Books by Maggie Shayne (184 page)

"David," she said, forcing a warm smile.

"Oh, baby." He surged to his feet and wrapped her in a warm bear hug. "Honey, how are you? You looked so bad when I arrived that I—"

"David, I need to talk to you. Alone." She turned to Maxine. "Please."

"Sure. We're not the Gestapo, Morgan. We only want what's best for you."

Lou got to his feet and left the room, joining Max in the living room. Morgan closed the door on them and turned to David, a man she knew would do anything for her. Anything. She met his eyes and said, "I want them out."

Max was stunned when a quiet, slightly guilty-looking David Sumner asked them to leave. Morgan had gone straight back to her bedroom, barely sparing her a glance on the way, and then David stood there in the large living room and told them they were going to have to leave.

Lou nodded just slightly. "I understand."

"I don't!" Max scowled at the man. "And you shouldn't, either, David. Not if you care about her. My God, I'm her sister. The sister she didn't even know she had. Her twin, for God's sake!"

"I know. I'm sorry, Maxine, it's just—it's what she wants."

"Do you really think that was her talking to you in there? It wasn't," Max insisted. "It was him. That vampire. He's got her under some kind of—"

"Max, come on." Lou cut her off gently. "I'm on your side, and even to me that sounds over the top."

"You think so?"

David touched her shoulder, so she switched from glaring at Lou to glaring at him. "I have to admit," David said, "the evidence you two have is… well, it's compelling. I'm not saying I believe it, but I can see where you might. But Morgan is extremely agitated and totally unlike herself."

"Gee, I wonder why," Max muttered.

"I just think, given her condition, it would be better if we humored her in this. At least until we can get to the bottom of what's going on here."

Max stopped frowning and slowly lifted her brows. "It sounds like you don't really want us to leave."

"Frankly, I don't." He pushed a hand through his hair and paced away from them before turning back. "I know phonies when I see them, and you people are the real deal. I know that. It's just that she's so damn sick, and so out of it right now. I don't know if I can handle whatever is happening to her on my own."

"And yet you're throwing us out."

"Out of the house, yes. But I'd like you to stay in town for a couple of days. Can you do that?" He held up a hand when Max would have replied. "I'll pay whatever you want for your time. And I'll put you up in town. There are some accommodations that are really quite pleasant."

Max felt a hint of relief. "I'll take you up on the room. But not on the—"

"She'll take you up on all of it," Lou cut in.

"She's my sister," Max said.

"She's rich. You're getting by, I'm retiring, and Lydia's scraping." Then he frowned. "Where the hell is Lydia, anyway?"

"She hasn't come back yet. We'll have to find her before we leave," Max said, a bint of worry gnawing at her belly. Then she turned her attention back to David. "You're going to have to watch her closely. Especially at night. We could come over, you know. Stake the place out, keep our distance."

Drawing a breath, David cast a nervous glance toward the stairs. "It seems wrong, spying on her. And yet… I'm worried." Sighing, he said, "I don't want to betray her. I'll watch her closely. Maybe even get her doctor to prescribe something when she sees him this afternoon. A sedative, something to help her sleep through the night."

Max wanted to argue. Lou stopped her. "We'll go. Just be sure you call us if you need to. And we can't stay up here indefinitely, either."

Max drew a breath, shaking her head. "I don't like this."

"I don't either, to be honest," David said. "Why don't you go on upstairs and say goodbye, Max?"

"If she wanted to say goodbye to me, she'd have said it down here." She looked from one man to the other, then sighed in exasperation. "I'll try."

David began telling Lou about the hotel where he sometimes stayed while in town, at times when he didn't want to interrupt Morgan at work, as Max headed for the curving staircase and started up it. It occurred to her that Morgan had everything. She was stunningly beautiful. Odd that the same face could look so different on two people. On Max, it was average. Passably pretty, no more. Morgan had reached the pinnacle of success in her career. Max still wasn't sure what her career was, although she thought the P.I. thing was her calling. Of course, she'd thought the same about Web design and Internet investigations. Both had gone stale for her. Morgan was wildly wealthy and had a dream house she could obviously afford to decorate exactly as she liked. Max was living in her mother's house and paying not a dime for the privilege. Morgan had a Mercedes sitting in the driveway, though it looked as if it rarely escaped from beneath its custom car cover. Max drove a VW Bug. An
original
VW Bug. Forest green. Got almost forty miles to the gallon. When it ran.

And yet Morgan was ill. And because of that, the rest of her wealth seemed like nothing at all.

Max tapped on the bedroom door only once. "Morgan, it's me. I'm coming in." She gave her a beat or two, then opened the door. Morgan was sitting in a chair near the French doors, staring out them.

Max walked across the room and stood beside her. "It's a beautiful view from here." And it was, a wide strip of verdant green grass, then a deep, midnight velvet band of sea, all dotted with whitecaps right now, and finally a robin's-egg blue sky with puffs of cloud floating past.

Morgan didn't speak.

Max said, "I'm leaving, Morgan. David said you wanted us out, so we're going. I only came up here to say goodbye."

Nothing. She didn't even look up at her.

"I guess you really don't give a shit, though, do you?" Max sighed, turned on her heel, headed for the door. "I don't know why I bothered trying."

"I'm sorry, Maxine."

She stopped halfway to the door. "Are you?" When Morgan said no more, Max turned slowly. "Why are you throwing us out, Morgan?"

Morgan met Max's eyes only fleetingly, touching, then dancing away before darting back again. She couldn't hold her gaze steadily. "Who raised you?" she asked at length.

Blinking, Max said, "John and Ellen Stuart. The most wonderful middle-class suburban couple in the world."

Morgan nodded very slowly. "And what was it like, growing up with them?"

"It was wonderful. I mean, it was a family. They loved me. The only bad time I can remember is when my dad died. That was the year I started college. It was his heart."

"And they were… involved? In your life?"

"Mom was on every committee at school, chaperoned field trips and sometimes school dances. Dad never missed a ball game or a school play." She almost smiled. "Yeah, they were involved. I always knew I was adopted. It was a non-issue. We loved each other."

"I loved my parents, too," Morgan said very slowly, choosing her words carefully and as if it were an effort. "But I'm still not sure why they adopted me. They didn't have time for me. It was almost as if I were an accessory they purchased to go with their image. I had nannies and tutors and instructors and a driver. And I had David. But my parents were uninvolved. Took trips without me. Tried to make up for it by showering me in money, expensive gifts, cars, clothes. I had my own credit card before I was fourteen."

"I'm sorry you had it so rough," Max said.

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Surprisingly, no. I meant it. I feel sorry for you."

"I don't want your sympathy. I'm just trying to explain to you why it is that the word 'family' doesn't have the same connotations for me that it does for you."

"Maybe not. I would think someone who's never had a real family would need one even more. But I guess I'm wrong."

"The timing is bad," Morgan said. "I'm dying. There's really no point in us… starting anything now."

"Now is the only time we may have."

Closing her eyes, Morgan lowered her head.

"Maybe…I have some things I need to work through. And I need to work through them alone."

"Well, you better work fast, Morgan, because if you think I'm going to stay away, you're wrong. I'll leave. For now. But I'm not going far, and I
will
be back. And I'll keep coming back, no matter how many times you try to throw me out. Understand?"

Morgan's head came up slowly, a frown between her brows. "No."

"No? You've never had anyone stick by you like that before, have you?"

"Only David. And he only did because he felt sorry for me. I didn't have anyone else."

"Maybe he stuck by you because he honestly gives a damn," Max said. "Kinda like me." She looked at her sister for a long moment; then, with a sigh, she turned and left the room.

Lydia watched her two companions drive away. The troubled Morgan was still sitting in her bedroom window, staring pensively out at the sea. David Sumner emerged from the house onto the patio in back, took a seat on a lawn chair and lit up a cigarette.

Squaring her shoulders, Lydia turned from her vantage point near the shore and began the long walk across the rear lawn toward where Sumner was sitting.

He looked up, spotted her coming, gave a welcoming wave as he got to his feet.

"You must be Lydia," he called.

She nodded, kept walking.

"I'm David."

"I know."

"Maxine and Lou have gone to a hotel in town." he said, a little less loudly now, as she drew closer. "I promised I would bring you along if you returned."

She nodded, kept walking.

"They thought you had gone into the village. I think they were hoping to run into you and… "

He let his voice trail off as she got still closer, until finally she stopped, a couple of feet between them. His eyes narrowed, brows drawing together.

"Hello, David. It's been a long time."

"My God. Oh my God."

Morgan lay on the table in a paper gown, with goose bumps rising on her arms and legs. Why the hell did doctors' offices have to be so cold? A tube ran into her arm from an IV bag on a pole. Clear fluid filled the bag. The doc had injected some kind of supercharged vitamin shot into the tube, as well. Not that any of that would help. She knew what she needed, and it was not in that IV.

Dr. Hilman came back inside, looking serious. David was sitting in a chair nearby. He'd stepped out during the exam but returned immediately after, and Morgan didn't have the heart to toss him out. She loved David, and she knew he loved her. She had a niggling feeling he was up to something though. She knew she shouldn't. She had never had any reason to mistrust David. He was the only person in her rife she
did
trust, in fact. Besides Dante. Yet she had seen David today, alone with the blond woman. Lydia, that was her name. They'd been alone together, talking, and the atmosphere between them, around them, had seemed charged with some sort of intense energy. Morgan didn't know why. She had heard the car leave after Maxine's emotional goodbye. She'd expected to come down and find David alone.

Instead she'd found him deep in conversation with Lydia, and they had both gone silent when they had seen her.

It still bothered Morgan. What could he have been talking about with the stranger?

David got to his feet at the doctor's reappearance. "Well?"

Dr. Hilman was over fifty but looked thirty-nine. Nice hair of nondescript brown, with a few gray strands but no sign of balding. He was in excellent shape. Must make most of his patients feel decidedly unworthy.

He drew a breath, sighed, smiled with his nice even teeth. "Frankly, Morgan, I'd like to get you admitted."

It took a second for her brain to translate. Then she blinked. "To the hospital?"

"Just so we can keep an eye on you. Your blood count is low, you're anemic, and you just don't look good."

"Can't you give me a blood transfusion and send me home?"

He exchanged glances with David. "If we could find a donor. You know you have a rare blood type."

"Yeah. I know." She lifted her head. "I have a sister, you know. A twin. But she doesn't have the Belladonna Antigen. How is that possible?"

He frowned at her. "Identical or fraternal?"

"I don't know. We look alike."

"Lots of fraternal twins look alike. You're sure she doesn't have the antigen?"

"She's healthy. Robust even."

He lowered his head, shook it slowly. "We don't understand Belladonna, Morgan. It doesn't behave the way other antigens do."

She nodded, having figured as much. "Look, Doctor, you're not going to be able to do anything for me in a hospital bed except make me sicker than I already am. I want to go home. I want to be in my house. I
need
to be mere."

Narrowing his eyes, he leaned over her, removed the IV tube from her arm and applied a bandage as he asked, "Why?"

"I love it there. If I'm going to die, that's where I want to be, and if I'm not, then I want to spend the time I have left there."

"Really, Morgan," David said. "If it's only one night—"

"It's my life. I want to go home." She got to her feet. "You can't force me to stay in a hospital. I'm an adult. I'm going." Reaching for the counter where her clothes were folded, she took them. "You two can get out of here or watch me get dressed."

"All right, all right" The doctor turned for the door even as Morgan was pulling on her jeans. He stepped out, David close behind him.

She managed to wait until the door fell closed before she gripped the counter and held on. Dizziness, weakness. Damn, she'd gotten up too fast.

It passed slowly, fading until she could focus on the dull thrum of male voices outside the door. Buttoning her jeans, she leaned closer to listen.

"… something to help her sleep?" David was asking.

"I'll give you something to take home."

"I'll give it to her before bed."

The hell he would. She couldn't sleep. Not at night. Night was what she had been waiting and waiting for. She had to see Dante. She had to. She had to show him, to prove to him, that none of this was her, that she hadn't betrayed him. She edged closer to the door, leaned against it to listen.

"Tell me the truth, Doctor. How much time do you think she has?"

"You know I can't be sure of something like that."

"But you have an idea. I can see in your eyes that you have some idea. So what is it, Doctor? Come on. Months?" There was a pause. "
Weeks
?"

Still the doctor said nothing.

"My God, days?" David asked softly.

"Maybe. I'm sorry, David. I know how much you love her."

"There has to be something we can do."

"We could find a suitable blood donor," the doctor said. "That would give her a little more time."

"Then that's what we have to do."

"You realize… we'd only be buying time. In the end… "

"I realize it. I just don't accept it. I can't."

The pain in David's voice stabbed at Morgan's heart.

The doctor sighed. "I'll do everything I can to extend the time she has, David. I promise you."

Max tried to speak in the voice she always used as she continued narrating her most recent adventures into the telephone handset. "It was the damnedest thing, Stormy. Like she wanted me there, but at the same time, she couldn't wait to get rid of me. I'll tell you right now, hon, you're much more sisterlike than she is." She paused. "Anyway, Lou and I went to the hotel that Sumner recommended. Turns out he had called ahead. Guess he has clout, too, because you oughtta see this freaking place. We have a suite with two bedrooms, a sitting room and a little kitchenette. And the view—man, you've never seen a view like this, Storm. Great big windows looking out over the ocean. Waves and foam and rocky shore. Boats and gulls. Wait, you can hear them." She cranked open the window of the suite and held the phone out toward the screeching seagulls. Sea air rushed in, that fresh saltwater and fish tang, and an autumn nip.

"Did you hear them?" she asked, knowing there would be no answer. "You and I have to come back here when you're better. Stay in the same spot, you know? Of course, it's nothing in comparison to that house of my sister's, but it's nice. Hey, and when we come back, you can meet Morgan. You won't believe how much she looks like me. Only thinner and way prettier. Richer, too, but lonely. She's not happy. I don't know if she ever has been."

And she was sick, Max added silently. Sick, maybe dying. Just like Stormy. For a moment she felt a weight settle onto her shoulders, a crushing, heavy, pressing weight. It made it hard to breathe.

"Anyway," she said, her voice thicker now, speaking, an effort, "Lydia finally showed up here an hour after we did. Guess she went out walking and lost track of the time. She said David Sumner gave her a ride. He was going out anyway, taking Morgan to, uh, some sort of appointment."

She was being very careful not to say anything negative, anything frightening. Not only for Stormy's sake, but because she knew Storm's mom was probably hearing a lot of the conversation as she held the phone near her daughter's ear. She didn't want to upset the woman. And she certainly couldn't mention any part of the real reason why she was here in Maine.

"I love you, Storm. I want you to wake up. You know? So you can talk back, give me advice, tease me about Lou. It isn't fair, me doing all the talking. You'd damn well better wake up by the time I get home. Okay? Just wake up. Wake up, Stormy… "

She had to stop there. The tears were spilling over, and her throat contracted too tightly. She tried to get hold of herself, gulped in a couple of breaths.

"Easy, Maxie. Easy." Big, callused hands on her shoulders, heavy but gentle.

She glanced behind her at Lou; she hadn't even heard him come in. So much for the damn screeching gulls. He gave her a little boxer's massage. He did that a lot. It was the most physical contact she ever managed to get out of him, and she took advantage of it, because it helped. She leaned back a little, his chest behind her, solid, warm. She could almost feel herself drawing a little of his solidness and warmth into her body to battle the weakness and the chill. How could she bear to lose her sister and her best friend all at once?

"Maxine?"

She started, surprised to hear a voice on the line. For just an instant she thought—but no, it was Stormy's mother. "Hi, Jane. How is she? Is there any change?"

There was a long pause. Then, "She's no worse."

But no better, Max inferred. "Do you think she's hearing me?"

"I know she is, Maxine."

"Really? Was there any sign while I was talking to her?"

"I don't need any signs. I'm her mother. I know. You mean the world to her, and I know she's hearing everything you say."

Max nodded, sniffed, rubbed her cheek with the back of one hand. "I won't be here much longer. A day or two at the most."

"You do what you need to. I… I heard what you told Tempest—about finding your sister. That's the hand of God, young lady, that led you up there. Don't you doubt it. And don't take it for granted."

"I'm not."

Jane sighed. "We play the tapes you made for her, your voice reading to her. And the music you sent over, we play that, too."

"It's Tuesday, you know," Max said. "Her favorite show's on tonight."

"I know. There's a TV in the room. I won't forget. Goodbye, dear. Call again when you can."

"I will." Max lowered the phone slowly to the cradle, missed it somehow. Lou took it from her and put it in place.

"How's she doing?" he asked.

"No change." She turned slowly, slid her arms around his waist, let her head rest on his chest. He hugged her, rocked her back and forth a little.

"It's only been a day."

"Every day it's less likely she'll ever come out of it." She spoke against the fabric of his shirt but trusted that he heard and understood. "I'm losing two sisters at once, Lou. I'm not sure I can take this."

"You're tough, Max. Toughest kid I know. And I'm here for you, you know that, right?"

She nodded.

"Lydia's got a nice hot bath all run for you, and a cup of that herbal tea she picked up when she was out exploring today. I want you to go soak and drink that tea, and then I want you to take a nap."

She lifted her head, felt her eyes burning and wondered just how hellish she looked right now. "When it gets dark—"

"We're going back to Morgan's place to stake it out," he said. "Even though she and David both told us not to."

Max nodded. "You think you know me pretty well, don't you?"

"Am I right?"

"Yeah."

"So that's why you need to rest a while now. You're all in." He ran a palm from the top of her head down over her hair, until it cupped her cheek. "I don't like seeing you like mis, Maxie. I don't like it at all."

She smiled tiredly. "That's 'cause you're nuts about me, just too dense to know it." She leaned up and kissed him on the mouth, softly, briefly. Then she turned away and headed into the bathroom.

Lou sighed as he walked back into the sitting area of the suite and sank into a plush chair. Lydia was sipping tea, tapping one foot, nervous.

"She needs you, you know," he said.

Lydia shot him a worried look. "I'm right here."

"She's hurting bad. She doesn't deserve that. She's a good girl."

"I know she is."

He stared hard into her eyes. "You've got to tell her."

"And what good do you suppose it would do her to learn that her mother was a whore? Hmm?"

"Come on, Lydia, that's not even close to what you are."

"It's what I was."

"You were a kid. Alone and clueless. Now you're a freaking hero."

She rolled her eyes.

"You think you're not? You got out of the slime alive. Barely. So what do you do? Get as far from it as you can, the way most people would? No. No, you lie on the goddamn ground and reach back down into the thick of it to pull kids out. One after the other, you haul their asses out of the muck, hose 'em off, tuck 'em away someplace safe. A place you
made
safe for them. Then you turn around and go back for more. You get dirty, you get splashed with that shit all the time. Doesn't bother you. You keep on going."

She faced him, and he saw that her eyes were damp. "That's the way Kimbra used to talk about our work. Like it was something noble. Some kind of divine calling."

"It is."

She lowered her eyes.

"You do all that for those kids. Those kids you don't know. Now you have a chance to do something for your own. Your own kids, Lydia."

"They're hardly kids, Lou." She set her teacup down on the coffee table.

He shrugged. "They need their mother. Max feels like she's losing everyone she cares about. And Morgan—God, that girl has no one, other than Sumner. You don't connect with her now, you may never get the chance."

She averted her eyes, maybe to hide a rush of wetness, he thought. "She wouldn't even embrace her twin sister. What makes you think she'd give a damn about
me
?"

"You won't know unless you try, Lyd."

"They've managed without me this long… "

"And they're both falling apart."

She bit her lip. He felt sorry for pushing her so hard and decided to back off. "At least I've maybe given you something to think about."

"You have."

"Okay. We'll drop it. You better get some rest. Maxie's gonna want to sit up all night watching her sister's place, and I know damn well you won't stay behind."

"No more than you would," she said.

"Of course not." He got to his feet and headed for the coffeepot in the tiny alcove at the far end of the room.

"She loves you, you know."

Lydia's words stopped him in his tracks. He thought maybe his heart might have ground to a halt, too, but no, that was wrong. It was pounding hard enough to pump hot blood into his face. He said, "She thinks she does. But that'll only last until some young buck her own age comes along and sweeps her off her feet. Till then, I pretend not to see it."