Wyler didn't know an aphid from an apricot, but he had no doubt that Dorothea had set up a perfectly reasonable scenario. He didn't care; he didn't care about anything else in the world just then except the woman lying unconscious in the rose garden. When he got back to Meg he stripped away her shorts and rinsed her off still more, rubbing her limbs clean with his handkerchief. He had no idea whether he was doing anything right; his hands were shaking with apprehension.
But he knew how to treat a victim in shock. He wrapped Meg in the cashmere throw, then carried her back into the house and laid her on the thick knotted rug with her legs elevated, and monitored her breathing and pulse, ready to give her CPR, until the ambulance arrived through the iron gates that Dorothea Camplin had been commanded to open.
****
"You again?"
Wyler lifted his head from his hands and looked up.
It was the curmudgeon nurse, standing above him, only this time she had a look of compassion on her face. "I just heard about Mrs. Hazard. What a bizarre accident. I don't know ... sometimes fate can be so ridiculously cruel ..."
She put her hand on his shoulder, then pressed her lips together in a hapless smile and continued on her way.
Wyler dropped his head back in his hands, unwilling and unable to change from that position. He'd been like that, numb with anticipation, since Meg was admitted. In his entire life he'd never shut down as completely as he had now. The only part of his consciousness that wasn't focused on Meg's recovery was, every once in a while, saying things like, Have them bring the old woman in, stupid. Don't let her fool with the scene.
He didn't care about that; he had no room to care about that. If Meg lived — of course she would live, she had to live — she would be furious with him for not being on top of her case. But he couldn't move. He was in a state of suspended animation. His soul was somewhere outside of his body, moving restlessly between Meg's body and his, trying to reassure her, trying to reassure himself. She would live. She had to live.
One eternity rolled into the next, and finally, someone came out to see him.
"Her vital signs have stabilized," the physician said, cutting straight to the chase. He knew who Wyler was; he didn't mince words. "She definitely dodged a bullet out there. We're going to keep her here for a couple of days, make sure we've flushed out her system. She'll be on medication to strengthen her heartbeat. I understand her sister's being treated here too? That would be — you?" he asked, shifting his attention away from Wyler.
"Yes, Doctor. That's me. I'm her sister, Allegra Atwells." Wyler swung around and was stunned to see Allie, wrapped in a yellow robe with one sleeve cut away, standing behind him and hanging as anxiously as he was on every word. Everett Atwells was there, too, materialized out of thin air.
The physician smiled reassuringly. "She's going to be fine."
"Can we see her?" her father asked humbly, rotating his cap in his hand like a peasant seeking an audience with royals.
The physician scrunched his face good-naturedly. "Actually, no. I'd give her a little while. She's been through hell. What she needs now is uninterrupted rest." He repeated, "She's going to be fine," then excused himself and left.
Wyler said to Allie and her father, "I'm sorry. I hadn't noticed either of you."
Allie and her father exchanged looks. Allie said, "We've been waiting here with you for the last half hour."
"Oh, I knew that," he said, although he couldn't remember a moment of it. "I meant, naturally he should've addressed himself to you two, not to me."
Allie drummed the fingers of her right hand nervously on her cast, then closed her eyes and let out a sigh of jittery relief. "I can hardly let myself think about this. If you hadn't gone looking for her when you did ..."
She shook her head and opened her eyes. "What did you say Dorothea was doing? Bringing out tea to the garden?"
If he said it, he didn't remember it, but he nodded. At the same time, a red flag went up in the back of his mind.
Allie said, "She would've found Meg, I guess. But who knows what her reaction would've been. She might've gone into useless hysterics; some people are like that."
"Not, I think, Dorothea Camplin," Wyler said with tightly controlled understatement. Suddenly he was back in focus. He smiled a private, wry smile, knowing that Meg would be pleased that he was on the case.
Everett Atwells, exhausted and adrift without his daughter to boss him around, said, "Should I stay? Should I go? What would she want?"
"Go back to Uncle Billy's, Dad, and get some rest," Allie said gently. "I'll be here for her."
Allie looked at Wyler as she said it, answering the question that had been hovering in the air between them. Wyler put his arm around her and kissed her on her cheek.
"You're doing the right thing, kiddo," he said softly.
"I'm not, Tom; things are still the same," she repeated, frowning. "But this is different."
Wyler left her there, convinced that if he lived to be a hundred and two, he'd never understand what made sisters tick. All he could do was cross his fingers and hope that love ran deeper than pride. In the meantime, he had a stop to make downtown.
****
He was at Meg's hospital room early the next morning, before visiting hours. Strictly speaking, his visit was an official one; but his heart was beating like a schoolboy's as he waited for the nurse to give him permission to enter the room.
Meg looked better than he thought possible after what she'd been through. She smiled weakly when he came in. "Hi. You're the first one they've let me see," she said.
He sat next to her and took her hand in his, just to make sure she was real; the sense that spirits had been coming and going and doing some hard bargaining was with him still.
She was real. Her hand felt warm and solid. He bent over and kissed it in simple homage to the fact that she was alive. He was not a praying man, but he'd prayed plenty on the day before. His prayers had been answered, and now, as he bent over her hand, he mustered one more prayer, a prayer of profound and humble thanks.
She said, "I remember telling you ... back in your cabin ... that you were the right man at the wrong place at the wrong time." She smiled and said, "I take it all back."
He laughed softly. "I remember telling you — back in my cabin — that you were the most headstrong woman I'd ever met. I stand convinced."
"Okay, okay," she said, blushing a wonderful, healthy shade of pink. "So I've suffered a minor setback. But I think she's going to lend me the money — out of guilt, if for no other reason."
Wyler stared at Meg, amazed. She'd marched in and out of the lion's den without ever realizing there was an animal lurking there. "You have no idea what happened?" he asked, disappointed.
Her face became pale. "I guess not. My recollection and reality don't seem to match. What did Mrs. Camplin say?"
"Never mind her," Wyler answered. "Tell me, from start to finish, what you think happened. Every little thing."
She was reluctant to live through it again, but with some coaxing, she obliged him. He was hard pressed to keep a calm demeanor when she described the little red bottle, even harder pressed when she described the onset of symptoms shortly afterward. He wanted to jump up and get a search warrant going, but he had to hear her through. It was worth the wait.
"You saw her throw the bucket of water on you?"
"Yes. No. No, that part I dreamed. I think I was delirious. I felt so thirsty, I wanted a drink ... I think she was like a mirage, you know? Everything was so blurry, almost hallucinatory. No. I must've dreamed that part. I must've staggered, and pulled the bucket over me, and that's what you found. I mean, what else?"
"All right," he said calmly. "I want you to think about it some more. Someone will be by later to take a statement from you, Meg. Tell them what you remember as accurately as you can. Don't try to make sense of it. Just tell him what you remember."
He leaned over and kissed her on her lips, which brought more delicious color
to her cheeks. He backed out of the room nonchalantly, then raced like hell to the nearest phone and dialed the Bar Harbor police. The red bottle was great news, the so-called hallucinatory recollection not so great news. But all the little pieces fit. What pleased Wyler particularly was Meg's recollection that she'd got tired of waiting for her tea.
Because he remembered, in his slow-motion replay of the event, that no steam was coming out of the little yellow teapot that Mrs. Camplin had decided, finally and suddenly, to haul out to the garden.
****
Meg had just completed her statement to the police when Allie knocked on the open door and came in. She was dressed in a white sleeveless sundress and a big white baseball cap that she was wearing backward over her shaved head, an odd but whimsical combination that made her look like a street-fighting angel.
"I like the look," Meg said when her sister sat down silently next to her. She thumped lightly on Allie's cast. "You always did know how to accessorize."
Meg was being as light and flippant as she knew how, to make her sister feel at ease. But there was a hard lump in her throat, and when Allie didn't say anything, the lump got harder.
"You could have died," Allie whispered reproachfully, a tear rolling down her cheek.
"You could have died," Meg shot back, unable to keep the reproach out of her voice, either.
Allie shook her head in warning. "Don't start, Meg. I know it was a stupid, dumb slip. Do you think I don't regret it? But it forced me to lie still for a while and ... reconsider."
Reconsider. The word had a joyous ring to it. Meg had hoped for nothing else since Allie's accident: that she would reconsider, and forgive, and someday forget.
Allie took a deep breath and went on. "This sounds so selfish, but — for the first time in my life, I had to ask myself, what would I do without you? Who would I go to for advice? Who would approve my decisions, or even make them outright for me?"
"I don't do that anymore," Meg said lamely. But it was a lie, and both of them knew it.
Allie said, "You've been the mother I got cheated out of, and I've been the daughter you never had. And it worked out well, for a pretty long time. But you have other ... needs, and I have other wants."
Meg winced. Eventually it had to come around to this, to Tom; it was bound to. "Everybody makes mistakes," she said. "You have to be able to let me make them too." She added wryly, "God knows I'm good at it."
"I'm not talking about the cabin," Allie said impatiently. She jumped up and began to pace, the way she always did when she was working something through. "I have to come out from behind your skirts, Meg. It's way past the time for it. There are kids out there half my age with twice my experience —"
"But you don't live in the Bronx," Meg argued. "You live in a nice, old-fashioned town." And yet she knew that Allie was right: she was amazingly innocent. To Meg, it was part of her great charm, to be twenty-five and naïve.
"I don't want to live in a nice, old-fashioned town, Meg. I don't want to go into the hospitality industry. I've been saying that for a long time; you just haven't wanted to hear it."
"We don't have to talk about that now — do we?" Meg pleaded. The subject was pure, dry tinder. Anything Meg said would put a torch to it.
"We do, because I want you to know that what happened between you and Tom has nothing to do with the decision I've made."
"What happened between Tom and me will never happen again!" Meg said, interrupting her. "I've wanted to tell you that ever since ... that day."
"'That day'? You make it sound like it'll live on in infamy, like the Salem witch trials or something. Meg, you're in love with him — and he's definitely in love with you. He's not married, you're not married. You get to make love with one another; it's one of the perks of being born after the Inquisition."
"Right," Meg said dully, letting her head fall back on the pillow.
Allie sighed and came back to her seat. "Look. That whole triangle was my fault. There shouldn't have been a triangle; Tom was sending me steady signals to butt out all along. I just didn't want to recognize them. He was my first love, Meg," she said in poignant apology. "First loves are pure magic — because we have no idea that they'll ever end."
It was such a sad, disillusioned thing for Allie to say. Meg couldn't agree less; she herself would never stop loving Tom. "Sometimes they don't end," she confessed.
Allie leaned over and kissed her sister on the forehead. "All the more reason not to be a jerk."
Allie walked over to the window, past the other, empty bed, and stared outside. "I'm going to Greece, Meg," she murmured. "Next week."
Crease? Geese? Meg didn't quite catch what her sister said. "What's at the end of the week?" she asked.
Allie turned around. "You remember Dmitri Kronos? He spent a weekend here last summer? His parents have a place on Crete. I'm going there to finish out the season, and after that, he and I will go to his parents' winter place in St. Moritz."
"Why?"
Allie shrugged. "He asked."
"That's no reason, Allie! Besides, you don't have any money!"
"I won't need it with Dmitri," Allie said dryly. "And I don't think you've been listening."
"Oh, no ... Allie ... don't," Meg pleaded. "Don't ever put yourself in that position."
"You mean, of a hanger-on with the jet set? Why not? It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it."
"We don't know anything about him! Who are his people?"
Allie burst into a merry, genuinely amused laugh. "His people are filthily rich, is who his people are. Shipping, I think. I expect his mother is asking him the same thing, right about now. Who are her people?"
She added sardonically, "I can just imagine what he's telling her: that my family is doubled up with a relative because the roof leaks and the basement stinks and they can't afford to fix any of it. Oh, and we rent rooms — on dry, breezy days. That ought to impress his mum."
"But it's our leaky roof, and it's our stinky basement! Don't you see the difference?"
"Meg, you know something? I don't. There are so many generations at the Inn Between that it seems like a commune anyway, so what's the difference if I'm a non-owner here or a non-owner there? For that matter, what's the difference between being a charming ornament at one of their soirées, or being a charming hostess at a company Christmas party at a Marriott? It's not like I own either the villa or the hotel."
"Oh, excuse me — you don't want to work for a living, ever?"
"Why should I, if I can manage not to? Why would anyone?"
"Because — because you have a degree!" Meg said, as if the word had magical powers to restore her sister's sanity.
"I got that for you, dammit!" Allie cried. "I wish I could give it back to you! I don't want it! I've wasted my life getting it!"
"Stop. Please. Let's both stop," Meg said dizzily. "I can't go around this ride again."
Allie ran back to her sister's side and squeezed her hand. "I didn't mean to say all that, Meggie, really I didn't. All I wanted was to tell you my plans. Not to ask you about them — to tell you."
She glanced at her watch. "Comfort will have a fit. She's waiting outside with Dad to see you. Lloyd's out there, too, waiting to take me back to the Inn Between. He says the smell's not too bad for family, just not good enough for guests."
"You've checked out of here, then?" Meg asked, her spirits sinking steadily.
"Yeah. I guess you get thrown out tomorrow. I'll see you back home." Allie leaned over and kissed Meg on her forehead again, and left.
Three seconds later, she popped her head back in the doorway. "By the way, in case Uncle Billy asks? The ninety-minute call to Greece that was charged to his phone — that was me."
Chapter 26
There was no way the story wasn't going to end up on the front pages of the tabloids.
Meg's adventure made its media debut quietly enough, in a no-nonsense piece by the local paper headlined, Summer Resident Arraigned in Homicide Attempt
. Then the Portland paper picked up on the local piece. Then the Associated Press picked up on the Portland piece.
And then the tabloids moved in. The family came under siege. The dining room table was turned into Command Central, with Uncle Billy, self-appointed publicist, handling the media. The table began to disappear under a slew of sensationalist coverage.
Every member of the family had his favorite headline.
Allie liked the one that read Crazed Dowager Breaks Girl's Arm, Forces Her to Swallow Pure Nicotine.
Meg thought Two Sisters Chained in Greenhouse by Bitter Heiress had a poetic ring to it.
Comfort was leaning toward Vacationing Cop Saves Island Town from Mad Gardener. It sounded heroic.
Terry and Timmy, showing a genetic bias, voted hands down for Woman Dipped in Nicotine Grows Second Head.
"Laugh all you want," said Uncle Billy, punching in a call to a Boston television station. "This story is gonna make us rich."
Hard Copy, Current Events, Top Cops, Geraldo, Larry, Barbara, Oprah—Uncle Billy was going after them all. He had a vested interest in the family now, having agreed to lend Meg the money she needed at a not-very-nice interest rate that, however, he was willing to waive if Allie got to Europe and ended up marrying either money or nobility.
"A little incentive, Allie-cat," he told his niece, pinching her cheek. "I want you to go over there and show 'em what yer made of."
Meg watched the whole thing with a sense of bemusement that bordered on despair. Her life had become surreal, and she had little hope that it would ever be normal again. If there were some way to roll back the clock to June, she felt sure she'd never have answered Orel Tremblay's initial summons.
Her father, among others, didn't believe that. "You know you'd do everything the same all over again. Everything," he repeated with a meaningful look. "So don't even try to second-guess yourself, Meggie. Just look to the future."
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