The Third Sister Page 11

  “But I’ve already paid!” Ilka stepped back; suddenly she was literally up against the wall. “Eighty-seven thousand dollars. You ran them through your counter yourself.”

  The woman pushed her glasses up on her forehead and nodded. She must have launched herself out of her chair the second she spotted Ilka walking by, but now she eased up a bit. “I know all of you involved have much to think about. His condition is still serious, and I certainly sympathize with the difficult situation you’re in. The money in his account is enough to cover three more days of hospital care, but his treatments will be canceled until his insurance company confirms that he is entitled to inpatient treatment, or until further funds are deposited in his patient account. Our system has canceled a scan scheduled for today, and the next three days he will receive only standard hospital care.”

  “But you can’t cancel his treatment,” Ilka stammered.

  “He will then be discharged.”

  “But you can’t send him home in his condition!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He hasn’t even been out of bed yet! We don’t even know if he can stand up. This just isn’t right.”

  “Home care is a possibility,” the woman suggested.

  “Who’s responsible for taking care of that?”

  “You, his family,” she said, as if that was obvious.

  “But he isn’t at all ready to be discharged. We don’t know if all the blood trapped in the back of his head is gone.”

  The woman nodded. “Yes, I saw in his records that it was one of the reasons for a new scan. But as the situation stands, he’s going to be discharged.”

  Ilka gasped. “But he has insurance,” she said, without thinking. She took a deep breath and focused. “I realize that yes, you’re not the one who makes the rules. And I understand the hospital system here is different from Denmark. But because I’m Danish, and because Artie and I aren’t married, it’s been a bit complicated for me to get confirmation from the insurance company. But it’s coming, and of course I’ll make sure more money is deposited in his account, so that won’t influence his treatment.”

  The woman nodded again. She seemed relieved that Ilka finally understood the gravity of the situation.

  “Please, reschedule the treatments that were canceled! And I’ll make sure everything is taken care of before the system automatically discharges him.”

  The woman promised she would do so.

  When Ilka finally got into the car, she sat for a long while before backing out of her parking space. People were on their way home from work, daylight was fading. Ilka drove over to Lake Michigan and parked at a small lookout spot. She zipped her coat up to her neck, and for over an hour she walked gloomily along the water, her hair whipping in the wind.

  Darkness had fallen by the time she returned to her car. It was clear to her now: She needed help finding Lydia.

  15

  Ilka grabbed her phone and found the message from Jeff: Fuckdate?

  She texted him back. Where are you?

  After waiting a few minutes, she called his number, but got his answering service. “Hi,” she said. “Call me.”

  She didn’t give any hint that she was calling for a different reason but also didn’t say a word about screwing him. She turned up the heat in the car and waited patiently at the lookout site for him to return her call. Ten minutes later she gave up and decided to look for him.

  She parked in front of the bar where they’d first met, on an awkward Tinder date. The woman behind the bar had known what was going on. The place had been deserted, and Ilka had nearly dragged Jeff out, even though he’d just bought beer for both of them. If the same woman was behind the bar now, she’d definitely know which Jeff Ilka was looking for.

  “Nope.” The woman rubbed her bare tattooed arms as she shook her head. “Haven’t seen Jeff today. He dropped in for a beer a few days ago, but maybe he’s on his boat. Losing his job wasn’t the greatest thing for him. If you know what I mean.”

  Ilka didn’t, not exactly. She shook her head.

  “He’s no good at not working.”

  Ilka still didn’t get it.

  “I’ve seen him with some guys you don’t want to hang around with, if you got a job to get up for the next morning.”

  “Okay.” Ilka nodded. The only thing she really cared about was that he didn’t have a new job, which meant he had time to help her. “I’ll check the boat.”

  She felt the woman’s eyes on her back as she walked out, but really, the tattooed lady could think whatever she wanted. Ilka couldn’t care less; she had more important things to worry about than her reputation. She slid into the car and drove down to the marina.

  The streetlamps along the wharf painted a narrow strip of light on the water. Jeff’s boat was moored down at the end of the pier, and even from a distance Ilka could hear music and loud voices. As she neared the boat, she noticed a dark-haired man bowed over a table; though the boat’s lights were dim, she saw him jerk up straight and throw his head back. Snorting coke, she thought.

  She stopped. More than anything in the world, Ilka wanted to turn and walk away, but she needed Jeff. And as she stood wondering what to do, Jeff spotted her and headed across the deck. She stepped closer. Several eyes on the boat locked onto her as she stood towering above them in the dark. The small gangway swayed gently with every wave.

  Jeff stepped onto the pier. “You should’ve called.” The look he gave her was clear enough; he assumed she’d come because she regretted not taking him up on the fuckdate.

  “I did, and I also left a message.”

  Something in the men’s voices told her they’d been drinking—either that, or the whole gang was doing coke. She turned back to Jeff. His pupils were dilated, but he didn’t seem as high as the others. In the short time they’d known each other they’d had a few serious run-ins, and hearing from him out of the blue had surprised her. But okay, he must be bored now that he’d lost his job as Raymond Fletcher’s bodyguard. Screwing her was probably as good a diversion as any for him.

  “I need your help. What I mean is, I have a job for you. You told me you’re good at shadowing people. Are you just as good at finding them?”

  Jeff had led her away from the boat. She felt his hand on her ass; she couldn’t really slap it away, seeing that she needed his help, but she turned to face him.

  “Of course I can track down people,” he said.

  “Do you know Sister Eileen? The nun who worked at my father’s funeral home?”

  Jeff nodded. “I know who she is.”

  “I want you to find her. Someone else is looking for her, and I need to get to her first. She’s gone underground, so it won’t be easy. She was at the hospital earlier today, but I’m pretty sure she’s planning on leaving town.”

  Ilka kept eye contact with him to emphasize she needed help now—right now. Not tomorrow.

  “Nobody goes so far underground that I can’t dig them up.” He sounded convincing. “But what’s in it for me?”

  “Money. I promise you’ll get a substantial reward when you’ve tracked her down. But don’t bring her back to the funeral home. These people looking for her are the same ones who shadowed me—you know them, you’re the one who sniffed them out. They’re keeping an eye on us, and it’s extremely important you find her before they do.”

  “Is that an order?”

  He’s getting huffy, she thought. “No, no, it’s a job. A well-paid job I’m offering you, before I look for somebody else who can handle it for me.”

  He lifted his palm in surrender.

  Ilka described what Lydia had been wearing a few days earlier, the sweater and jeans. “I’m sure she’s changed clothes since then, of course.” It occurred to her that she didn’t even know what kind of clothes the woman might be wearing. “She could have taken her nun’s habit with her.”

  It wouldn’t do any good to fill Jeff in on how the sister wasn’t really a nun, so she settled for telling h
im that she would most likely be in civilian clothes. She started explaining how Lydia had left the hospital that afternoon, but even she could hear she was repeating herself in her eagerness to provide Jeff with what leads she had.

  He laid his hands on her shoulders. His pupils were still big, but he seemed calm enough. “I’ll find her, don’t worry. Then I’ll set up a place you can meet without anyone seeing you.”

  She stood staring at him long enough to feel the warmth from his hands, the peace of mind it gave her. Then a gleam appeared in his eye and pushed aside all seriousness. He stepped closer to her.

  Ilka backed off. “You’ll be paid in cash. And you get a bonus if you can get us together tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, my fee. It’ll cost you five thousand a day.”

  “I’ll double that if you find her tomorrow. But the daily rate goes down the longer it takes you to find her.”

  “So, I get ten thousand dollars if I can hook you up with her tomorrow?”

  Ilka nodded. “The quicker you find her, the more you get paid.”

  At the moment she was ready to promise him anything. It looked as if he’d taken the bait. Ilka watched the wheels spinning in his head, perhaps calculating what was in it for him in the long run, if it turned out she had access to the Fletcher fortune. She’d almost mentioned the bag, but then she realized that would make Lydia too vulnerable. If he thought the ten thousand was the Fletcher family’s money, that was fine with her.

  “I’ll find her for you,” he promised again.

  Ilka told him he could call her anytime, day or night. She said it in the most business-like manner she could, to stop Jeff from hitting on her, but he seemed to have already gotten the hint. Before she turned to leave, he clapped his hands and yelled to his buddies on the boat that it was time to move the party.

  It wasn’t only his promise to find Lydia that eased Ilka’s mind; clearly, he would do practically anything for a day’s pay of ten thousand dollars. And she was certain he had a broad network to shake the bushes. He’d understood the message: If anyone else found her first, there would be nothing for him.

  16

  Leslie’s window was dark when Ilka parked the car and got out, but the office and the foyer were still lit, as well as her father’s room upstairs. She found him in the office’s plush leather chair, engrossed in a book. The remains of a sandwich lay on a plate beside him.

  “Leslie’s asleep,” he said, and Ilka nodded. “Have you eaten anything?”

  He laid down his book and pointed at his plate. “There’s another sandwich if you’re hungry.”

  He looked tired. Ilka had the feeling he’d stayed up waiting for her. On her way to the kitchen she asked him if he wanted a cup of tea, but he merely grunted. She realized she didn’t know her father well enough to know what he liked. They had only eaten together a few times, and she’d seen him drinking coffee, but otherwise she had no idea what he usually drank. She dropped a tea bag in the boiling water. Her fingers got smeared with curry mayonnaise when she unwrapped the chicken sandwich and laid it on a plate.

  Back in the office she pulled out the desk chair and looked at him expectantly, but he held his tongue. Suddenly she was nervous: Had the hospital informed him of the situation with Artie? Or maybe the insurance company had called him. She squirmed in her chair; she had to say something.

  “They’re going to scan him again tomorrow. So the doctors can see if the pool of blood in the back of his head is gone.”

  “It’s not easy for Leslie,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard Ilka. “She’s so mad at her mother that she won’t visit her. I tried to tell her that she’d feel better if she talked to her. Both about what happened back then, and also about that day out at the ranch. It would help Leslie understand why Mary Ann broke off contact with Leslie’s biological father without telling him she was expecting his baby.”

  He leaned forward and massaged his temples, as if he were squeezing some old sorrow out of his head. “But she won’t listen to me. She won’t even talk about it, she just lies in there on the sofa, and I can’t even tell if she’s listening.”

  He stroked his chin and looked up at Ilka in resignation. Clearly, he had no idea what to do. It was as if Leslie’s despair were a tool someone had placed in front of him that he didn’t know how to use.

  All her life, Leslie surely must have thought of herself as the daughter of a funeral director. Half Danish, half American. Presumably she had been told more than once that she looked like her father. People always said that; sometimes it wasn’t so much a physical resemblance as a similarity of movement, language, manner. The things that rub off from living in a close-knit family. Everything you absorb and mirror because you’ve seen and heard your parents do it. Inherited traits aren’t only genetic, Ilka thought. She hadn’t had the opportunity to copy her father’s movements and expressions, she hadn’t assimilated his language and favorite expressions, but the look in their eyes was the same. Their height, their slightly angular physique. It had been the opposite for Leslie.

  It didn’t surprise her that their father had no idea how to help Leslie. Had he asked Ilka one single time in the past few days about how she’d handled his abandonment, how she felt?

  A pair of headlights out in the parking lot swept across the window; then a car door slammed, then another, right outside the back door. It was nine thirty. She glanced up at her father; he was sitting straight in his chair, staring through the window. They heard voices outside.

  Ilka rose slowly as her father leaned over and opened a drawer. He brought out a thick wooden bat and rested it in his hands. The trunk of a car slammed shut, and two figures out in the darkness approached, their voices clearer now. Ilka stepped away from the window and over to the door. She froze when she heard a female voice cut through.

  She couldn’t believe her ears! She turned to her father, who sat ready for battle, his eyes glued to the hallway door. “It’s Mom. And Jette.”

  Slowly he stood up, staring at her in bewilderment. “Your mother?”

  Ilka nodded and headed for the hall as they began banging on the back door.

  Before Ilka could react, he stepped past her with the bat in his hand and hurried up the stairs.

  The banging continued. “This has to be the place,” she heard her mother say. Jette suggested they walk around to the front door.

  Ilka didn’t budge when they hammered on the door once more, nor when her phone in her coat pocket began ringing. It was as if signals from her brain had been disconnected from her feet. She couldn’t visualize, couldn’t imagine how she could plunge her mother into the middle of all this chaos. And what if the Rodriguez brothers came back? It would be much too dangerous.

  It was quiet upstairs. Her father had closed the door to his room.

  Ilka straightened up and pulled back her shoulders, then walked out into the hall and turned on the outside light. She focused on the door a moment before opening it.

  Her mother clapped her hands a single time when she saw Ilka in front of her. “What an impressive place!” She glanced up at the white wooden funeral home, illuminated now by the porch light. It was a beautiful old building; it had had the same effect on Ilka the first time she’d seen it. “I just said to Jette, this had to be the right address, I was sure of it. We saw the sign out front too, of course.”

  “What are you doing here?” It was the only thing Ilka could think of to say.

  Her mother lifted her suitcase and looked at her daughter in puzzlement. “We’re here to help you.”

  “Help,” Ilka repeated. “How did you find your way here?”

  “We met your friend down at the square when we got off the bus. He drove us the rest of the way. What people say about Americans being friendly and helpful, it’s absolutely true. He carried our suitcases and wouldn’t allow us pay him for his trouble.”

  “Friend?”

  Ilka peered out at the parking lot; it was empty except for her father’s car, the one she’d
parked there minutes ago. But when her mother explained he was an older man, and he’d also been a funeral director, Ilka guessed that they’d been lucky enough to run into Gregg.

  “Come in.”

  Ilka stepped aside and ushered them in, then quickly shut the door behind them. She remembered Leslie and worried that all the noise might have woken her up, and for a split second she was angry at her father for leaving her alone to handle all this. Yet she knew she absolutely had to keep him and her mother apart. Who could tell what would happen if her mother found out he wasn’t dead after all?

  “You two must be exhausted,” she said. Could she get away with taking them to the hotel right now, or did she have to ask them if they’d like something to eat or drink? Suddenly she realized she hadn’t said one single word of welcome. She locked the back door and led them into the foyer. Her mother stopped and gazed at the empty glass cases where the cremation jewelry had been displayed. Ilka grabbed the suitcase out of her hand and offered to take the weekend bag Jette was carrying over her shoulder.

  “Is there something I can get you? I could make tea.”

  “We ate on the plane, and we had wine too,” her mother said. “And I watched a few wonderful movies.” As if that in itself were a memorable experience. This was the farthest her mother had traveled, her first trip across the Atlantic. She and Jette had flown to Malta and Sardinia, but normally she was a homebody.

  Ilka smiled at her.

  Jette glanced at her watch. “I can feel it’s five in the morning back home. I did set my watch while we were on the plane. They say it helps with jet lag.” She yawned.

  “Did you book a hotel room?” Ilka said, thinking that if she could get them settled and into bed, she would have time to clear her head.

  Neither of them reacted.

  “I’ll call down to the hotel and rent one for you.” She headed to the office for her phone.