Hagar's Mother (The Bridge Daughter Cycle Book 2) by Jim Nelson

Author:Jim Nelson [Nelson, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Geary & Jones
Published: 2017-11-14T22:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

The familiar adrenaline of panic returned to Hanna. She snapped at Cynthia to put her mother to bed, then hurried from room to room in bounding steps calling out Ruby’s name. When she crossed the kitchen to reach the front door, Cynthia caught her by the arm.

“Ruby’s gone,” Cynthia said. “Didn’t you hear Grandmother?”

“She might still be here,” Hanna said. “Your grandmother is sick.”

“She’s not crazy,” Cynthia said.

“Hey—” Hanna stopped Cynthia. “Do you know anything about this? Did you plan this with Ruby?”

Cynthia stepped back, hurt. “I swear I don’t know,” she said. “I thought it was just going to be me and Piper running away. Honest.”

Hanna’s mother lay in bed with blankets up to her chin. Only her arms and wan face were exposed, her swollen eyelids and white lips cracked and crumbling at the corners like aged beeswax.

“The girl came and went before I could stop them,” she said. “Ruby came into my room and took some things from my closet. I was half-asleep.”

“What things?” Hanna said, looking around.

“She just went past me like I wasn’t here,” Hanna’s mother raved, flopping her arms over the blankets. “My papers in the closet—you know, I think she’s been snooping through them.” She waved frantically toward the bedroom door. “Ruby took a bag of things from your room too. Then I heard them leave on a motorcycle. Things are deathtraps! Your father crashed a motorcycle when we were dating. I almost broke it off with him then and there—no one wore helmets back then, and that godawful machine chewed up his right leg—I tried calling you, but your phone didn’t pick up.” She took a deep, needed breath. “No, it was his left leg.” Then, as though summarizing her ravings: “That bridge of yours, I swear she’s been poking through my things while I was sleeping.”

Hanna took her phone from her back pocket and unlocked it. No signal at the farmhouse, but apparently on the road, she’d passed through an area with some connectivity. The phone reported a missed call from her mother’s landline number and a new voicemail.

“Take care of your grandmother,” Hanna said to Cynthia. “I’ll call you later to check in.”

Although Cynthia’s mobility was limited, she still moved fast enough to reach the farm yard before Hanna climbed into the Audi.

“Listen,” she breathed, hand on her distended belly, “you don’t even know where they’re going.”

“I’m going to SFO,” Hanna said.

“They’re going to Shur Spring—”

“At the airport,” Hanna finished.

“Don’t interrupt me!”

Hanna, one foot in the car, nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“I read on the Internet,” Cynthia said, “Hagar’s sisters will use code words to mean places. I don’t know all of the words. When I read their messages, it was hard sometimes to follow everything they were saying. But I don’t think ‘airport’ means where airplanes take off. I think it means something else.”

Cynthia’s reasoning made Hanna relax. “I wish we had Internet out here,” Hanna murmured, looking about as though some Internet could be had if only she searched hard enough.

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