A Pair of Docks

by Jennifer Ellis

  Marian Beckham had always seemed to Abbey to be magically charismatic and beautiful. At almost six feet tall—Abbey could only think of distance in metric, Abbey’s mother towered over other women and could look her husband directly in the eye. She was brilliant and sure of herself almost to the point of belligerence, and generally put even the most determined of opponents in their place on the playground, in social settings, in the boardroom, and, Abbey suspected, in City Hall. But this evening, her mother looked smaller than usual and more vulnerable. A single streak of white carved through her glossy brown hair, and faint pinkish bruises seemed to mark her eyelids. Abbey suppressed a pang of worry. It was probably just weariness. Her mother would rise in the morning and be as stunning and invincible as ever. She always did.

  Abbey sat on the couch next to her mother’s hip. Her mother’s eyelids flickered and her hand came up automatically to ruffle Abbey’s hair.

  “How’s my favorite Abbey?” she said, her voice wan and drowsy.

  “Fine, Mom. How are you?”

  “So tired. I’m so glad this is almost over. Two more weeks of campaigning. It’s such a slog. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I can even make it. I promise, as soon as the election is over we’ll take that trip to New York to go to the Museum of Natural History like I promised. Are you feeling neglected?”

  Abbey paused. Her mother always felt guilty. She should tell her mother everything. Her mother would take control and Abbey would be safe and protected. But tonight, oddly, her mother looked like the one who needed to be protected. Abbey would find a better time to tell her. “No, not at all, Mom.” She patted her mom’s arm.

  Caleb drifted past with his finger pressed to the side of his nose—their agreed-upon signal that all was fine in the crypt—before heading to his room. Another late-night conference in Abbey’s room would alert their parents that something was up. She must’ve left the basement door open when she ran out.

  She was just quite sure that she hadn’t.

  The phone rang while Abbey was still at the breakfast table spooning oatmeal into her mouth. The caller ID said Greenhill Regional Hospital. Abbey snatched the phone up. Their parents had left for work a couple of minutes before. They couldn’t have gone far enough to have been in an accident and already transported to the hospital.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this the Sinclair residence?”

  “It is.” Abbey’s heart began to pound.

  “This is Shannon Danes at the Regional Hospital. We have a stroke victim here. A Francis Forrester. We’ve asked her about next of kin, and she opened the phone book to your number and keeps pointing at it. Do you know her?”

  Abbey tried to imitate her mother’s patterns of speech. “Why, yes, she’s our neighbor.”

  “Oh, okay. Not a relative then?”

  “No. But we’re very close. Can you tell me, is she going to be okay? Where’s Mark?”

  The nurse’s voice became hesitant, but she continued. “Mark has been taken to a group home. Mrs. Forrester will likely be okay. But if you’re not a relative, I can’t tell you much more. She’s been pretty insistent we call you. I think she’s worried about Mark. Do you know of any relatives we can contact?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Abbey hung up the phone and provided a quick summary to Simon and Caleb.

  “Why would she be calling for Mom? They know each other but they aren’t friends,” Abbey said. “We have to go see her.”

  “I thought we were going to Granton,” Simon said.

  Abbey grabbed her backpack. “I think we should go to the hospital first. Mrs. Forrester knows something. Then we can go to Granton and then back to school for the game. I promised I’d meet Becca’s new boyfriend.”

  Caleb rolled his eyes. “Is that really important?”

  “Yes,” Abbey retorted. “It’s the game against Greenhill you wanted to go to, remember?” Her despair from the night before had been replaced by a kind of manic determination to save Caleb’s life. Or Simon’s. Or her own. Or prove that this whole thing was just a farcical dream.

  The bus doors closed behind them with a whoosh of warm air as they stepped out at the Greenhill Regional Hospital. The hushed chatter and constant hum of the bus shifted to the whir of the hospital fans as the hooded windows of the cement edifice loomed above them. They walked slowly into the busy lobby. Hospital staff in scrubs rushed past with charts and pushed carts with food and vials back and forth. Men, women and children lined benches along the walls in the waiting area, wearing sullen and tired looks. Every surface seemed like it could be teeming with germs. A woman with stray bits of blond hair escaping a ponytail chased a toddler who followed the institutional bright green arrow that led to radiology.

  The smell and heat of the hospital flooded over Abbey.

  An older woman with a mass of frazzled, unnaturally blond hair, glasses, and a cheery set of blue scrubs adorned with large yellow daisies sat at the reception desk.

  “Visiting, emergency, or admissions?” she asked.

  “Um, visiting Francis Forrester,” Abbey said.

  The woman typed something on the computer and then squinted at the trio. “She’s in ICU. Family only.”

  Abbey smiled in her best Caleb way. “We’re her children.”

  The woman scowled and glanced back at her screen. “Mrs. Forrester is sixty-six.”

  “We’re adopted,” said Abbey. “We need to see her. The nurse…” Abbey searched her mind for the name, “Shannon Danes, called us this morning. Mom has been asking for us.”

  The woman looked sternly over the rims of her glasses. “I’ll give you a pass to buzz in to that unit, but the ICU is not the place for children, so no funny business.”

  “Nice work, Ab,” Caleb commented as they headed to a bank of silvery elevators following the grimy orange arrow marked ICU.

  The card buzzed them in to a long room lined with beds separated by curtains. Most of the beds were occupied with prone forms, and the beeps of machines of all kinds echoed around the hushed room. As Abbey, Caleb, and Simon stepped into the room, a heavyset nurse with fluffy brown hair, a plain set of blue scrubs, and a nametag that read Denise blocked their path.

  “Francis Forrester…” Abbey managed to mumble.

  “And you are?” Denise asked.

  “Her children,” Abbey said. “We’re adopted. Shannon Danes called us.”

  Denise seemed to accept the fabrication, or didn’t care. “Mrs. Forrester is over there. I’m expecting another patient in from surgery shortly. And then Mrs. Forrester is going for a CT scan. You have ten minutes. She has aphasia, so she can’t speak or write at this point in time. We’ve had some luck with drawing.”

  “And where is Mark? Ah, our brother?” Abbey tacked on hastily.

  “I’m afraid he was taken to the Blue Moon Halfway House a few hours ago. He was too disruptive here, and there are specific orders in Mrs. Forrester’s file that in the event she’s incapacitated, he’s not to be sent home alone. I assume someone else is caring for you at home, then?” Denise looked at her intently, in that condescending, suspicious way some adults use to deal with young children or people with cognitive impairments. She was probably trying to figure out whether there was a reason for her to be calling Social Services.

  Abbey stumbled over her answer. “Um, oh yes. Our aunt is staying with us, but she can’t handle Mark, too.”

  The nurse’s smile grew more forced and her eyes roved Abbey as if searching for signs of neglect. But the ICU doors swung open as a hospital bed was pushed in bearing a woman with wires attached to her everywhere, and Denise hustled away.

  Abbey approached the bed the nurse had indicated, with Caleb and Simon trailing behind. A pile of hospital pillows dwarfed Mrs. Forrester, her eyes sunken shrouds, and her tiny body outlined by the folds of the gray wool blanket. Abbey sank into the chair by the bed, unsure what to do. Mrs. Forrester’s weathered and spotted hand lay o
n the blankets beside her. Abbey had to look away from the bulging blue veins that bifurcated their way across the woman’s hand. Abbey gently pressed her fingertips to Mrs. Forrester’s. The woman’s eyes popped open.

  Abbey spoke quickly. “Mrs. Forrester, were you asking for us?”

  Mrs. Forrester shook her head violently. Abbey was about to apologize for the disturbance, when she realized Mrs. Forrester was jabbing her finger toward the bedside table, where a notepad and pencil sat. Abbey picked them up and handed them to the woman, who began to scribble. After a few seconds, she ripped a sheet off, handed it to Abbey, and immediately started to draw something on the next sheet of paper. Abbey peered at the drawing in her hands. It was of two large squares surrounded by what appeared to be waves.

  Mrs. Forrester thrust another sheet of paper at Abbey. Abbey passed the first sheet to Caleb and Simon and studied the second. It was a picture of a man with something around his neck, standing next to a bed, a truck, and a phone. Abbey scrunched up her face at Mrs. Forrester, who had already started on a third sketch. The ICU doors opened and a pair of orderlies pushing a bed headed their way. Mrs. Forrester kept scribbling.

  Denise appeared at the side of the bed and began disconnecting Mrs. Forrester from various machines, piling the wires on the blanket on top of Mrs. Forrester. “Okay, finish up your drawing, time to go. They’ll be waiting for you.” Mrs. Forrester swatted at the nurse, who rolled her eyes. “She’s a feisty one. That’ll help in her recovery.” Then she spoke directly into Mrs. Forrester’s face. “Mrs. Forrester, you have to go now.” Mrs. Forrester ignored the order.

  Two orderlies moved in and hauled the older woman from the ICU bed to the one waiting for transport, and started wheeling it out of the ICU. Abbey followed the bed. Mrs. Forrester waved the notepad in the air. Abbey took the notepad and the older woman grabbed Abbey’s hand and squeezed it twice. And then Mrs. Forrester let go, the ICU doors opened, and she disappeared through them. Abbey looked at the notepad. An insect and a man with slicked hair were in hand-to-hand—or hand-to-claw—combat, while maps littered the ground beneath them.

  Caleb appeared at her elbow with the bus schedule in hand. “Next bus to Granton is in eight minutes. We can figure the drawings out during the ride.” He pointed at the picture in Abbey’s hand. “That’s for sure a praying mantis going after Mark. Maybe she’s telling us we have to protect Mark. If we’re going to stop at the Blue Moon Halfway House after we go to Granton, we’d better get going.”

  Chapter 9

  Profits and Pairs of Docks

  The grinding of the bus wheels felt reassuring after the antiseptic hum of the hospital. The tightness in Abbey’s chest eased a little. She hoped Mrs. Forrester would be okay.

  They would arrive in Granton in twenty-five minutes. Abbey studied the drawing in her hands. It was the drawing of the phone, man, bed, and truck. The man had something dangling around his neck, a necktie, a noose… Abbey couldn’t tell.

  The bus lurched forward and Abbey and Caleb slammed against their seat. Inertia. A body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Abbey wondered if inertia could apply to time, if she could put the brakes on the three of them hurtling into the future until they could figure this out.

  Caleb leaned over. “Do you think there are poisons that can cause a stroke?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because someone, probably Mantis, came and took away the glasses. Someone who clearly didn’t want anyone to know there were two people there.” Caleb pointed at the drawing in Abbey’s hand. “That looks like a stethoscope.”

  Abbey twisted the picture to the side. Caleb was right. The thing around the man’s neck could be a stethoscope. “Maybe the man is a doctor.”

  Simon’s black hoodie appeared between them from the seat behind. He held up his drawing. “Do you think these squares are wharves?”

  Abbey shrugged at the drawing Simon held. “She must know, then,” said Abbey, “that we’ve been through the stones. Why else would she give us all this?” The thought both sickened and comforted Abbey, as if having an adult know—and not think they were crazy—normalized it somehow.

  Caleb flapped the bus schedule at them. “Our stop is next. Simon, do you want to maybe tell us what Salvador Systems does?”

  Simon leaned his arms on the seat. “It’s a start-up computer hardware company. Apparently they’re building quantum computers, which will be way faster than current computers, because they encode information as qubits, which can exist in superposition. It’s never been done before, but apparently Sylvain Salvador, the owner, has Quentin Steinam as an investor, which is a big deal.”

  “Who’s Quentin Steinam?” Abbey asked.

  “Steinam is a well-known investor in the next biggest thing in the computer industry. Everything he’s ever invested in has gone big—iTunes, Google, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. In the computer industry, if you have Steinam as an investor, you’re gold. He always has his finger in the pie.”

  “And he’s investing in a company here in Granton, the zinc capital of the Midwest?” Caleb asked. He pulled the wire to signal the next stop.

  “That’s the funny thing. Apparently, Steinam has a big ranch somewhere on Circle Plateau. But he’s really weird, like a recluse. Nobody even knows what he looks like. In fact, there were no photos online of either of them, Salvador or Steinam.”

  The bus rolled up to the curb and Abbey, Caleb, and Simon waited for the back doors to swing open. The sky opened at the same time as the doors, and a torrent of rain struck them in the face as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  The rain struck the puddles so hard that it appeared to be raining up as well as down. Abbey’s orange and pink striped sweater was soaked by the time they arrived in front of the glassy doors of Salvador Systems. A big, glossy ‘S’ entwined with another ‘S’ hung above the door. Abbey traced them in the air with her fingers. The twisty S’s.

  “They’re the S’s from the spaceship,” she breathed. They seemed as if they might slide off the wall and wrap themselves around her leg.

  “Guess we’re in the right place then,” said Caleb.

  The doors opened. Three young men in jeans and hoodies sauntered out.

  “Programmers,” said Simon.

  The lobby was a glossy ensemble of stainless-steel fixtures with glass accents and leather couches. Asymmetric artwork and company photos completed the funky urban loft appeal. Silver doors with a sensor pad blocked the way to the rest of the building. A large mirror with the entwined S’s formed a backdrop to the room.

  “Now what?” asked Abbey.

  Simon settled onto a couch and looked at Caleb. “Now we wait. You go to the parking lot and see if the blue Jag is there. Abbey, try to look like you’re waiting for someone else.”

  Caleb raised his eyebrow at Abbey, his only reaction to Simon’s suddenly officious manner, but headed back out into the rain.

  Abbey went to look at some of the photos on the walls. They were mostly company shots, in which no individuals were distinguishable amongst the sea of faces. But one individual shot caught her attention. It looked like an awards ceremony. A tall man stood with his back to the photographer, receiving a plaque from older man with glasses and wild hair. The caption on the photo read: Sylvain Salvador gives scholarship donation to Dr. Paul Ford of Coventry College. Abbey studied Sylvain Salvador’s back. He was tall for sure, dwarfing the doctor who was presenting him with the degree, and Salvador had silvery hair like Mantis, although in this photo his hair was short. Still, Salvador could be Mantis. Next to the photo of Salvador was a framed column from a magazine named Bytes. Quentin Steinam: Industry Prophet Reaps Profit, read the title.

  The silver door opened and a young man with a goatee emerged.

  Simon stood and extended his hand. The man drew back in what appeared to be horror. Lobby stalkers were clearly not common at Salvador Systems.

  Simon spoke in hushed tones. Abbey was t
oo far away to hear. She moved away to stare out the window at the grayness beyond. A stream of water ran down the side of the road to pool in a murky mass at the curb. She heard voices behind her. The goateed man had apparently not decided Simon was a raving lunatic—not yet anyway. She relaxed her tensed muscles fractionally. Her stomach growled. She checked her watch. It was 12:42. They’d have to grab lunch soon.

  Abbey glanced up just in time to see the silver blue Jag driving past the building. Mantis was behind the wheel, eyes focused straight ahead, a sweep of white hair falling to his shoulder. In the passenger seat, looking at her with wide eyes, sat Caleb. The Jag continued on past the building and turned left at the lights.

  Abbey stifled a scream and ran-walked to Simon.

  She yanked his sleeve. “We have to go.”

  “I’m in the middle of the interview, Ab.” Simon rolled his eyes at the goateed man. “My assistant,” he said.

  Abbey tried to keep her voice calm. “Caleb has gone for a drive in the blue Jag.”

  Simon looked at her, his eyebrows raised, his forehead creased into furrows. He turned back to the goateed man. “My other assistant. Looks like I have to go. Thanks for all your help.”

  “Sure thing,” the man said. “A blue Jag, huh? Sounds like he managed to scoop an interview with Sylvain. That’s a first.” The man continued out the front door.