While My Sister Sleeps (15 page)

“She bypassed company policy. You do the ordering. Besides, you have a right to be short-tempered. These aren't ordinary times. Give yourself that much, Molly. Don't you think
that's why Chris came down hard on you earlier? He needed an outlet. So did you.”

Molly wondered if anything was happening at the hospital.

“Anyway,” Erin went on, “the reason I came in here is that your dad just got a call from the paper. Do you know anything about an article on flowering kale?”

“It's on his computer.” Molly gestured her back into Charlie's office and pulled it up. “Do they want it faxed or e-mailed?”

“E-mailed. I'll take care of it. Also, the sales department at
New Hampshire Magazine
wants to confirm Snow Hill's ad in the winter issues.”

“Confirm them,” Molly said, satisfied that they were helping with this at least. They? Erin. Molly had always liked her, but had never before seen her as a resource. Thinking how wrong she had been, she gave Erin a hug. “Thank you. My brother is very lucky.”

Erin grunted. “He doesn't think so right now, so I wouldn't remind him if I were you. He's not in the best of moods.”

“It's the waiting,” Molly said. Smiling sadly at Erin, she returned to her office. It was so true. Waiting was the worst. Glancing at the clock every few minutes, she finished the immediate ordering, then tried calling Charlie on his cell, but it was off. She cancelled Kathryn's appointments. Ten minutes gone. She studied several recent issues of
Grow How
, debating what to write for the January issue, but her mind wouldn't focus.

Finally she went to the greenhouse. She was stopped along the way by Snow Hill people expressing concern about Robin, and she had an easier time talking now. Such a difference from Liz in their sincerity, she thought more than once.

The greenhouse had its share of customers, but Molly knew
every corner. She settled onto a bench behind a palm where, if she sat very still, she wouldn't be seen.

But she could see out. One customer was filling her wagon with shade plants; another trailed back and forth between those and the gloxinia on the far wall. The latter were beauties, their velvet blossoms vibrant shades of pink and much more eye-catching. Still, Molly preferred the shade plants. Though lacking the splash of a flower, they had longevity. At least most shade plants did and, in that sense, were seriously undervalued. She loved it when they got attention.

Wagons rattled off toward the cash register, leaving the aisles momentarily quiet. Distant little bursts came from sprinklers in the shrub yard and, from farther away, the rumble of the backhoe lifting a burlap-based tree. Here in the greenhouse, though, it was quiet.

Molly loved these moments. Not so Robin. Robin was an action person. She wanted movement.

But Molly saw movement in the plants as the sun's arc shifted. She saw movement in the change of the seasons and the corresponding life cycle of her plants. Robin was a nominal New Englander, charting the seasons from forsythia to roses, fall leaves to snow. The changes Molly saw went well beyond that.

No, Robin wouldn't have lost her temper with Liz. Maybe, though, that was because she didn't love Snow Hill the way Molly did.

VEN TWELVE HOURS AFTER SEEING MOLLY, NICK
Dukette was numb. He had known from the start that Robin's condition was serious. His police contact had told him as much. But he had expected some kind of fix, like surgery or medication.
He
didn't care if Robin had to give up running. It might work to his benefit. If she couldn't run, she wouldn't travel as much, which would only enhance the appeal of a local guy.

Not that he planned to be local for long. He wasn't making the same mistake his parents had. They were brilliant and totally unknown—Henry Dukette a novelist, Denise Dukette a poet. Each time Nick read their work, he wondered how the world could not stand up and take notice. Yet Henry had had to work for the highway department to support his family, and he had never complained. He said that seeing people around
town was where he got his ideas. Nick didn't see the point of getting ideas if they had nowhere to go.

He vowed to change that once he had a name for himself. Newspaper work was one step removed from book publishing, and book publishing was all about who you knew. In time, he would get his parents’ work read.

It wasn't about money. His older brother had made it big on Wall Street and even after taking care of his own family, had plenty to spare for Henry and Denise. He had bought them a condo not far from the state college in Plymouth, where Denise taught poetry, and had invested enough in their name to allow them to live comfortably on the interest. But Henry wouldn't hear of retiring. He claimed he was too young, that he liked being out and about. Nick wanted him out and about promoting a book, which was what would happen if Nick had his say.

First, though, good-bye New Hampshire—and he was getting closer. Once he was in charge of investigative news, he would have access to a higher level of contacts, which would open new doors. That was all he needed. He knew how to say things people wanted to hear. He also knew how to write a story—had already been recognized on a national level for a series on the presidential primary. The future looked bright.

Robin was to be part of that. Given her local stardom, he had been half in love with her even before they'd met. And after? They were amazing together. The fact that she was looking to compete globally didn't discourage him. She was approaching the height of her career. Once she had Olympic gold in hand, she would scale back. She was a family girl at heart. He guessed that as long as he stayed close, he was in the running.

But now this. He didn't know how much to believe of what
Molly said. As contacts went, she wasn't the most reliable. She had said it herself. She was too emotionally involved.

So was he, in this instance. But he was also a professional. He knew how to get information. Right now, that demanded legwork.

Pushing aside the paralysis that had stilled him for much of the last twelve hours, he left his cubicle, pausing only when the editor-in-chief called his name from across the city room. “Where you headed?”

“The hospital. I'm following up on the Robin Snow story.”

“The O'Neal indictment is at two.”

Nick wasn't about to forget. Thanks to his own exposé on Donald O'Neal, the state was finally looking at election fraud. Nick had given them their case. “I'll be there,” he called back and, touching the holster on his hip to make sure his phone was there, he left.

He didn't see Molly's car in the hospital lot, which was good. She was in a rough spot. He needed to get his information elsewhere.

Starting in the cafeteria, he homed in on the chief of cardiology, but the man wasn't being charmed. Nor was the hospital's top neurologist, though he had cooperated with Nick in the past. “Confidentiality,” he'd murmured this time.

“Word I got was that she's brain dead,” Nick said in his most confidential tone. “An exaggeration?”

The doctor eyed him askance. “Who'd you hear that from?”

Nick shot a suggestive look at the crowded cafeteria. Divide and conquer often worked. Suggest that one person had talked, and another would talk. “Should I believe it?”

“Even if I knew, which I don't,” said the stoic neurologist, “I wouldn't confirm or deny.”

“I heard they're discussing organ transplants.” Of course, he hadn't heard that. All he needed was an inadvertent “Not yet” for confirmation.

But the doctor shot him a knowing look, held up a hand, and walked off, leaving Nick to seek out his favorite nurse-informant. Fifteen years his senior, she had loved him since he had written a favorable piece on her husband's business the year before.

She claimed she knew nothing, and though he asked question after question, he couldn't trip her up. When he asked if she could try to get information, she expressed her regret.

Thinking that they were all too good to be believed, he took the elevator to the ICU. Unable to get into the unit itself, he went to the lounge. He didn't recognize anyone there. Confident that would change if he waited long enough, he sank into the sofa. He was thinking that Molly had to be wrong—that Robin wasn't brain dead at all, simply unconscious—when he realized that a young girl and her mother, seated on an abutting sofa, were talking about Robin.

Elbows on his knees, he asked a casual, “Robin Snow?”

The girl nodded. She looked to be in her early teens.

“Are you family friends?” he asked the mother.

“No, but Robin was the reason Kaitlyn took up running.”

“She spoke at my school,” the girl explained. “And when I wrote to her afterward, she answered. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. Mom let me leave school early to come here.”

“What's the latest on her?” Nick asked the mother.

“All they'll say is that she's in critical condition. Do you know more?”

“Nah,” he said. He was thinking that striking out here was his punishment for using Molly—when he saw Charlie Snow
in the hall. Without a word, he took off in pursuit. He caught up at the elevator. The man was lost in thought.

“Mr. Snow?” Charlie looked up. “How is she?”

“Oh. Nick. Hello.”

“Is it as bad as Molly says?”

“What did Molly say?”

“That she's still unconscious.” Molly had said more, of course, but Nick couldn't get himself to repeat it. He was starting to feel bad about Molly. He had put her on the spot.

“That's about it,” Charlie confirmed. “We're waiting it out.”

Nick had a dozen questions, but didn't ask a one. The elevator came, and before he knew it, he was alone. He stood there for the longest time, wondering what was wrong. He could ask anyone anything
—what are you feeling?
he had asked a mother watching divers search the river for the body of her son. That was how reporters got answers. Squeamish reporters got nothing.

He wasn't squeamish with the Snows, but maybe he was too close. Hell, he was almost family. At least, that was how he saw himself.

Discouraged, he took the next elevator down and returned to the city room to follow up on half a dozen small stories; but if he had hoped to distract himself, he was mistaken in that, too. He kept thinking of the last time he had seen Robin. She was having dinner with friends at a local restaurant and looked fabulous.

Call Molly
, he told himself.
Let her say it isn't true.
But Molly had issues with her sister, and his putting her in a bind only made them worse.

He could return to the hospital just to hang out. If Molly saw him there and they started to talk, she might innocently pass something on. Alternately, he might bump into the guy
she'd been talking with. David. The one who looked familiar. Nick wondered if
he
knew anything more about Robin's condition.

Feeling hollowed out, he leaned back and pressed his eyes. David, who looked familiar. David.

Trying to place him, he opened his eyes and rifled through printouts of recent stories, piled on his desk. He thumbed through a pile of photos. He sat back again. He had gone to a local bar after dropping Molly home Sunday night. He might have seen the guy there.

A face appeared over the front wall of his cubicle. “You want me with you at the courthouse?”

Nick glanced at his watch. In the process of looking back at Adam Pickens, his preferred photographer, his eye had to clear what he called his “idol wall.” Here were photos of Rupert Murdoch, Bernard Ridder, and William Randolph Hearst. There were also pictures of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, but another photo caught Nick's eye. It was of Oliver Harris, owner of the nation's third largest newspaper chain, several sports teams, and a cable network.

Molly's David looked exactly like that guy.

Leaning forward, Nick quickly googled Oliver Harris. After wading through several business-related entries, he found a write-up of Harris's family. The man was married to Joan, and had four children, three of whom worked for the corporation. The fourth and youngest was named David.

Possibly a coincidence. Neither David nor Harris were unusual names. But then there was the physical resemblance.