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Chapter Thirty-One
FRANTICALLY, I CHECKED CALLER ID—Unknown Number—and the phone directory, but found no listing under Sydney’s name. Son-of-a-bitch! I jumped in the car and sped to her studio hoping to find some kind of emergency number listed on the front door, but there was nothing. Back at home I lay awake the rest of the night waiting for the phone to ring again. It didn’t.
I fixed a pot of coffee and sat at the breakfast table watching the sun come up wondering if Sydney might be watching it as well, wondering what kind of night she’d had.
I took a shower, dressed, remembered the shattered cassette Martha wanted, dug it out of the trash, and gave it to her when I picked her up. We arrived back at the hospital just before 8 a.m., and I noticed Winston sitting in the waiting room on Dad’s floor. His hat was tipped down over his face covering his scars. I supposed he was there to support Mom.
“You think he’s bein
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My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Two
THE NURSES GOT DAD STABILIZED and sedated while the four of us waited down the hall. Mom, Martha, me, and Winston. I had a thousand questions running through my mind, but for the first time in my life, I felt whole. And for the first time ever, I felt a closeness to Dad. He said I was perfect. I broke down and wept like a grief-stricken mother mourning the death of her child. My God! I was Charlie’s son. Why hadn’t someone told me? Quivering uncontrollably, I sat there in front of the three of them and bawled. They cried, too. Even Winston.It felt so good, so liberating—like I’d been used my whole life to mop the floor and someone had finally rinsed me clean and wrung me out.Dad had certainly given me a lot to think about. He may technically be my uncle, but on that day, he was my dad. And all at once, I wanted him to live. For the first time I understood him and wanted to know the rest of the story
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Three
I RODE TO MOM’S and found Martha sitting in her wheelchair at the desk in the corner of her room. She was hunkered over a sheet of newspaper with all the parts to the cassette laid out on it.“Hey, hey! How’s it going?” I asked spreading myself across her doorframe.She raised her hand. “Shhh. Mom’s upstairs asleep.”“Oh, sorry.”“What are you so excited about?”“I just had lunch with Sydney Deagan.”“A date?”“Sort of.” I browsed the bookcase in the hall, removed the oldest photo album, and carried it into Martha’s room where I sat on her bed.“Tell me everything,” she said without looking up.I opened the dark leather cover on the album. It crinkled as it folded back. “Not much to tell. I picked up a couple of wraps and met her at the gazebo on the back of Greenfield Lake.”“M
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Four
WE GOT THE CALL about four o’clock that Dad was awake and the three of us raced to the hospital as quickly as we could. They let us spend a little time with him separately. Mom went first, then Martha. I stood at the window and watched as he held my sister’s hand and cried with her. There was something very strong between them and I realized that Dad could never love me in the same way he did Martha. I was not his child. Tears blurred my vision. A part of me was relieved that I wasn’t. Yet, a part of me wished I was.Later, sitting next to him holding his hand, I saw him differently. I saw him as a man instead of my father. I judged him differently.I spoke softly. “I found a photo of Uncle Charles and Mom.” He didn’t say anything, just looked away and nodded. “I was wondering how he died.”“Christ, boy.” His voice was tired.“Do you know? Were you there?”
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Five
I COULD SEE THE BEACH HOUSE from a half mile away, a crystal castle rising out of the darkness. I cut through to the beach where I rode the bike along that strip of firm sand at the edge of the water, then killed the engine, and hid it in the dunes within fifty yards of the house. If I needed to get away quickly, I’d have a better chance on the beach than on the highway. I opened the saddlebag, retrieved a pair of binoculars, and settled down in the dunes to watch the place.No one was outside. I panned the binoculars window to window, switched my cell phone off, and moved along the dunes toward the back of the house. From there, I could see into the lighted rooms on the first and second floors, but curtains were drawn across a brightly-lit chamber on the third floor. Three women were curled in chairs in the screening room watching a movie on the giant TV screen.I made a wide arc around to the house across the street from where I could see up under the beach hou
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Six
MARTHA AIMLESSLY SURFED the TV channels while waiting to hear from Richard. When the phone rang, she snapped it up immediately.“Hello?”“Martha, this is Sydney Deagan.”“Hey! Richard told me he’d seen you. How’ve you been?”“I just called his cell phone and someone else answered.”Martha pushed up in the bed. “Are you sure you called the right number?”“Yes!”“He went to Wrightsville Beach to do something for me.”“I know, but something must have gone wrong.”The TV station broke into their regular programming with a special report. “Hold on a second,” Martha said. “There’s something’s happening on TV.” Martha raised the volume.“...body of a young female was discovered just minutes ago behind a restaurant in Wrightsville Beach. Police at this time have
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Seven
SYDNEY DROVE SLOWLY up the beach highway as she and Martha scrutinized the houses along the oceanfront looking for Richard’s bike. Cars backed up behind them and gunned around them when opportunities arose.“It’s got to be somewhere along here,” Martha whispered. “It’s not much farther to the end of the road.”An impatient driver pulled out to pass just as a pair of headlights up the road turned onto the highway facing them. But instead of pulling back in behind her, the car sped up in an effort to get around her and abruptly veered to the right cutting them off. Jerking the wheel to the right, Sydney locked the brakes, her van skidding off the highway bouncing to a stop in deep sand as the two opposing cars continued on, as though nothing had happened.Sydney whispered, “You okay?”Pulling on the handle above her door, Martha winced. “I think so.”Restarting the engine, Sydney tried
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Eight
A FEW MILES NORTH of Wilmington on US 17, Bonner turned into a new subdivision under construction. He rolled past numbered stakes, road-building equipment, utility connection boxes, and new curbing to where the pavement ended and the road surface turned to rock. But the rock was hard and the shovels were of little use against it. Bonner tossed his aside, climbed on a nearby backhoe, and started the engine. He fiddled with the controls learning what each does, then clumsily maneuvered the machine to the spot they’d tried to dig, lowered its giant scoop to the rock, and powered it into the dirt. The engine groaned and the machine rose off the ground and warbled against the strain, but it dug into the rocks and opened a hole in the dirt. Moving levers back and forth, Bonner raised the scoop, shifted it to the side, and released the dirt away from the hole.“I think I got it now!” he shouted over the roaring of the engine. He swung the scoop back over the hole,
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Nine
DANE BONNER TURNED OFF Highway 133 west of Wilmington near Kendall Chapel and guided his Escalade through thick brush along an overgrown dirt trail leading back to a nineteenth-century farm house. He’d stolen the property from a client that had gotten the death penalty for the rape, torture, and murder of an eleven-year-old boy the man had picked up hitch-hiking. Although it was located in Brunswick County, it was just minutes from Wilmington along the western side of the lower Cape Fear River—a tract he now called “The Bonner Place.”The two-story frame house had been built in the late 1800s and had been wired for electricity later with exposed cables running up and down the outside of the house. The barns and sheds had been added in the more affluent 1950s. Behind the barn, there was a bulkhead and dock on the river. He got out of his car, pulled open the front doors to the barn, and parked the car inside.Bonner lit a kerosene lantern, unbolt
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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
