The Third Sister

by Sara Blaedel

  Ilka approached the bed and spoke quietly, so only her father and Artie could hear. “I’m so sorry, I should have told you what was going on. But now we have everything under control. Sister Eileen says hello and to focus on recovering.”

  Artie took her hand, and she felt her father’s eyes on them when he squeezed it. Maybe she was imagining it, but his cheeks seemed redder. And he looked more alert. Ilka thought they might have cut down on his meds. His face still fell off to one side when he spoke, though.

  Two porters walked in the door, and before she and her father could explain what was going on, they asked Artie if he had any belongings in the locker. One of them unhooked an oxygen hose from the wall while the other laid a clothes bag on his blanket. Ilka supposed it was the clothes he was wearing the day he was attacked. She asked him if he had anything in the drawer of the night table, but Artie shook his head.

  “I don’t understand, what—what’s going on?”

  Her father gave him an arm and helped the porters move him onto a wheelchair. “We’re moving you.”

  When Artie rolled into his new room he immediately headed for the balcony door, then asked Ilka if she had a cigarette. Flowers and a small woven basket with some fruit stood on the night table. They’d been told that a doctor and nurse would come in to say hello and give him an introduction to the ward.

  He and Ilka sneaked a smoke on the balcony while her father left to check on Amber. When he returned, two of the ward’s personnel followed him in. They asked if Ilka and her father wanted to stay for their meeting with Artie, but he declined and told Ilka to come with him.

  “Someone wants to say hello to you.”

  Ilka glanced back at Artie. A nurse had already helped him into bed and was explaining how to call someone for help.

  Artie nodded and said it was okay for them to go, that he actually would rather they didn’t hear about all the stuff wrong with him. Ilka was relieved; she wouldn’t have to feel she was sticking her nose deeper into his private life.

  Mary Ann sat in her wheelchair next to Amber’s bed, her back to the door, holding her daughter’s hand. A shawl covered her shoulders, and she had on the same clothes as when she’d been arrested. She looked thin, gaunt even, and her skin had turned sallow from her time in jail.

  Her father stepped aside and let Ilka into the room. She stood quietly for a moment, then walked over and knelt down to hug her father’s wife.

  Mary Ann’s eyes were moist when she looked up at her husband. “She’s having a boy.” She turned back to Amber. “And you’re sure he’s okay? Nothing happened to him when the horses ran over you?”

  Amber nodded warmly. “He’s fine. They even think I can go home, if I can get some help. I still have to stay in bed. And I’m not supposed to lift anything.”

  “I’ll be there,” her mother blurted out, even though she wouldn’t be much help in the lifting department.

  “Tom is there for me too, you know,” Amber said. “We can live together out on the ranch.”

  Mary Ann looked determined. “You’re going to stay with me. Where there is good access to doctors and midwives.”

  Ilka opened her mouth to back up her half sister, to say she needed to be with the baby’s father, but Mary Ann beat her to it.

  “You can take over the ranch when you’re a family, after the baby comes.” She made it sound as if she’d already planned everything out.

  This was obviously news to Amber. She glanced at her father, but he simply nodded in agreement: She and Tom could live out at the ranch and run the stables.

  “If that’s what you want,” her mother added.

  Amber nodded enthusiastically. To Ilka it looked like she was eager to seal the deal before anyone had second thoughts.

  “We want to, very much.” She hesitated a moment. “Of course, I’ll have to talk to Tom about it first. He’s sort of overwhelmed, since he’s taking care of the horses by himself.”

  “By himself?” Mary Ann said.

  “Nobody else has been out at the ranch since what happened with Grandpa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone just stopped coming to work.”

  Mary Ann turned to Ilka’s father. “Paul, you have to help our son-in-law. Hire some stable workers who can start immediately.”

  Ilka thought the best thing to do would be to call Frank Conaway and ask him to step in. He’d worked several years for Fletcher, and he was familiar with the horses and the stable.

  Not that Mary Ann oozed with motherly love, but by now Ilka knew her father’s wife well enough to understand that she expressed her feelings through actions. It moved her to see how Mary Ann swept everything aside to take responsibility for her daughter and coming grandchild.

  After her father walked around the bed and sat in the easy chair, Ilka asked, “When were you released?”

  “An hour ago. The lawyer drove me straight here. I haven’t even been home yet.”

  Mary Ann looked Ilka right in the eyes before lowering her head. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  It wasn’t so much those two little words as the brief, intense look Mary Ann had given her. Ilka smiled.

  Mary Ann reached for her daughter’s hand, and Amber responded by grabbing her father’s hand. Without speaking she looked back and forth between them, as if she needed to get it through her head that they were both still alive and there with her.

  “What about Leslie?” Ilka asked Mary Ann. “Does she know you’ve been released?”

  Mary Ann let go of Amber’s hand and shook her head. “Not yet. Paul’s going to tell her, and then I hope I can have a talk with her.”

  Ilka could hear it in her voice: It was going to be a difficult conversation, and not only because of the traumatic events at the ranch. Nothing could erase all the lies Leslie had grown up with. Mary Ann was going to have to convince Leslie that she’d sacrificed being with the man she’d loved to protect her. That she’d lied to give her daughter a secure childhood.

  Her father’s phone rang, breaking the silence in the hospital room. He fumbled around in his pocket and excused himself as he walked out on the balcony.

  Moments later he returned with a grim look on his face. “We have to go,” he told Ilka. He glanced only briefly at Mary Ann and Amber on his way out of the room.

  Ilka followed him. “What happened?” she asked when they reached the hallway. She struggled to keep up as he hurried past Artie’s room to the exit, where he stopped and turned to her.

  “Fernanda is dead.” He opened the door for her. “And Ethan is missing.”

  26

  What do you mean, he’s missing?”

  Ilka clamped onto her father’s arm and made him stop. “And what about Fernanda?”

  Despite his Key West tan, her father looked pale. He seemed a bit confused as he squinted and took a deep breath, as if he were struggling to get hold of himself. Ilka supported him as they began walking again, slowly this time down the hallway toward the hospital’s main entrance, where the car was parked outside.

  “The police are down there now,” he said, his words catching in his throat. “She was shot. They found her on the steps out back.”

  Ilka was stunned. “And Ethan?”

  Her father kept his eyes on the tile floor, concentrating on his every step.

  “What did they say about him? Did they contact his school, his friends?”

  They reached the car, and Ilka opened the passenger door and helped him in.

  “They don’t know where he is,” he said. The corner of his mouth trembled as he stared straight ahead.

  She backed out of the parking space. “If he saw what happened, maybe he’s hiding somewhere?”

  “His schoolbag was in his room, and they found his phone on his bed.” Her father reached in his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped his nose. “They sent out an APB, and the police have my number so they can call if there’s any news.”

  Ilka noticed her hand trembling when s
he squeezed his arm. Her father swiped his eyes dry with the handkerchief and shook his head.

  Ilka thought of Fernanda, her coal-black hair, the smile that spread from her eyes to her lips. A beautiful woman. “Did she have a black hood over her head when they found her?”

  He whipped his head around to look at her. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Forget it.” What if the Rodriguez brothers had found something when they searched Lydia’s apartment? Something that led them to Fernanda. Whom they killed to put pressure on Lydia. First Artie, and now Fernanda. “Don’t say anything to Lydia.”

  “But I have to,” he said, his voice thick, hoarse. “Fernanda and Ethan are family to her. I have to tell her what happened.”

  Ilka ran over the curb at the funeral home’s front parking lot and braked so hard that her father’s knees rammed into the glove compartment.

  The parking lot was nearly full. “What in the world’s going on here?” She turned to her father, but his face was blank as he surveyed the rows of cars.

  Ilka found a spot at the far end of the lot. “If the Rodriguez brothers are responsible for this with Fernanda and Ethan, they did it to frighten Lydia, so she’ll give up. And if she hears about what’s happened, she won’t go back to Texas with Jennings.”

  She laid her hand on top of his. “And if she doesn’t go back, to testify against Isiah Burnes, she’ll never be free. Fernanda would never have wanted that. The only people who do want that to happen are the Rodriguez brothers and Burnes.”

  Her father was even paler now, and Ilka watched him fight back tears. Another car parked in the spot beside them. Two older women got out, one of them carrying a Tupperware container. Ilka watched as they walked briskly to the front door.

  “You’re probably right,” her father finally said. He was about to add something but thought better of it. He shook his head and folded his hands together.

  Ilka didn’t feel like leaving the car, and apparently, he felt the same way. She could hardly bear the thought of walking in and seeing what it was her mother and Jette had done to attract this horde of people. But finally she got out and walked around to help her father.

  “It could be someone other than the Rodriguez brothers,” he said after Ilka had locked the car. “It could be a burglar, she might have surprised him. Or…”

  Ilka agreed, someone else could have done it. Could have. Regardless, though, she was afraid that someone was targeting Lydia, attacking her where she was most vulnerable.

  “Ethan’s a smart boy,” her father mumbled. “A good boy. He knows a lot of people down there. Has a lot of friends. There’s a lot of places he could go to for help.”

  His voice broke.

  He was trying to keep from falling apart, Ilka understood that. But the monotonous way he mumbled, almost a chant, grated her nerves like a fingernail scraping a backboard.

  Another car pulled into the parking lot, and a man her father’s age stepped out and headed toward the front door.

  “There you are!”

  Ilka stopped and turned at the sound of her mother’s cheery voice. She’d come out from around the back, and now she was waving at them.

  “So many more have shown up than what we counted on.” She looked at Ilka. “Dear, would you please pick up more milk for us? And a few more packs of napkins.”

  “What’s going on?” Ilka’s father asked.

  “It’s the Danish evening, the one we planned. It seems that the flyers we put out the other day found their way onto Facebook, a special Racine group, and now people are flooding in. We weren’t at all expecting so many, isn’t it wonderful!”

  Ilka nodded then asked what she should buy, skim or whole milk.

  Her mother held her hand out to her father and frowned at Ilka, as if her daughter had said the completely wrong thing. Ilka watched them disappear inside the funeral home, then she got back in the car.

  At least thirty people had shown up, maybe more, Ilka guessed, when she returned and entered the memorial room. The retractable partition wall had been pulled out, as only the front half of the room was being used, and three long tables covered with white tablecloths lined the wall. Plates and cups were stacked on the tables, which were covered with cakes. Leslie was busy cutting and handing out generous portions with a big smile on her face.

  Ilka watched her for a moment, then walked over with the milk and asked if there was anything she could help with. Her mother and Jette were setting out more chairs while smiling at all the unfamiliar faces and urging people to come inside. Gregg, the old undertaker, was standing up front with rolled-up sleeves, fastening a large screen to a stand. The whole production reminded Ilka of her school days back in Brønshøj. She noticed the machine on the table beside him, and for a moment she thought they were going to show slides. Then she realized it was a film projector.

  “What are they showing?” she asked Leslie, who was unpacking napkins.

  “I think it’s something about Hamlet and Crownburg.” It took Ilka a moment to realize she was trying to pronounce Kronborg, Hamlet’s castle. “But your mothers were also talking about some woman named Leonora Christine, who sat up in a blue tower.”

  My mothers and a blue tower. Ilka was already tired. But she also felt overwhelmed by the same warmth she’d felt before, the evening her mother and Jette had showed up at the funeral home. There was something reassuring about how they were itching to tell their stories, as if their class had just come in from recess. Their energy—moving chairs around and helping people they’d never met—distracted her for a moment, made her think everything would be okay. But there was a morgue down in Key West with Fernanda inside.

  Ilka nearly jumped when Leslie said, “During the break I’ll hand out the folders. I’m afraid we don’t have nearly enough, there’s so many people here. Do you think it’s okay if I ask people for their email, so I can put them on our mailing list and send them our newsletter?”

  “Newsletter?” Ilka tried to focus. “What’s the news you want to get out?”

  Leslie stared at her. For a moment Ilka noticed the same expression of contempt she’d been met with the first few times she’d seen her half sister. But then Leslie cleared her throat and explained that this whole program was part of the effort to lure people back to the business. It was a marketing strategy, offering something special to counter the American Funeral Group, which was trying to squeeze out all the other funeral homes in the city.

  “This is it,” she said, emphasizing every word now. “This is what we have to offer. We can be personable, tell stories that people are interested in hearing. We have something to offer that no one else does: Danishness. We can hygge with people. History still means something to a lot of folks in Racine; a lot of them have Danish blood, you know. And look around, all these people meeting up here—that speaks for itself.”

  Ilka could see Leslie’s mouth moving still, but she’d stopped listening. She eased her way out of the conversation and back toward the door.

  Her mother stood up at the lectern and clapped her hands, and in her pleasant British accent she addressed her audience.

  “Hjertelig velkommen,” she said. “Welcome to our Danish evening.”

  Ilka glanced around for her father, but he was nowhere in sight. She grabbed her jacket and made sure the pack of cigarettes was still in her pocket. As she fished around in her bag for her lighter, someone from behind called her name. She whirled around and saw Calvin Jennings coming in from the foyer.

  “Am I late?” He smiled at her.

  Ilka shook her head and said they were about to start.

  “Your mother invited me. I ran into her down at the hotel. Interesting; it’s like this place is a colony of Scandinavians, all these descendants. I didn’t know.”

  He was wearing a light-blue shirt, newly ironed, and the same narrow tie from the first time she’d seen him. Ilka tried to remember—was that tie in style back in the 1980s? But back then she had been too young to have noticed
things like fashion.

  “We’re serving cake and coffee in there, if you’d like.” She pointed at the door. “I just need some fresh air before she gets going on Hamlet and Ophelia.”

  Jennings headed for the memorial room while Ilka walked out back, still searching for her lighter in the front compartment of her bag.

  Ilka loaded up on cake and coffee during the break, then made her way through the crowd to where Jennings was sitting, clear in the back.

  She handed him the coffee and plate. “Lydia told me about your daughter.”

  Her mother and Jette were up at the podium, trying to stop the projector from spitting out its stream of pictures, while Leslie was busy at the cake table, making sure every person she served cake also was given a folder.

  The mention of his daughter didn’t seem to bother him. He simply nodded and said that even though it had happened years ago, it was still there with him.

  “You know how it is when you’ve got a rock in your shoe? This might be hard to imagine, but it’s like getting that rock stuck in your heart. It reminds you all the time that something’s not right. The pain doesn’t go away, it’s always there. That’s how it is for me.”

  Ilka knew all about loss. Flemming’s death had made her incredibly vulnerable. She’d never felt it as a rock in her heart or as a constant reminder, yet she still understood what he was talking about.

  “Emma was a quiet girl. Once in a while her mother and I talked about it, that being so shy might be a problem for her someday. When she got older, we both felt it might help her to have a boyfriend, but then she met Josh.”

  He showed no sign of it being difficult for him to talk about his daughter. On the contrary, he spoke as if he’d done so many times.

  “She was seventeen when they met, and nineteen when she took her own life. That last year we only saw her once. That was tough, really tough, maybe especially for my wife, because she felt Emma was turning away from us.”

  He shook his head. “I tried to tell her that wasn’t true, that it was Emma turning to them. That it was no conscious choice on Emma’s part, cutting us out of her life. It was just that Josh and the cult became everything to her. God’s Will was her life. At the start she wrote us letters, she seemed happy, a lot more open than the girl we’d known. But the letters gradually stopped coming, and then one day a guy at my station came into my office and told me what had happened.”