Summer with My Sisters (31 page)

T
his was one of those parental-type challenges, Poppy thought, that she didn’t feel very positive about meeting. But while she wasn’t Evie’s legal guardian, she was the nominal head of the house and she believed she had no choice but to intervene on Evie’s behalf.

Here goes,
she thought, knocking on the door of her old bedroom. Evie let her in without first asking who it was. Poppy wondered if she had guessed that Daisy would not let things drop.

“Evie,” she said, “can we talk?” Ominous words, she thought. Maybe she should have started differently.

Evie nodded and sat on the edge of the bed. Poppy thought she looked very tired, even more so than she had looked at dinner an hour or two earlier. She noted that the bandage on the palm of her left hand looked fresh.

“Evie, Daisy told me that you had to leave a bad situation a while ago.”

Evie wouldn’t meet Poppy’s eye. “She promised she wouldn’t say anything.”

Poppy sat next to Evie now. “Don’t be angry with Daisy, okay? She’s just really worried about you. She said the cut on your hand is pretty bad. She said it’s infected.” Poppy smiled. “You know she wants to be a doctor someday.”

Evie shrugged. “She’s exaggerating how bad it is.”

“Maybe. But it can’t hurt to get it looked at, right? I’ll take you to the ER. And I’ll stay with you while they clean the wound and do whatever else it is they need to do. We’ll be back home in a few hours.”
Home. Not Evie’s home . . .

Evie finally looked up and gave Poppy a weak smile. “Thanks,” she said. “But can it wait until morning? I’m really tired. The Clamshell was super busy and really, the cut isn’t all that bad. I promise.”

Poppy considered. Evie had acquiesced without any protest at all. She wondered if she should find that suspect. After all, Daisy had said Evie had flat-out refused medical attention. But maybe Evie had agreed to go to the ER because Poppy was the authority figure in the house and she respected that. And maybe her motive for agreeing to Poppy’s suggestion didn’t really matter. “All right,” Poppy said. “I can’t force you to go tonight. But first thing after breakfast tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

Poppy got up from the bed. “Goodnight, Evie,” she said. “Sleep well.”

 

Daisy was waiting for Poppy in the master suite. “Well?” she asked in a whisper the moment Poppy came through the door. “What did she tell you?”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” Poppy said, “other than she thinks you’re exaggerating how badly she’s hurt. But she did agree to go to the ER first thing in the morning. She says she’s exhausted from work today and just wants to go to bed.”

“I am so relieved, though I wish she’d agreed to go tonight. Do you think she’s mad at me for telling you . . .”

“I honestly can’t say,” Poppy admitted. “She just seemed very tired. Anyway, you did the right thing, Daisy. Frankly, I feel awful I didn’t ask her about the cut before now. I mean, I saw the bandage, but . . .”

“Don’t feel bad,” Daisy said quickly. “Evie doesn’t call attention to herself, that’s all. Look, can I go with you guys in the morning?”

“Of course. Though you’d better bring a book to read. No one gets out of the ER quickly.”

“Right.” Daisy moved a few steps toward the door and then turned back. “Poppy? I’m glad you sent Ian away.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Poppy said. “But, I’m glad, too.” That part of her life was well and truly over.

“I bet Jon’s also glad.”

Poppy felt herself blush. “He is.”

E
vie peered into the dark upstairs hall. No one in either direction. She listened. No sound from the bedrooms. Now was the time. Evie left her bedroom—no, not hers, never hers—and quietly closed the door behind her. She had a headache and the wound to her left hand was throbbing. Daisy was probably right. The wound was infected.

In the hall she stopped in front of the keypad that armed and disarmed the alarm system. Poppy had given her the code without reservation, and now Evie entered it. She had no choice. The system would go off if it detected movement around any of the first floor windows or doors. She felt bad about leaving her friends unprotected for what hours remained of the night, but if she were to succeed in making her escape . . .

Evie made her way down the stairs, careful to avoid the spot on two steps she knew to be creaky, and went into the kitchen. The first thing she noticed in the pale glow of the nightlight was Grimace, perched atop the fridge, his unblinking eyes trained upon her. She wondered why he wasn’t with Violet, in her room. She wondered if he had sensed her intention to run away and had been waiting here so that he could . . . What? Convince her to go back upstairs? But that was silly, Evie thought, looking away from the cat. Still, she hoped that Grimace wouldn’t give her away.

Evie tore a piece of paper from the notepad by the telephone.
Thank you for everything,
she wrote with a stubby pencil by the pad’s side.
Please don’t try to find me. You were nicer to me than I probably deserved. It’s better that I just go.
She did not sign her name. What name could she sign? Sophie was gone into the past. And Evie . . . It might be time to send her away as well.

Evie stared down at her note, her final words to the Higgins sisters. Was it
really
better that she go? A part of her wanted to stay until morning and tell Poppy and her sisters and Allie everything, the whole truth. To come clean would be such a relief! But if she did unburden her secrets, including the fact that she was only sixteen, then she would be sent back to live with her cousins, if they would have her. If only her father could help her, but she didn’t even know where he was—or even if he was alive. No, Evie determined. It was no good wishing and hoping for miracles. She would go.

“Good-bye, Grimace,” she whispered, looking back to where he still sat atop the fridge, staring and keeping watch. “Take care of Violet.”

With careful steps Evie walked to the sunroom. She would leave the note on a table there, where it might not be found first thing in the morning. She needed as big a head start as she could get if she were to reach Portland undetected. Hopefully it would be easy to get lost in the city, to blend in with some of the other young people she had seen milling around in the parks and on the busy downtown sidewalks the day she had been there with Daisy and Joel. Hopefully it would be easy to avoid getting emotionally attached to anyone the way she had in Yorktide.

Still, the decision to start over in Portland wasn’t without its worries. Where would she stay? Finding shelter in Yorktide had been ridiculously easy, a real stroke of luck, and she couldn’t expect to be so lucky again. If she absolutely had to she supposed she could stay in a shelter at nights for a while, though the idea frightened her. It was a good thing they existed, but she couldn’t forget the television report she had seen earlier in the summer. She couldn’t forget what the sixty-three-year-old woman had said, how she had woken up one night to find a man groping her. . . .

And there was the matter of getting a job. Again, she had been so lucky the day she had wandered into The Clamshell. That sort of luck wouldn’t happen again, definitely not in a big city where the competition for work was more fierce, where everyone had to be more savvy and cautious than they needed to be in a small town. And like it had been with Billy, she might need to prove she had a permanent or semipermanent address in order to be hired. And what if she couldn’t get paid in cash, like Billy paid her? How could she cash a check without a bank account? And if a miracle did occur and somehow she found a decent job and a safe place to stay, what then? Well, she would scrimp and save until . . . Until what? Until trouble found her again? Until once again she was forced to flee?

Before Evie lost the last of her nerve, she opened the front door and stepped into the night.

“W
ere you up before me this morning?” Poppy asked when Daisy came into the kitchen around eight.

Daisy shook her head. “No. Why?”

“I could have sworn I manned the alarm last night just before I went to bed. But when I got up this morning it was turned off.”

“You probably just forgot.”

“Maybe.” Poppy poured more coffee into her favorite mug. “Have you seen Evie this morning?”

“No,” Daisy said. “She’s usually up by now.”

“I was hoping to get to the ER before nine. Would you check on her, Daisy? She was so tired last night she’s probably still asleep.”

“Sure.” Daisy dashed upstairs and knocked on Evie’s bedroom door. When there was no answer she quietly opened the door and peered inside, hoping not to wake Evie if she was getting some much-needed rest. But Evie was not in the bed; the covers were thrown back and the pillows were crumpled. Daisy figured Evie might be in the bathroom or . . . A tiny niggling thought followed her down the hall to the bathroom. It, too, was empty.

Now the tiny niggling thought began to swell and Daisy ran back to the kitchen. “She’s not in her room,” she said, trying to keep the panic that was rapidly rising in her out of her voice.

“Maybe she’s in the garden. It’s so lovely out there in the morning.”

Allie came into the kitchen then and Poppy asked her if she was feeling any better than she had the night before.

“Yes, thanks. Got my period this morning so that explains the headache. I’ll have some of that coffee if you don’t mind.”

“Poppy—” Daisy began, but she was cut off by the appearance of Violet, whose expression was both grim and fearful. “What’s wrong?” Daisy demanded.

Violet held out a folded bit of paper. “I found this in the sunroom,” she said, her voice shaking. “It’s a note.”

Daisy’s heart thudded painfully. She knew, she just knew what the note would say!

Violet handed the paper to Poppy. She read what was on it and then passed it to Daisy.

“Evie’s gone,” Daisy said, handing the note to Allie with a trembling hand.
And I should have known that this would happen!

Allie shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why would she have gone? She seemed so happy here. What does she mean by we treated her better than she deserved?”

Poppy hurriedly told Allie and Violet that Evie had been on her own after having run away from an abusive situation. And then, she explained about the wound. “She agreed to let me take her to the ER this morning. Why didn’t I insist on going last night!”

“You couldn’t have forced her,” Violet said. “It’s not your fault.”

“If only she had come to me. . . .” Allie put her hand to her head, as if the ache had returned. “The other day . . . I thought we were establishing a bond. I might have been able to stop her from running away again. I might have gotten her to listen to reason.”

Daisy clasped her hands together, in a futile effort to steady herself for what she had to do next. “There’s something else,” she said. “Something I haven’t told you.”

“Damn it, Daisy,” Poppy said, “what now?”

“Evie’s real name is Sophie Steuben. She’s been using a false ID. That’s another reason she wouldn’t go to see a doctor. She was afraid of being found out somehow. I guess she was afraid of someone from her past finding her. Her father or the man who tried to hurt her.”

“Who else knows this?” Allie demanded. “Does Billy Woolrich know?”

“No,” Daisy said. “Only Joel. She swore us both to secrecy.”

Poppy put her mug on the counter with a bang. “You should have told me about the fake ID last night, when you told me she was on her own.”

“Would it have helped?” Daisy cried. “Would it really have made a difference?”

Poppy sighed. “I don’t know. But I would have turned to someone for advice. Maybe Freddie. She would know more about Evie’s—Sophie’s—legal situation.”

Allie shook her head. “If she was lying about her name, she might have been lying about other things, too.”

“Her age.”

Daisy turned to Violet. “What?”

“She was lying about her age,” Violet explained. “She’s not eighteen.”

“How do you know that?” Poppy asked.

“I just do,” Violet insisted. “Did anyone really
look
at her? She can’t be older than Daisy.”

Daisy shook her head. “But she swore to Joel and me over and over that she was legally an adult!”

“This is no time for guesswork,” Poppy said. “We’ve got to call the police and report Evie missing.”

Allie pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “I’m on it.”

Daisy and her sisters listened to the call on speakerphone.

“I’d like to report a missing person,” Allie said, her voice remarkably calm. “A teenage girl.”

The dispatcher, a woman, asked when the girl had gone missing.

“Some time last night,” Allie explained. “We found a note this morning. She left on her own, she wasn’t kidnapped.”

“I’m sorry,” the dispatcher said, “but in Yorktide, a person is not officially considered missing until he or she has been gone for twenty-four hours.”

“What!” Daisy cried.

“But we think she might be ill,” Allie went on, her voice not so calm now. “And she . . . she might have a false identification with her.”

“I suggest you call the area hospitals, maybe ask around the neighborhood if anyone has seen her. She might have changed her mind and be coming back. It’s not unheard of. If after twenty-four hours she hasn’t returned then call us again and we’ll get right on it.”

Daisy felt tears threaten when she heard the dispatcher’s words. She looked at Violet and saw that her sister’s face was ashen.

“All right,” Allie said shortly. “Thanks.”

“A hospital is the last place Evie would go,” Daisy said when Allie had ended the call.

“Daisy, where do you think she might be headed?” Allie asked.

Daisy considered. For a long and frustrating moment her mind was a blank. And then she recalled Evie’s behavior when she and Joel and Evie were in Portland that day, how she had gotten so upset about the notion of getting a tattoo. But maybe the tattoo wasn’t really what had upset her. Maybe it was seeing all those sad people, kids and adults, who looked tired and hungry and knowing that someday she, too, might be in their situation. Someday soon. Forced to gather where there were services to help them find food and a place to sleep at night. Forced to form a community of sorts. And then it all clicked into place.

“Portland,” Daisy said. “I think she might be heading for Portland.”

“Why?” Poppy asked.

“It was just something I remembered from when Joel, Evie, and I were there.”

“We’ll search for her ourselves,” Allie said.

“We need more people to help,” Poppy said. “Daisy, you call Joel. I’ll call Jon.”

“Mr. Woolrich, too,” Violet said. “He’ll want to help. And Freddie and Sheila.”

Poppy shook her head. “God, I hope she’s not doing something stupid like trying to hitch a ride.”

“How else can she make it north to Portland?” Daisy asked. “Assuming that’s where she’s headed.”

“A bike?” Allie asked Daisy. “Does she have a bike?”

“No.”

“Could she have taken one from the garage?”

“Doubtful,” Poppy said. “Violet’s would be too small for her, and both mine and hers are locked up. Combination locks, nothing that can be picked.”

Allie sighed. “How far could she have gone on foot?”

“Depends on when she started out,” Poppy replied. “And on if she knows exactly how to get wherever it is she’s going. And if she’s running a fever, which she might be if she has a bad enough infection.”

“Does she have any money?” Violet asked.

“I don’t know,” Daisy said. “If she has any it can’t be much.”

“Wait a minute. There’s a bus out of Yorktide isn’t there? To Portland? I’ll go to the bus stop, see if she shows up. I’ll ask if anyone’s seen her,” Allie said.

“Good,” Poppy said. “Daisy and Violet, start calling everyone. Don’t forget Julie and Mack. I’m going to the garage. Maybe she
was
able to take one of the bikes. Maybe I’ll find footsteps leading . . .”

Poppy hurried off to the garage. Violet picked up the landline and began to dial. And Daisy stood frozen. Do no harm. That was the promise a doctor made when she swore the Hippocratic Oath, that she would do no harm. What pathetic sort of doctor would Daisy Higgins make? All she had ever wanted to do was help, but in the end it looked like she had done an awful lot of harm indeed.