The officer left the desk and made his way over to us through the crowd. “Mrs. Scott?”

Margot looked horrified. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Scott, I need to ask you a couple questions about your sister. Would you mind following me to the hospital’s security office? It’s just down the hall.” Now we had the attention of every person in the room, and no one pretended to read their magazines anymore.

Margot got up slowly and turned to her son. “Jon, you better go with me.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I need to speak to you alone.”

It was all he needed to say. Suddenly, the color was back in her face and the old Margot was back. “It’s either my son or my lawyer. I’ll let you choose.”

“Uh, well I guess it will be okay.”

She turned to me. “Come and get me if you hear anything before this keystone cop is finished, will you, Jake?” She said it so nicely that no one would have guessed she had just chewed me up and spit me out. “I’ll leave word at the desk to get you if the doctors come out before I get back.” Her face exposed her joy of being in charge again; she had that smug smile that set her apart from her sister.

***

Margot and Jon weren’t gone five minutes before a nurse came looking for me. “Mr. Martin?” I could tell without asking that it was good news. I spent enough time in hospitals last year when Julie was dying to be able to read a nurse’s face.

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Jones would like to see you.”

***

I had expected to see tubes sticking out of Bonnie’s head like a mythological hydra. All she had were a few wires leading from something in her gown pocket to the inside of the gown. She wasn’t even hooked up to an IV.

“How you doing, Bon Bon?” I asked with a forced smile. “Fred said to say hi, and wants to know when you’ll be home to feed him your leftovers.”

She wanted to answer, but her tears wouldn’t let her. I cautiously reached out for her hand to hold it, and waited for the tears to stop.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” Margot had thrown open the curtain that separated Bonnie from the other ER patients, and she was furious.

“I told you to come and get me! Haven’t you done enough damage for one day?”

The policeman from the waiting room was standing behind her, so I didn’t bother to tell her off. Instead, I turned back to Bonnie without answering. “I better be going, kid. Freddie will be happy to hear you’re doing so well.”

I gave Bonnie’s hand a little squeeze and stood up to face her sister. “Please call me with her room number when they move her, Margot. I’d like to send some flowers to cheer her up.”

“Like hell I will! Get out of here before I have you arrested.”

***

Jonathan didn’t see me when I walked past the waiting room. His thumbs were working the virtual keyboard of his cell phone and it took all his attention. I wanted to ask him what the police had to say, but didn’t need another confrontation so I kept on going.

***

I tried to call Bonnie the minute Fred woke me, but had to wait. Margot had left instructions at the switchboard not to put me through, or give me Bonnie’s room number. If she didn’t call me soon, I would call back pretending to be Jonathan.

Fred didn’t seem to mind that my scrambled eggs were no match for Bonnie’s. He scarfed them down, his and mine, even though they were burned beyond recognition, and wanted back out before I could finish my first cup of coffee.

I checked the time on my cell phone while watching Fred sniff ground he had smelled a thousand times. It was too soon to impersonate Jonathan, so I decided to sit out on my back deck with my notebook and do some work. No sooner had I sat down than I saw a car on the lower part of the road.

With only four other houses on Columbine Circle, I rarely see any traffic, so it’s always a good excuse to stop writing whenever a car drives by. However, this time I didn’t recognize the car that pulled into Bonnie’s drive. Fred must have heard it too, and was now barking to be let back in. I ignored Fred and waited to see who got out of the car.

Bonnie’s house was just too far away to make out the driver, other than it was a woman. The same was true for the car. I could see it was a dark blue, or black, late-model crossover, but that’s all I recognized. Ever since someone got the great idea to mate an SUV with a mini-van, I haven’t been able to tell one from another. I lost sight of it after she parked in the driveway, but saw her again when she started up Bonnie’s front stairs. Unless it was a guy in drag, there was no doubt that the driver was a woman. She was short with gray hair and wasn’t more than a couple feet taller than the stair railing.

She disappeared again when she reached the deck and headed for Bonnie’s front door. Usually, it is possible to hear people talk on the lower road, so listening for Bonnie’s bell, or a knock on the door wasn’t out of the question. Fred ruined that for me with his insistent barking to come in.

I gave up trying to listen and went to let Fred in. He looked at me, barked, and ran down the stairs when I opened the door. “It’s not Bonnie, Freddie, but let me put on some shoes and we’ll go down there and see who it is.” He seemed to understand, and sat without another bark.

We should have gone straight down the path between the two houses, as it was the shortest and quickest route, but I didn’t want to be seen trespassing in case the woman had been sent there by Margot. I would have to stay on the road and take the long way down to her house. All I got for being so cautious was a glimpse of the woman’s car in a cloud of dust when we finally made it to the lower road.

Fred and I continued on the road until we reached Bonnie’s house. He ran up her stairs to the front door, so I followed. I checked the lock and peeked in the windows while he paced back and forth sniffing for odors undetectable to the human nose. The door and windows were secure and nothing I could see through the windows seemed to be out of place. We left taking the shortcut up the hill to call Bonnie. That’s when I found out why the Lakewood cop had wanted to talk to Margot.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Beethoven was playing on my cell when Fred and I made it back to my cabin. Bonnie had left several messages for me to call her back. I punched in the hospital’s number after listening to the first message and heard the urgency in her voice.

“Jake! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get you all morning,” she said when she heard my voice.

“I’m sorry, Bon. Fred and I went on a walk around the circle. You know what lousy reception we get up here. I didn’t get your calls.” I neglected to tell her why we went on the walk. “How are you doing? I wanted to check earlier but figured you needed your rest.”

“Don’t worry about this old broad. It’ll take more than a little heart attack to keep me down.”

“So it was a heart attack?”

“So they say. They also say you saved my life. I don’t know how…”

Her voice broke up, and I thought I heard a muffled sob. “Bon, are you sure you’re okay?”

I waited what seemed like minutes for her to come back on the line. In reality, it was only a few seconds, but if I were a nail biter, my fingers would have been bleeding.

“Oh, Jake, I hate to ask you this after you’ve done so much for me, but I think they’re going to arrest me.”

“Is that why the cop was there? To arrest you?”

“No. He wanted to know if I had a personalized manicure kit. I need you to get the kit from my bedroom and put it someplace where it can’t be found.”

“Did he mention your initials on the file?”

“No, but I’ll tell you, Jake, I came this close to confessing.”