Nearly Gone (14 page)

Leigh—W T F ? You have some serious

explaining to do! Call me later. I want details! Anh

It was stapled to our chemistry homework assignment for the night.
Another folded paper drifted out. I plucked it off the floor and unfolded it. As soon as the first blue letter appeared, my skin prickled, and I peeled the rest open more carefully.

Flowers Delivered
WHC
Rm # 214

It had been written in the same blue marker, the ones we used in chem lab. The same handwriting as the message in the box with the dead cat and under the bleachers at North Hampton.

I shoved the letter in my locker and slammed it shut. I’d wanted to visit Posie, but I’d heard she’d been flown to the burn unit at Washington Hospital Center and had spent the last four days in ICU. No visitors allowed.

Flowers delivered to Room #214
. He was tipping me off. Posie must have been moved. And if she was out of intensive care and had her own room, I could talk to her. I could ask her what she remembered, if she had seen who had done this to her. I knew she would tell me if she could. I had to try.

I shook my head, split down the middle. Who was I kidding? That’s exactly what the killer wanted me to do. Exactly where he wanted me to be. This note felt like a set-up. I’d be playing into his hands again, and I hated myself for it. But I had no choice. It was time to pay Posie a visit.

• • •
I hopped the Red Line downtown, then took the H4/Tenley Town bus to the hospital. Once inside, I crossed the main lobby and headed straight for the elevator.

“Excuse me,” said the woman at the desk behind me. I turned to see her holding out a clipboard and a visitor’s pass. “I’ll need you to sign in, please.”

The elevator doors closed. I approached the desk and took the clipboard, hesitating before writing my name. If the note was a set-up—if someone really did want me here—then maybe I shouldn’t use my own name. At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt me to use someone else’s. I wrote “Mary Jones” in the space marked
Visitor
. The pen hovered over the space for the patient’s name, warnings whispering in my head. If the police were keeping tabs on Posie’s visitors, something told me I shouldn’t use her name either.

“What’s the last name of the patient you’re looking for, dear?” She was a kind-looking older woman with smiling wrinkles. I felt guilty lying to her.

“Smith,” I answered.

The attendant henpecked the name into her computer and stared down her nose at the screen. “Would that be Ronald, Evelyn, or William?”

My shoulders sagged with relief. Smith had been a safe bet. “Ronald,” I said.
She handed me the pass and said, “He’s in 263. You can go ahead up.”
I clipped my pass to the hem of my shirt and darted into the first open elevator. Posie’s room was easy to find. I peeked in the small window inset in the door, relieved to find Posie alone. A jacket hung over the back of an empty chair beside her bed. I didn’t have much time. I rapped softly on her door and pushed it open a crack.
She replied in a jagged whisper, as though she were talking through broken glass. “Come in.”
I stepped quietly inside. Posie sat propped on a mountain of starched white pillows, her eyes taped shut with cotton pads. A clear tube hung below her nostrils and an IV dripped from a stand near her headboard. A clip hugged her finger, and a monitor beeped steady with the rhythm of her heart. Her other arm, the burned one, was concealed under a sleeve of bandages.
“Posie?”
She tipped her head, turning in my direction. “Leigh?” She smiled weakly. “You made it. I knew you were coming.”
I stopped halfway to her bed. A cold sensation slithered over me. “Yeah, it’s me,” I said quietly, my throat dry. “How did you know I was coming?”
She pushed a button, elevating the bed. “One of the nurses said you called.”
I didn’t answer. I hadn’t called or spoken to any nurses, but I didn’t want to scare her.
Her smile faltered. “You didn’t call?”
My mind raced. I looked at the clock. “I don’t have much time, Posie.”
She drew her call button tighter against her hip and pulled herself straight against the pillows. I heard the strain in her breaths.
“I know,” she rasped. “The police have been asking all kinds of questions about you. I told them there was no way you could be involved in something like this. But they keep asking, like I might change my mind. I told them I won’t.” She took a few thin breaths and sunk back into the pillows. “I’m glad you’re here, but it’s probably better if you go. My mom will be back any minute and I’d hate for you to get in trouble.”
I looked between Posie and the door. Someone called the nurses’ station pretending to be me. I knew I should leave, but I had so many questions. “Is there anything you remember . . . anything at all that might help me figure out who did this to you? Did you see anyone? Talk to anyone?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember a thing. The police said I was drugged. They said someone put something in my soda. I remember eating lunch, and then feeling dizzy and sick to my stomach. I left my friends to find the bathroom, and then everything just went blank. I woke up here. They said I have to stay until my burns are better.” Her brief recollection seemed to drain all of her energy, and I helped settle her back on her pillows. She couldn’t help me. It had been a mistake to come.
“It’s okay,” I said, as much to comfort myself as to ease the worry on Posie’s face. “You don’t have to say any more.” I straightened her blankets. A medical chart hung at the foot of her bed. “Posie? Would it be okay if I looked at your chart?”
She nodded and I hurriedly flipped through the pages of a toxicology report. Posie’s bloodwork had tested positive for ketamine, the same drug Nicholson said they’d found in Emily Reinnert’s water bottle.
The rest of the report held no surprises. Just as I’d expected, hydrofluoric acid burns. The fumes were strong enough to damage her respiratory system, but as long as there was no direct contact with her eyes, the cotton and tape should be temporary and her lungs would get stronger and heal over time. I couldn’t say the same about her arm. That scar would stay with her for the rest of her life. I thumbed through the rest quickly—her vitals, which seemed fairly stable, and a treatment plan showing an estimated discharge date a few days from now. She’d be fine.
A series of loud beeps erupted from her IV monitor and we both startled. Her bag hung empty, the last drops sinking close to her hand. “You should probably go,” she said. “The nurses will be in soon to change my IV.”
A stack of fresh gowns and surgical caps were folded neatly on a chair. I grabbed a set quietly and pulled them over my clothes.
Posie wheezed and started coughing. I didn’t think, just reached for her hand, needing to know she would be okay. “I’ll be fine. Just go. I won’t tell anyone you were here.” Her strength ebbed through my fingers in steady, reassuring waves. Posie would be fine, and now I was one step closer to understanding the person who’d done this to her. Emily, Posie, and Marcia had all been drugged.
I gave her hand one last squeeze and cracked the door before slipping into the hall. I walked quickly toward the end of the hall, away from the nurses’ station, looking for emergency exit signs that might lead me another way out. A police officer emerged from the stairwell and walked toward me. Every nerve ending screamed at me to run. He was on his phone and didn’t seem aware of me, so I kept my head down and shuffled past. I took the stairs fast and threw open the door, emerging in a hallway near the hospital chapel. I darted into the nearest bathroom, stripped off the gown and tucked it into the trash bin, plucking the visitor’s pass from my shirt. I was about to toss it in the can and find a less conspicuous exit than the one in the main lobby, but then I paused. Would it be suspicious if Mary Jones never signed out?
I carried the pass to the visitor’s desk, darting looks through the lobby to make sure I hadn’t been noticed. The wrinkled attendant smiled and held out a basket of used passes. I dropped it in and thanked her, reaching for a pen.
I found my name, Mary Jones, and signed out. Several unfamiliar names followed, but I gripped the clipboard tighter when I recognized my name. Not Mary Jones. My real name. Nearly Boswell had signed in, visited with Posie Washington in Rm #214, and signed out. Three minutes ago.
I wanted to tear off the sign-in sheet and stuff it into my pocket, but the attendant was watching, politely waiting to see me off. I held the clipboard too long. “Good day,” she said, lifting it from my hands. I looked up at the high ceiling as though I could see through the floors. Nearly Boswell wasn’t in class or with friends. She was officially logged in the hospital record as a visitor.
I never should have come.

I could almost smell the tight stack of newsprint on Rankin’s desk, more aware of those pages than the blank one in front of me. I tapped my pencil and tried to focus on the pop quiz. My knee bobbed up and down, shaking the table. Anh kicked me without looking up. It was Friday morning and the Bui Mart had been sold out of
City Post
s—as was every store in a three-block radius. Bao said the front page had been some kind of smear campaign against a local politician, and his supporters had combed through every store in town that morning, buying up every copy on the shelves. I stared at the
City Post
on Rankin’s desk, took a deep breath, checked the clock, and forced my attention to my quiz.

Two more problems and I was out of there. Maybe Jeremy had a copy . . . if he was speaking to me at all. I’d taken the bus home from the hospital yesterday, and walked to school that morning, like I did every Friday. I hadn’t seen Jeremy since I’d stood him up yesterday, and I had no idea what to expect.

A cold rush of air moved past my desk. Oleksa sauntered down the aisle and set his quiz facedown. I looked at the clock again. Anh finished, sliding her chair back without a sound. TJ was behind her.

I jabbed the buttons of my calculator, scratched out numbers, and finished just as the bell rang. My quiz was the last one on the stack, but I was certain I’d nailed it, even through all the distractions.

I approached Rankin’s desk, where the newspaper was now spread open. Somewhere in it was a message for me. I knew it. The note in my locker and then the sign-in sheet in the hospital were building up to something.

Better luck next time.
No. No more next times. I needed that paper.
“Question, Miss Boswell?” Rankin stared at me over the 
drooping pages of his newspaper.

“No. No question.”
“Very well then.” He snapped the paper up, teasing me

with the front and back pages. Definitely today’s paper. “Where did you get it?” I heard myself ask.
He looked at me with a curious expression. “You mean

this? Yes,” he said, brows shooting up as he rustled the pages. “I had quite a time finding one this morning. This copy was waiting on my desk quite unexpectedly when I arrived.”

My spine tingled, as if someone drew a finger over it. The only
City Post
in school was left on Rankin’s desk before first period, where I’d be sure to see it. Someone wanted me to find it, like they’d wanted me to find all the others. I had to get my hands on that paper.

“May I borrow it?” The ice I was treading was thin. He’d expressly forbidden me from bringing the paper to class, but class was over and I couldn’t walk away without asking. If he didn’t agree, then I’d find another way. I wasn’t leaving school without that paper.

He flipped the corners down. “No, you may not. I’m sure your physics teacher would not appreciate you reading it in his class any more than I want you reading it during mine.”

“But—”
“However,” he interrupted, raising a finger, “there is plenty of inventory yet to be counted. I’ll see you at two forty-five. If the paper is still here when you return, you may take it if you wish.”
• • •
At 2:43 p.m. I sprinted through the chem lab door. Rankin was gone, but his newspaper was there.
I flipped through the sections with shaking hands, snatching the
Missed Connections
out of the stack. The pages clung together, reluctant to separate. I dropped into my seat, skimming the fine print for an equation or theorem. But the numbers were all bust sizes and addresses of bars.
Whoever had written the ads wasn’t making this easy. If there was an ad in today’s personals, I’d have to read them all to find it.
I laid the paper across my desk and studied them, one by one, reading the cryptic ones slowly, listening for a familiar cadence or the suggestion of a clue.
And there it was.
I don’t know how I knew, or why I was so sure, except that it was the only ad that didn’t seem to fit with the others. The tone of the ad seemed to resonate with malice, where all the others resonated with hope. Grabbing a lab marker, I circled it.

I’m serious. I’m done chasing my tail, trying to be the big dog. I’m the brightest. Lie back and watch me shine.

What did it mean? I’d expected a number, a formula . . . something concrete. This was as maddening and nonsensical as the message under the bleachers.

I’m the brightest.
Fine. Whatever. I shoved my chair back and stuffed my hands in my pockets. If he wanted to prove he was smarter than me, why not give me a problem I could solve?

Or had he?
I scooted back to the desk. I read it again, dissecting each word for some corresponding value. Scrutinizing each letter for patterns or hint of a code. No key emerged.
I took a step back and rubbed my eyes. They burned with fatigue and frustration. I was too emotional. Too eager to find it. The ad felt like a damn Seurat painting. Like I needed distance to see it clearly.
Unless the clue wasn’t something I could see at all.
Skeptical, I closed my eyes and took a breath, exhaling my anxiety and muting the distractions in my head. Then I spoke the words aloud. I listened to them, imagining them from thirty thousand feet.
“I’m serious. I’m the brightest,” I repeated softly. “I’m serious.”
I’m serious.
I’m Sirius.
My chair flew out behind me. I snatched up my things, and headed to earth science. The map of the solar system spanned the interior wall of the classroom. I searched the constellations, my head swimming, full of tiny dots and lines that formed shapes and patterns of animals and warriors, until I found it. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, in the constellation Canis Major—the big dog.
I’m serious . . . the big dog. I’m the brightest.
I cried out, a victorious shout that echoed and died in the empty room.
Now that I knew what I was looking for, where the hell was I supposed to find it?
Lie back and watch me shine.
I mapped streets and bridges in my head. There were hundreds, if not thousands of places to stargaze in and around the city. Riverfront parks, historic battlefields, ball fields, beaches . . .
But the last three ads reflected a pattern. They had one common denominator. Each of the victims had been people I knew. More specifically, people I’d tutored. I’d worked with dozens of students through the year, and I counted them off in my head, grasping for any connection. Where they lived, their interests, their hobbies, their classes. Nothing fit. I had no clue where I was supposed to find Sirius and I only had a few hours until dark.
I slogged to my locker, folding the newspaper into a tight square around the circled ad. I spun my combination and opened the door, dropping the newspaper on the shelf inside. Teddy’s drawing drew my attention like a bright yellow flare. My stomach dropped as I plucked it from my locker door. I turned it over. The flyer for the Smithsonian field trip was rimmed in clip-art planets and stars. It was dated today. My hands shook as I set it down on top of the ad.
Lie back and watch me shine.
Teddy Marshall was at the Air and Space Museum.