Gretchen jumped up. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. Instead she shouted to no one in particular, “That isn’t my mother in recovery. She didn’t have a car accident.”

“What are you saying?” Matt said.

“The car accident. It wasn’t my mother in the car. It was Daisy, the homeless woman.”

Gretchen and Matt stood beside her bed. The nurse in charge of the recovery room watched to make sure they obeyed the rules. Their instructions had been clear. No speaking to the patient. One minute, no more, to make the identification.

This was highly irregular. Frowned on by administration. But under the circumstances…

She seemed small and helpless wrapped in hospital linens and gown, and her eyes were closed. Her head was wrapped in white bandages, and tubes snaked from beneath the bedding and traveled up into a maze of equipment and monitors.

The woman who was her mother. But wasn’t.

If Daisy were conscious, she would be pleased at the attention, the part she unwittingly played. She had finally received top billing to a sold-out audience.

Gretchen struggled between feelings of intense relief that she wasn’t viewing her injured mother and overwhelming guilt because of that relief. A woman lay before her, struggling for life. Whatever distance Gretchen had felt from Daisy and her way of life was now shortened. Her possession of Caroline’s car had established a connection, and Gretchen vowed to do whatever she could to help Daisy. If only she would live.

Where was her mother? Gretchen’s search led her in a circuitous path, and with each loop she found herself traveling closer to Nacho and Daisy. How did a ragged collection of indigents get to occupy center stage?

Gretchen felt a gentle nudge and looked up into Matt’s questioning eyes.

She nodded.

16

Gretchen opened one eye. She was lying in her mother’s bed. Sunlight beamed through the slatted blinds, and Wobbles rose from the bed covers and stretched luxuriantly.

Images from the night before flashed through her mind. Nina’s expression when she learned that Daisy, not her cherished older sister, lay beyond the waiting room doors. Endless phone calls, correcting false information dispersed earlier to frightened relatives. The reaction that remained central in Gretchen’s mind was Aunt Gertie’s unique analysis: “The woman who fell from your mountain obviously wasn’t murdered for love, so it had to be about money,” she had said late last night. “She hid her dolls, and everyone’s scrambling around hoping to cash in. It appears you and your airhead Aunt Nina and, of course, the cops, who never know anything anyway, are the only ones who don’t know what’s going on.”

“What about my mother?” Gretchen had asked.

“Your mother knows more than anybody,” Aunt Gertie insisted. “That’s why she’s holed up.”

Holed up? Gretchen hadn’t heard that expression since the days she watched old westerns with her father. The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and Bonnie and Clyde. Holed up invoked images of outlaw behavior, albeit romantic, glorified criminals who died young.

Gretchen forced the image of Bonnie and Clyde’s last moments from her mind. Riddled with bullets.

Aunt Gertie’s down-home attitude appealed to Gretchen in spite of her phrase turning. She said what she meant and did what she had to do and didn’t care what others thought of her. You always knew where you stood with Aunt Gertie. She epitomized their family of mostly strong women.

Gretchen couldn’t say the same for herself. She was the exception.

She made her second vow in the last twenty-four hours. The first was to Daisy and their future relationship. The second was to herself. She would, in military terms, muster up, find those strength genes running renegade inside her, and harness them together.

Today she would wear her new attitude like a gun holster on her hip.

“Let’s go,” she called to Nina, buried under a pile of blankets on Caroline’s sofa where she had collapsed in exhaustion. Tutu’s head popped out at the bottom of the blankets next to one purple-lacquered toe. When Gretchen pulled back the covers she found Nimrod sleeping in Nina’s armpit. “Rise and shine. We’re on a mission today, and you’ll have to start out at a run to keep up with me.”

Wobbles wound through her legs while she made coffee. She dumped two extra tablespoons into the filter to symbolize her new strength and fortitude and then fed all the animals. “The dogs are staying home today, Nina. We have to stay flexible because…” She leaned into Nina’s blanketed form as it rose and moved toward her like a zombie from beyond. “… today we will either find my mother or find out what really happened, or both.”

Nina, slumped in a kitchen chair while Gretchen toasted sourdough bread and sliced a thick wedge of Vermont cheddar. “Eat,” Gretchen ordered.

She checked her array of voice machines: apartment in Boston, cell phone voice mail, and her mother’s personal answering machine. A few acquaintances in Boston wondered when she would be back, a message from Steve sounding annoyed and wanting to know what was going on “since yesterday’s fiasco,” and a message from Larry.

“I’ve put all Caroline’s projects on hold,” Larry said. “Except a few of the most pressing jobs. When I let the dogs out yesterday I also reprogrammed the voice message on Caroline’s business machine, directing all calls to my number until further notice. I hope you don’t mind. If you find that you have to do something with your hands because waiting is driving you mad, I left a few simple restringing jobs behind. There’s no hurry on those, though. Keep me posted.”

Briefly Gretchen wondered if Larry’s intentions were as unmotivated as he pretended. Reprogramming her mother’s machine seemed like a bold thing to do, considering the competitive nature of the doll business. Well, Gretchen reasoned, her mother would have lost customers with unmet deadlines anyway.

She decided to ignore Steve’s message and his petulant remark. This was the new Gretchen Birch.

She drove away from the house with a grumbling, pet-free Nina riding shotgun. Detective Albright pulled out from the curb behind them. “Doesn’t he have anything better to do?” Gretchen said. “He knows by now that I don’t have a clue where she is. Is he waiting for me to solve the case for him? Tagging along to claim the prize and win a promotion?”

“He’s probably looking out for you,” Nina said. “I think he’s cute.”

When they turned onto Lincoln, Gretchen dialed 911. “I’m being followed,” she said into the phone. “The driver is shaking a tire iron at me in a threatening way and displaying obscene gestures. In fact, he tried to run me off the road. Please help.”

Nina stared at Gretchen.

“No, he’s too close to read his license number.” Gretchen gave the dispatcher her location. “He’s driving a blue Chevrolet. Me…?” Gretchen hesitated, searching the cars ahead of her and spotting a likely candidate. “I’m driving a yellow Mercedes convertible. We’ll be passing Twenty-fourth Street soon.”

A few minutes later, Gretchen heard sirens in the distance. Without signaling, she abruptly pulled over on the shoulder of the street, startling Matt, who had no recourse other than to continue on ahead of her. He slowed, then pulled over when he heard the siren and saw the lights looming behind him.