m not running away anymore. If Louise Mortensen is looking for me, she knows where to find me.”

  Epilogue

  A middle-aged man, his tie knotted in a jacked-up half Windsor that hung loose from his neck, his eyes bleary from lack of sleep, sipped coffee from a large Wawa cup and gazed morosely across the gutted remains of the Pocopson home. The sun had come up about an hour before and was only now starting to take the chill out of the early morning air.

  A younger man slogged toward him across a lawn made mucky by the water the fire companies had poured on the building.

  “Hey, Brady, what have you got?” asked the older man when the younger one reached him.

  “Body of a male on the basement level. Driver’s license says George Millard. Not badly burned—maybe died of smoke inhalation, although it looks like Mr. Millard took a bullet to the thigh before he died. And it looks like he was prepared to try to defend himself because he was wearing a shoulder holster and holding a Sig Sauer.” He flipped a page in his notebook. “We found an open window in the basement, with furniture piled up like someone got out that way. And there are some stains on the walls of the window well that could be blood—we’re checking that out.”

  “Someone forced their way out of the house?”

  “Looks that way.”

  They looked up as a news helicopter banked toward the house, then maneuvered for a position that would give them the best shot of the damage.