“Sissy, go change. Fast. Put on some jeans, a shirt, and shoes and socks, and comb your hair.”
Susanna looked down at herself, a perplexed look on her face, as though such simple things as dressing and wearing shoes were beyond her comprehension.
Sam guided her toward her bedroom. It would be a long night. Possibly a long week. Maybe longer. Sam helped Susanna dress as though she were a child, helping her pull on a clean T-shirt, a pair of sweats, and some socks with a pair of sneakers. Sam leaned down to tie the sneakers and heard gasping noises coming from her sister.
“Sissy, where is Roger? He needs to be here. He needs to be helping you.”
Sam looked up to see tears still streaming from her sister’s eyes and a look of total despair on her face.
Sam finished tying the shoe and rose, pulling Susanna to her feet and hugging her close. “Tell me where he is, and I’ll call him. I’ll take care of it. You don’t have to. I’ll call on our way to the hospital.”
Susanna still didn’t answer her question.
“Sissy? Where is Roger?”
Silence.
“Don’t you want me to call him? This is his family, too. He should be here.”
“I don’t want him here. Or at the hospital. I’m done with all of this. All that matters now is my children. Please don’t let her die, Sammy. Please.”
This time Sam didn’t answer. And she didn’t question Susanna further. Not only because she didn’t know what to say but also because she didn’t trust Roger Marcusen and hadn’t for years, since the day he had tried to feel her up when she was only seventeen. That was the man her sister had thought would save her. Sam didn’t blame Sissy. She blamed the world. She blamed the culture. She blamed a mother who crumpled up and went away when one of her four children died.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call him?” Sam asked Susanna.
“I’m sure. Let’s go. We have to save Whitney. She’s worth saving.”
TWENTY-THREE
The parents of children in the Primary Children’s Medical Center Pediatric Intensive Care Unit all seemed lost. They pushed the button that opened the doors leading out of the PICU and walked through, then stood there, unaware of the doors closing behind them with a whoosh, looking first left, then right, trying to get their bearings.
Where did they go from here?
It didn’t matter how many times they walked out the same door, they still stopped and looked around as though to say, “Where am I? How did I get here? Where do I go now?”
That was a question that had no answer. Even if they were just heading to the cafeteria to shovel down tasteless food, or to the bathroom, they stopped and looked around, trying to get bearings that might never be regained.
Several times in the past few hours Sam had watched the young polygamist wife—with the long braid down her back, large puff of hair at the front, and modest dark blue dress with puffy sleeves, black stockings, and sturdy, plain black shoes—go in and out. She walked through the doors, her eyes filled with loss and isolation, and even more timid and withdrawn, gripping the hand of her husband—dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved pin-striped western shirt—as they entered and exited the PICU. It was unusual to see polygamists here.
Families like the Clarkston polygamy clan usually just let the frail, interbred babies die, because they didn’t want to answer questions about who had sired the children. Those who lived were listed as fatherless, and all their care was ministered by the state through Welfare. Sam had seen this firsthand, before Gage had her removed from the case that hit so close to her heart.
But here, obviously, this father cared about his children with this wife. Sam wondered just how many other children he might have—and how many wives. How many children? How much he could really care?
Right now Susanna, Sam, and D-Ray were waiting for news about Whitney. Unable to do anything but waste time, and think, seeing the polygamist woman brought back memories of Mary Ann Clarkston. Painful memories.
“Code Blue in PICU. Code Blue in PICU,” said a woman’s voice over a loudspeaker, and Sam jumped.
They’d been waiting in a family conference room while the doctors had situated Whitney in the PICU. Until she was settled there, and while the doctors fought to save her life, no one would be allowed in.
“Oh God, no, please don’t let it be Whitney,” Susanna said, tears streaming down her face. “Please, oh please.”
“Code Blue canceled. Code Blue canceled,” the same voice repeated over the loudspeakers, and Susanna looked first relieved, then anxious, the tear marks still staining her face.
There were numerous children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Primary Children’s Medical Center, and the Code Blue could have been any one of them. Every parent who wasn’t standing next to their child probably felt their heart stop every time there was an announcement.
Susanna paced back and forth, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, shaking her head and crying. They’d been at the hospital for well over an hour, and all they’d been told was that the doctors were still trying to save Whitney and things did not look good.
Sam sat in a chair, D-Ray next to her.
She stood up and let go of his grasp, and he stood and followed her out to the drinking fountain. They both watched as the young polygamist wife and her husband walked to the door, picked up the phone, and asked for admittance into the PICU.
And then Sam saw him. Gage, standing outside the door of the family conference room. She watched him for a moment, fighting the urge to both throw herself into his arms and pummel him on the chest. He looked uncharacteristically anxious, the tension showing in the lines around his mouth, hunched shoulders, and crossed arms. His eyes darted around, as if he was looking for someone—or deciding whether or not to walk in.
Finally, he spotted her; his eyes widened in obvious concern, and he uncrossed his arms. Sam walked slowly to him.
“Why are you here?” she asked, instead of screaming like she wanted to do. Life seemed so wrong, so off.
Mary Ann. Whitney. Callie. So many losses.
“I don’t know,” he answered softly. “I thought … you might need me.”
Sam took a breath. “I … I don’t know what I need.” The words had come out slightly louder than she intended. The young polygamous wife and her husband turned and stared at Sam. She blushed. The husband put his hand on the small of the woman’s back and guided her into the PICU before the automatic doors closed.
Suddenly Sam felt herself being whirled and then pulled tightly into Gage’s chest. She didn’t fight, because she couldn’t. She could barely speak.
“They were probably from a different plig group,” he said, knowing what she was thinking. “Clarkstons don’t care for their ill children. Brings too much focus down on the group.”
“I know,” Sam said, her voice muffled as she let him embrace her, disgusted with herself that she was so weak and he felt so solid, comfortable.
When she finally felt stable enough, she pulled back and stared him down.
“I know what you’re thinking and.…,” he started.
“No, Gage, you don’t know what I’m thinking. You can probably guess, but you can’t know. My niece is in there fighting for her life. Whatever small thing happened between us before means nothing, really.”
Gage lifted a hand and smoothed a piece of hair from her forehead.
He spoke in a soft voice. “Except she died. Mary Ann died. We’ve never once talked about it. You just left. But I know you think about it every day. And blame me.”
Sam could tell he meant it. She could still feel his fingers on her face, like they’d left a mark. She couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she looked down at the speckled tile floor.
“No. I blame myself.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Everyone knows the young should not die, and yet so many of them do. It was easier when they were someone else’s child, someone else’s niece or nephew.
That’s the way it usually was.
But Sam watched as an almost-lifeless Whitney breathed in and out, deep and methodical, her chest rising and falling without a hitch, the way a machine would. A tube snaking around and into her mouth provided the mechanical breaths.
Sam had promised her sister she would stay with Whitney—hold her hand and not leave her side—while Susanna tried to get some rest in the “sleeping room” they’d assigned to her and Roger. Roger had opted to go home and sleep in his own bed, even with his youngest child hovering on the brink of death.
“The man could sleep through an earthquake,” Susanna always said. This was an earthquake of epic proportions. Was he sleeping? Was he even human? Susanna had never said where Roger was when Susanna discovered Whitney hanging from the closet door. Sam didn’t ask.
She had a gun. She knew how to use it. She preferred not to go to jail. It was probably best she didn’t know.
It had been twenty-four hours since Susanna had found Whitney hanging. Sam knew it would take a lifetime to recover from that trauma, if Susanna ever did. Whenever Sam closed her eyes, she saw Callie’s dead, lifeless face, blue and distorted, blood spilling from her ears. Whitney had looked the same. Sam remembered the smell, the blood, the vomit.
Her stomach roiled and she fought off nausea. But she couldn’t leave Whitney. She’d made a promise.
Whit’s eyes were closed and unmoving, her lashes not twitching, her brows not furrowing, the way they had so often when she was younger and angry about something.
Whitney had always been able to raise one eyebrow in a quizzical manner, a talent Sam had long admired and never been able to emulate. Whit’s mother, Susanna, had also been able to do the trademark move, so Sam convinced herself it was a genetic Montgomery gift, and one she had not been blessed with.
But nothing on Whitney’s face indicated she was even there anymore. There was no raising of the eyebrow, no pouting lips or angry eyes. Just closed lids and white, ashy skin.
Next to the sterile hospital bed, hoisted on a large metal stand, myriad beeping and flashing machines displayed lines and arcs. The only proof that a live person was in this hospital bed.
A nurse sat quietly in the corner, a rolling tray in front of her, taking notes and writing on charts, watching the monitors by the teenager’s bed closely, noting each alarm. She’d nodded at Sam when she came in, but didn’t speak.
A lump filled Sam’s throat as she stared at her niece and thought about Whitney’s disappearance the other day. Was Whitney the fourth teenager in the suicide pact? The fourth one Sam had not believed existed. She’d been so sure that these were all murders, yet her own niece lying before her on this hospital bed made her feel as though it had to be something else. How could a hanging be an accident? But suicide?
And what about the note that said: “Bethany”? Sam shivered and scrubbed at a rebellious tear that had fallen down her face without permission.
Not again, not again, not again …
The nurse stood up, stretched, and whispered, “Be back in a minute,” to Sam, who nodded in response. She looked back at her niece, who looked like a wax figurine. No, not a wax figurine, but one of those mechanical bodies that you see at Disneyland or other amusement parks.
“Why, Whitney?
Did
you do this?”
“I don’t think so,” Gage Flint said, and Sam turned to see him standing in the doorway. He must have gone home for some rest. For once, Sam didn’t tense up at his presence. He made her feel less alone. She nodded and looked back at Whitney.
And nothing more needed to be said.
TWENTY-FIVE
Sam refused to leave Whitney’s side until her sister returned, so Gage sat beside her and they both stared at Whitney, watching for some response. Some reaction. An indication there was still a person inside.
When a shell-shocked Susanna wandered in, Sam hugged her and then told her she would be back later.
Susanna didn’t acknowledge Gage. She barely looked at Sam. She only had eyes for her daughter.
“Let’s get you some food,” Gage said, leading Sam out of the room. She pulled her hand out of his instinctively, though it felt uncomfortably right there.
“Gage, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but what is this? Why are you here?”
“You’re a friend, and you need me.”
She felt like she should make him leave but didn’t have it in her. She wanted to totally bend, to give in to his pushiness, let him lead her around so that for once she didn’t have to think or feel. Or live in the agony of the past.
Except he didn’t believe in her—her skills, her strength.
“So you’re here just to be a friend.”
“Yes. Is that so hard to believe?” He looked into her eyes and looked so earnest, almost childlike, that she wanted to reach out and touch his face, stroke his cheek. Put her lips on his and feel the five-o’-clock shadow rasping against her own skin as she trailed kisses down his neck—
Stop it! You have a case to solve and a sister to support.
“Yes,” she whispered, in answer to his question. “Yes, it’s hard to believe. I’ve been on my own for so long now it’s the only way I know how to be.”
“Let’s go to the cafeteria. People say it’s the best hospital food in the state.”
“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” she asked.
He grinned. “Follow me. I’m sure they have crackers.”
* * *
Sam settled for coffee and a chef’s salad. Vegetables made her more comfortable, if one could be comfortable around food.
Gage ordered coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich, with fries.
They ate without talking. Sam was surprised at how hungry she suddenly was. She was never hungry. Right now she felt almost ravenous.
“It’s nice to see you eat something. You’re too skinny,” he said between bites.
“Apparently you haven’t been paying attention to movies, television, or fashion magazines. Skinny is in,” she said.
“Today’s media is stupid. Ever take a peek at Marilyn Monroe? Now that was a woman.”
Sam winced. She would be lucky to gain another five pounds, let alone curves. Every day was a fight.