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Chapter Forty-Four
SCOTT HAD SEEN how panicked Sydney became when she realized Richard had seen her with him, and it hurt. And it angered him. He had taken her under his wing when another love had gone wrong for her. He’d showed her how to be strong and how to get what you want out of life. He’d built up her confidence and taught her how to set goals and take the necessary steps to achieve them. The way he figured it; she’d have nothing today had it not been for him. He glanced at her. She clutched her purse with one hand and grasped the door handle with the other.
“I told you I’ve come into some money recently,” he said, pausing to let her respond. She didn’t. “It’s a lot of money, Sydney, and I thought how fantastic it would be for us to just pick up and go. We could go anywhere you’d like—anywhere in the world—and you’d never have to work again.”
“I don’t want to
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My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Five
AS THE LAST STRANDS of pink faded and the sky turned steel gray, I drove past the McLeod Hotel and parked several blocks away. It stood tall and proud at the center of the seediest part of Wilmington. Built in the late 1800s, it had not had a coat of paint since Hitler marched on France. A few windows on the bottom floor had been covered with plywood that had since grayed and curled, threatening to fall off. One window on the second floor was covered by cardboard. I got more than a few strange looks as I walked past the neon signs and cheap bars back toward it.The prostitutes propositioned me and the men kept an eye on me. The entrance to the hotel was too narrow and too congested with people I wouldn’t dare ask to move or try to slither through. I lowered my head and walked on by, disappearing into a narrow alley a few doors farther. Stepping over broken bottles, drug vials, and piles of excrement, I made my way to the back of the buildings.Night was falling q
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Six
IN SPITE OF THE RECENT WARM WEATHER, Scott McGillikin pulled the collar of his wool overcoat up around his ears, hunched forward with his shoulders high, and slunk along the street Martha and Richard had played on as children. As he approached the Baimbridge home, a Saint Bernard across the street reeled off a string of low-pitched barks that sounded more like a car being started with a dying battery than any kind of living creature.The neighborhood was actually safer now than it had been twenty years earlier. Transplants from the north were buying up all the older homes, restoring them to better-than-original condition, and adding decks, brick walks, outdoor lamps, and herb gardens.As he turned up the Baimbridge sidewalk, a young girl next door leaned out over a porch railing to get a better look at him. He lowered his chin, mounted the steps, and had raised a gloved hand to knock when the door abruptly swung open.Before him sat a startled woman in her wheel
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Seven
AS I PULLED UP TO MY PARENTS’ HOUSE, I saw my mother flailing about the front yard flanked by two policemen and two neighbors attempting to console her. My first thoughts were that something had happened to Dad. I left the engine running and jumped out. “What happened?”Mother surged toward me screaming and crying, but her cries concealed her words. I took hold of her hands. “What? Slow down.”She tried to say something, but instead collapsed against me, her weight sending both of us against the side of the car.“What is it, Mama? Has something happened to Dad?”Like a wounded animal, she thrashed about sliding down the side of the car to the ground.“For Heaven’s sake, can’t someone tell me what’s going on?”The woman living next door stepped forward. “Your sister’s been in an accident.”“An accident?”Mom rolled to the ground
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Eight
A MISTY RAIN WAS FALLING as Ashleigh crossed from the parking garage to the lobby of Duke Medical Center in Durham. A clock high on a wall read 7:39 a.m. Collapsing her umbrella, she stepped to the main information desk where an elderly woman stared at a computer monitor.“Could you tell me which room David Matthews is in, please?” Ashleigh asked.Leaning forward, the woman clicked a few keys on her keyboard and squinted at the monitor. “Let’s see... Hmm. Is he a patient here?”“He was in surgery all day yesterday.”“Matthews...Matthews…Okay, here he is. Are you family?”“Sister.”“Well, he spent the night in Intensive Care, but he’s being moved to another room right now and I don’t have that number yet. Give me your name and I’ll page you when I have it.”“How long is that going to take?”“I don’t know
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Nine
DETECTIVE SAM JONES and his partner Crabby Staten stepped from their car and were met by a pudgy fifty-year-old with a two-day beard and a jaw full of chewing tobacco.“We jus’ put this asphalt down Monday,” the man slurred in a deep southern drawl. “And a piece of it caved in t’day when somebody drove over it. We figur’d we had us a water leak, but when we dug in, this is what we found.”The two detectives stepped to the edge of a hole that had been cut into the asphalt, looked down, and saw the crown of a man’s head exposed in the bottom. A wisp of water misting behind it had washed a trench around the body.“Anybody missing on your crew?” Sam asked the man.“Nope.”“Where’s the cutoff to that water line?”“Got no idea. We jus’ do the paving.”Sam pulled the tail of his long coat up around his waist, stepped into the hole, sli
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty
SYDNEY PICKED ME UP at the hospital and drove me to the site of Martha’s accident. A southwesterly breeze had brought in warm tropical air, and with it, the scent of the Japanese Cherry blossoms lining the other side of the road. As we stood at the corner with cars and trucks streaming past, I closed my eyes. Martha, what happened? Talk to me, Babe.Years of memories popped into my head, one on top the other like a Fourth of July fireworks show. Things I’d long ago forgotten. The time Martha went to Donald Wolfe’s house and punched him in the nose because he’d punched me at school. Martha pressing a towel to my bleeding leg after I fell over a chain-link fence and split my calf open. Martha lifting a neighbor’s dog off the street and carrying it all the way home after it had been hit by a car.I followed skid marks in front of me to where they jumped the curb.“See anything?” Sydney asked.I looked back u
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-One
I DROPPED SYDNEY OFF at her dance school and found Sam Jones in his office picking through a muddy stack of canceled checks and file folders. There were several more mud-caked boxes on the floor around him. He leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry about your sister, Richard. I never expected Martha to do anything like that. She must have been a lot worse off than everyone thought.”“She didn’t do that to herself, Sam. Somebody pushed her.”“I know it’s hard to believe she’d—”“No, really, Sam. That’s what I came to see you about. I found some things on her computer I think you need to see.” I set the laptop on his desk. “And I think I know who did it.”“Did what?”“Who tried to kill her.”“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Richard. Now you’re as bad as her—trying to play detective.”“
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Two
TIFFANY FOUND THE NOTE and the key, and immediately ripped the tags off a new string bikini her mother would never have allowed her to wear. Strutting about under the watchful eyes of every man on the dock, she cranked the engine, brought in the lines, shoved the magnificent sailboat off, and motored Steal Away out to the channel where she found a strong southerly breeze—perfect for a reach down the river.Bringing the vessel about, she headed directly into the wind, set the brake on the wheel, and raised the mizzen to steady the boat. Electing to keep the mainsail furled, she climbed barefooted onto the roof of the cabin, sidled toward the bow, and—bending her knees as the vessel rose to meet each wave—reached to the low side and tugged the line to release the jib. As the massive sail unrolled like a window shade, its bitter end flapped loosely in the wind, snapping and popping against the mainmast, sending her heart to racing as she jumped back to
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- My Sister's Keeper Epilogue
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Nine
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Eight
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Seven
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Six
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Five
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Four
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Three
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Two
