Wish Club (33 page)

He’d had to stop his strained walking while he struggled to get control of her, and she started writhing again, trying to get away. Marc groaned and tried to take a step. He couldn’t move! Jill twisted off his shoulder, her hands still bound behind her, unable to break her fall. He flailed a hand against her as she slid down, brushing it against the side of her face as she fell. His hand felt like ice.

Jill hit the ground just as tires squealed behind her in the lot, accompanied by the sound of gravel spraying. She tried to lift her head but didn’t have the strength. She managed to open one eye. A police cruiser barreled toward them.

Marc turned around to see it, too. His eyes filled with fear. He looked down at her and seemed to have a moment of indecision, his legs rooted to their position on the ground. Then he took a step, his eyes filled with surprise. He took another step, a brief smile flashing across his face as he started a doubled-over trot along the lake.

One of the cops got out of the squad car and ran after Marc, both of them disappearing quickly in the dark.

An older, larger cop had gotten out of the car at the same time and he was hurrying over to Jill. Behind him she could see a minivan racing into the gravel lot, pulling up right next to the squad car.

“Sweet Jesus,” the cop said when he bent down next to Jill. He reached over and touched her forehead with a gesture more gentle than would be expected from such a burly man. He spoke into the radio microphone on his shoulder and called for an ambulance, giving their location, Montrose Harbor.

Claudia, Lindsay, Mara, Greta, and Gail came running out of the van and up to them, encircling Jill and the cop, kneeling down, reaching out, embracing her with their presence.

“Is she okay?”

“Will she be all right?”

“Don’t let that bastard get away.”

Jill could sense the cop reeling back for a moment, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of female energy and emotion. He made a patting motion with his hand, the standard male “calm down” gesture.

“She’s beat up pretty bad, but she’s still breathing and alert. There’s an ambulance on the way.”

Gail knelt down next to her, putting a finger to the tape over her mouth. “Can I take this off?” she asked both the cop and Jill.

Jill closed her eyes and gave a brief nod.

The cop nodded, too. Gail slowly peeled the duct tape away. It didn’t hurt, but Jill moaned anyway. Her head had hit the ground when she had fallen off Marc’s shoulder. Blood was seeping into the corner of one eye. Her lips felt swollen. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth and noticed several of her teeth had been chipped, and the inside of her lower lip was bleeding.

Claudia sat on the other side of Jill, resting a hand on her shoulder. She touched Jill so lightly, it was as though she were trying very hard not to hurt her any more, yet she used just enough pressure to let her know that they were all still there, that she wasn’t alone.

“The ambulance’ll be here any minute now,” Claudia said. “You’re going to be okay.”

Jill ran her tongue over the newly rough interior of her mouth before whispering, “I know.”

Chapter Thirty-One

“I
feel like such an idiot.” Jill’s huge blue eyes flicked up at Claudia briefly before she returned her gaze to her lap. The Wish Club women encircled Jill’s hospital bed. Everyone must have had a hard time hearing her, because, like Claudia, they all moved in a little more closely now.

“An idiot?” Gail asked.

“Because you loved somebody? That should never make you feel like an idiot,” Mara said.

“Love always makes me feel like an idiot.” Claudia rolled her eyes and made her
silly me
face for Jill.

“I…” Jill took a shallow, obviously painful breath. “I feel like I should have seen it coming…somehow. That I shouldn’t have been…so blind. Looking back, there were so many signs.”

“Honey, haven’t you heard the old saying that love is always blind?” Lindsay adjusted Jill’s thin hospital blanket while she spoke. “You’re being too hard on yourself. You need to focus on getting better, not stuff like that.”

“They say a plane crash is never caused by one mistake.” Greta sat in one of the chairs by the window, her back to a view of Lincoln Park. “They say it’s always a series of errors, a chain, created by more than one person. Life is just the same. Most terrible mistakes are the result of a series of errors.”

“Yeah,” Gail said. “Marc may be a murderous lunatic, but how did he get that way? And why hadn’t anyone caught him up until now? You can’t blame yourself for being the final link in the chain.”

It turned out Marc was actually John Latham from Rice Lake, Wisconsin, wanted for questioning in Wichita, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska, in conjunction with the disappearances of two blue-eyed, dark-haired women.

The police suspected the other two women were dead.

A tear slid from the outside corner of Jill’s eye, down the side of her purple cheek. “I just can’t believe that…that the first time I get close to someone…to really letting someone in,” she took another shallow breath, which made her wince, “he turns out to be a psycho.”

“Well, psycho or not,” Greta said, “he helped you to realize you were capable of it. Of giving love. As crazy as this may sound, he helped you find a way to let someone in. It wasn’t the best way, or the only way, but it was
a
way. And that’s a start. For you, dear, that’s a very good start.”

Tears streamed down Jill’s cheeks. She looked down again at the blanket covering her legs, then said, as if apologizing, “Everything just hurts.”

Marc had beaten Jill pretty badly. She had three broken ribs, a broken wrist, and a concussion, along with some severe bruising. And two chipped teeth.

“Of course it does, dear.” Greta got up from her chair and stood next to the bed. “And it will for a while. But now, you need to take care of yourself and try to get well. Learn to give
yourself
a little love.”

Jill brought her eyes back up to look at Greta; she looked completely bewildered.

“I know
that
idea may sound a little strange to you,” Greta said, “but in all honesty, you’ve never been very loving to yourself. In fact, you’ve been rather the opposite. I’d suggest you try it. I think you’ll be surprised. I think you’ll find when you’re successful, there’ll be a whole stable of
perfect men
lining up to sweep you away.”

“And in the meantime,” Lindsay spread her arms, palms up, “you’ve got us.”

Jill smiled through her tears. “My own personal coven.” She looked at Greta. “You never said anything about being a witch.”

“Dear, it’s not the first thing I think of to trot out there when I meet someone. Most people are…well, very uncomfortable with it. Although I have begun to notice lately that people seem less and less freaked out by it. More likely to ask questions, or to ask for help. But I did get the sense, as I got to know you, that perhaps you were one who wouldn’t be so open to it.”

Jill nodded. “I never would have believed witchcraft would save me.” Jill shook her head and looked down at her lap again, silent for a while. “I don’t know what…” She took a breath, her face contorting with it. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you guys. I really don’t.” Jill paused and sniffed, then tried another smile, her face a full spectrum of emotion. “But thank you.” The tears flowed freely now. “Thanks for saving me.”

Gail
leaned into the door of John’s office. “Hey,” she said, “I’m home.” She was just getting back from the May Book Club meeting.

“Well, if it isn’t Samantha Stephens.” John swiveled his chair around to look at her. “I didn’t hear you sneak up. Are you sure that old witch isn’t teaching you her secrets?”

Gail limped into the room, her knee still recovering from the arthroscopy she’d had earlier in the week. “She’s not teaching us anything. She’s just another member of Book Club. Your hearing’s just shot from listening to Yes albums too loud.”

John looked skeptical, as if he couldn’t believe Book Club could simply revert back to being Book Club again, especially with Greta in it now. “At least my Yes albums are better than your Talking Heads.” He patted the top of his lap and Gail sat down. He wrapped his arms around her hips. “So who was there? The usual suspects?”

“Yeah. Everyone except Jill. She wasn’t up to it, Lindsay said. But I don’t know if she meant Jill wasn’t up to it yet physically, or if she wasn’t up to it, period.”

“I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to come back.”

Gail nodded.

“So?” John asked, “Everyone like the book?”

“Yep. But we always like Claudia’s picks. I can’t wait to read the one she’s working on. And you should see her. She cut her hair! Just to her shoulders, but it looks great—so much more flattering.”

John smiled, acting as though he were actually interested in Claudia’s new hairstyle. “So…there was no more, umm…”

“No. Nothing like that.” Gail twitched her lips back and forth. Paused. Did it again.

John was looking at her with suspicion, as if maybe he thought she was actually expecting something to happen when she twitched her lips.

“Oh c’mon. I’m just goofin’ on you,” Gail said, and John smiled, relieved. Gail took a breath and became more serious. “You know, I never thanked you for putting up with all the Wish Club stuff. It must have sounded so crazy to you.”

“No. Not so crazy. Not from you.” He paused. “But now I am starting to get lonely around here. First your theater workshop, now back to Book Club. What’s next? Are you going to sign up for archery lessons with Lindsay?”

Gail laughed. “No. Nothing more on my plate for now. And I saw the pizza box downstairs. Was it two or three hours of Super Mario Brothers? You guys aren’t suffering in my absence.”

John threw a hand over his chest as if to say,
Super Mario Brothers? Moi?

Gail was smiling as she looked up and saw her Clio on the bookshelf over John’s desk. She knew she wasn’t ready to go back to work yet, or maybe ever. This workshop she’d joined at the Wisdom Bridge Theater seemed just the thing for her right now. It gave her a chance to do something she loved and have adult contact and conversation. Maybe it would lead to something, or maybe not. Either way, she tried not to feel guilty taking the time. She knew it was better for everyone. If she was happy, then everyone would be happy. And as far as her family and everyone else was concerned, at least the theater workshop wouldn’t involve witchcraft. Unless they decided to take a stab at
Macbeth.

“It’s weird, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about that whole thing with the wish and Andrew and the fire. And now…now that I absolutely believe in the power of those wishes, the thing is, I’m not so sure anymore that we didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“You think you guys
did
start the fire?”

Gail shrugged. After a moment she said, “No…I don’t know. For a while I was so certain we hadn’t, that it wasn’t possible; but now I just don’t know anymore.” She looked hard at John, to see if he was following her, half expecting another
Bewitched
joke.

His tone was serious, though, when he held her a little tighter and said, “You know, hon, it could just be one of those things. One of those things you never know the answer to.”

Mara
found herself staring at the sailboat watercolor that hung on the wall opposite her desk. Lately, she found herself staring at it almost every day. The print was behind a glass frame and she had to hold her head just right to see past the glare from the office lights. The sail on the boat billowed out large and white. The artist had gotten the light just right: the sun screamed bright off the edge of the sail. It had the number 365 painted on it next to a small blue and white flag. Mara often wondered at the number, what it meant. Something nautical, the number of the boat, or the number of days in a year? Whatever it meant, she knew every single day she stared at it like this, she was dreaming about sailing away.

Dr. Seeley approached her desk in his awkward way, lips pursed out before he spoke. “You know Jill Trebelmeier, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Terrible what happened to her. Terrible.”

“Yes, it was terrible.” Mara knew for a fact it was terrible.

Dr. Seeley looked hard at Mara. She looked back at him calmly. Waiting.

“They say that John Latham character is a suspect in another disappearance now, too. A girl in Wisconsin.”

Mara nodded. “I’d read that.”

“I also heard something rather disturbing about your book group being involved in, with…er, witchcraft. I…well, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?” Dr. Seeley tilted his chin up after he asked.

Mara blinked. “Oh, that?” She smiled, lightened her voice a little for effect. “Those rumors got just so out of hand.” She shook her head and shot some air out of her nose. “It was just parlor games, you know, like Ouija boards and stuff. We read a book about witches, a long time ago, and, well, it was just all in fun. You couldn’t say we were practicing witchcraft or anything like that.” She looked at him and changed her expression to concern. “Is that what you heard?” And now she made her face say,
because that’s crazy.

“Well, I couldn’t help but notice some of your reading material, that it had to do with witchcraft, spells and such.”

Couldn’t help but notice books hidden inside my desk?

Dr. Seeley continued. “And when the police were here for the investigation into Marc, I couldn’t help but overhear them asking about it.”

Couldn’t help but overhear after you cracked your door open!

And then it all became clear.

Dr. Seeley was the snitch. He was the one who had started the rumors. He’d seen the books she’d been reading when he’d rifled through her desk. He knew the names of a few members of her book club. And he had clients at the Women’s Foundation as well. Once that group got wind of something, there was no slowing it down.

Mara stared up at him with a look of complete disgust, to which Dr. Seeley seemed oblivious.

“Well. Anyway. I was just wondering.” He waited for a moment, as if hoping Mara would confess to him her involvement in a coven. When it seemed apparent to him she wouldn’t, he said, “It’s good they got him. Good that the Trebelmeier girl is going to be all right. She is recovered, isn’t she?”

“Yes, yes. She’ll be back over a bubbling cauldron with us in no time.”

Dr. Seeley’s eyes got wide.

“She’ll be back casting spells and putting curses on bad guys before you know it.” Mara flipped down a wrist. She pretended to just notice Dr. Seeley’s startled expression. “Oh, you know I’m only kidding.” She laughed.

Dr. Seeley smiled uncertainly along with Mara. She was surprised the gesture didn’t make his face creak.

“Well, anyway.” He coughed. “Carry on.” He backed away from her toward his office.

Carry on?
That man could be so annoying. The way he talked down to her sometimes. Snooping around her desk. Listening in on conversations. And she’d had it with his condescending, judgmental manner.

She checked her watch. She’d better get to work soon or he’d be back over here growling at her. At least her stomach wasn’t growling all the time anymore. It was almost lunchtime, but Mara decided to finish up the filing before she ate.

Thank goodness Greta’s spell reversal had been a success. Mara wasn’t singing spontaneously anymore either, and she’d lost four pounds of the weight she’d gained. One pound a week. If only the weight loss would happen for her as effortlessly as it had seemed to happen for Lindsay. But Mara didn’t dare ask for that. A diet was small penance.

Her appetite was back to normal: no more downing entire boxes of Girl Scout cookies in one session. And Henry had returned to shaving once a day, his extra hair falling out. She’d found a small clump of it on the bathroom floor and had immediately begun to chastise Tippy for leaving bits of himself lying about, until she picked up the clump and realized, after closer analysis, that it must have come from Henry’s back.

Dr. Bernstein said the results of the hormone tests he’d done were inconclusive. The only explanation he could offer for the onset of Henry’s hairiness—and then its subsequent loss—was
stress.