Land's End by Marta Perry

Author:Marta Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2006-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

By the time Sarah arrived at the clinic, she had herself more or less under control. At least on the outside she did. Inside she felt bruised and battered. Each step she took seemed to hurt someone.

Hopefully she couldn’t do too much damage at the clinic. And if she could get some help in finding Lizbet Jackson, she’d be satisfied that she’d made one bit of progress today.

Signing in on the board, donning a lab coat, greeting the receptionist—all the normal, routine activities helped to stabilize her. In this setting, she knew who she was and what to do. Elsewhere on the island she might be the outsider, blundering from one morass to another, but here she was at home.

“I see you made it.” Esther’s greeting was short.

“As you see.” She smiled, determined to be pleasant to the woman if it killed her. “Seems pretty quiet so far.”

“You can leave if you like. Dr. Sam can handle things.”

Her smile felt frozen. “I’ll stay. Since we have a moment, I wanted to ask you something.”

Esther waited, unresponsive.

“I’m looking for Lizbet Jackson. Do you know her?”

“Lizbet.” Her brows lifted. “Why do you want to see her?”

She could hardly say it was none of Esther’s business. “I’d like to talk with her.”

“’Fraid I can’t help you.” She turned away, picking up a chart with an air of dismissal. “You’ll have to play Lady Bountiful to someone else.”

She walked away, leaving Sarah staring after her.

“You look as if someone just hit you, Sarah.”

Dr. Sam stood behind her. It was a relief to see his welcoming smile.

“You’re pretty close. All I did was ask Esther to help me find someone, and she bit my head off.”

He propped an elbow on the counter. “Who are you looking for? Maybe I can help.”

“Lizbet Jackson. Do you know her?”

“Everybody knows her.” He grinned. “She’s our competition, treating everything from rashes to broken hearts with her herbals.”

“You know where she lives, then.”

“She’s got a little house behind the Old Ebenezer Church graveyard. You have to walk right through the cemetery to reach it. Trouble is, she claims she doesn’t like sleeping under a roof. Drives her relatives crazy by disappearing into the woods for days at a time.”

That didn’t sound promising. “Maybe I could find the house and leave her a note.”

He shook his head. “You know what the Gullah community is like—closed to outsiders unless you’re brought in by someone. Esther wouldn’t help?”

“No.” Esther definitely wouldn’t.

“Let me think. Maybe I can find someone who knows her.”

“Thanks, Sam. I appreciate it. It seems everyone I want to talk to is elusive—Lizbet, Guy O’Hara—”

“Guy O’Hara?” He blinked. “I might not be much help with Lizbet, but I know where Guy O’Hara is.”

She blinked, startled. “You do?”

“He’s back in Exam Room 3, sleeping off a roaring drunk.”

Guy, here. The reason startled her. “Does he do that often? He was a friend of Miles, and I never saw him drinking.”

Sam shrugged. “He’s gotten a lot worse in the past year. Donner fired him, shortly after—well, after you left the island.

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