Page 85 of Trick of Light
“Annabeth, your mother?” He frowned in confusion. Annabeth hadn’t been part of their lives from such an early age.
“Yes, that Annabeth,” she said wryly. “Isn’t she your mother too?”
Right…Fiona hadn’t been caught up on that part of the story. “Why’d you call her?”
“Well, she used to be a nurse before she met Dad. Didn’t you know that?”
“No. I didn’t.”
That changed things. If Annabeth had medical knowledge, she would have known exactly what to do in that hospital room with Sophie.
“I looked it up. She went by her maiden name then, Annabeth L. Evans.”
Elle Evans. My God. Maybe he had heard that before, because it had rung a tiny bell when he’d read that name in the visitor log.
Hadn’t his father said something about “elevens,” and being too late? In some part of his mind, John Carmichael must remember all of it.
“I figured Annabeth could give me some good advice, and she did,” Fiona went on.
“What was it?”
“She said to find that old witchy lady in the southwest woods. She knew a lot about her, I was kind of surprised. I joked about Annabeth being a stalker, but she didn’t think it was funny. I think she must have told Dad, because the next thing I knew, Keith and his whole family were gone. Kicked off the island.”
36
Gabby opened her eyes to find herself lying on a dusty wood floor she didn’t recognize. Reflected light pulsed across the room at regular intervals, not from inside but from outside.
“How does your head feel, my dear?” asked a soothing voice she recognized as Tamara’s. Wincing as she turned her neck, she saw the old woman kneeling next to her.
She sat up and realized that her purple sweater was tucked under her chin, covering her torso. The last time she’d seen it, it had been snagged in the blackberry brambles in the southwest woods.
“My sweater…”
“Something told me to bring it with me when Kieth put me into his boat. I never ignore my intuition.”
“I lost it in the blackberry brambles.”
“It called to me. We had important things to discuss.”
Gabby stared at her, wondering if that bump on her head was still causing problems.
Heavy footsteps interrupted. Gabby scrambled onto her feet, still woozy, but determined to meet her fate from a standing position instead of a vulnerable one.
When the room stopped spinning, Detective Hooper stood before her, large and paunchy and frowning. He wore a baseball cap He held a duffel bag that gave her the creeps. Killers liked such bags, didn’t they? They were convenient for holding ammunition and body parts and spare clothes.
“You’re Keith Garner?”
Looking closely at him, she saw a distant resemblance to that long-ago photograph, mostly around the eyes and the jutting jaw. Come to think of it, they looked different today. Hadn’t they been brown before? They were a gray-ish blue now. Had he been wearing contact lenses? That would make sense, if he was trying to make sure no one on the island recognized him.
“Used to be.” He opened the duffel bag and pulled out a binder. Handing it to her, he said, “The old lady’s useless. She doesn’t know shit, or at least she puts on a good act.”
“I don’t know shit,” Tamara agreed. “Not what you want to know.”
“What is this?” Gabby opened the binder and saw the answer to her question in the photocopied pages within. “Marianne’s journal.”
“Yes. It’s the key, at least you better hope it is.”
“Key to what? Are you talking about the pirate treasure? I already know there’s nothing in here about that.”
