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Where would A
A
She’d also been Dan Jeffrey’s lover. Diana had caught her searching for something in Dan’s room. Had she really been looking for love letters?
What if she’d been one of Cordelia’s drug customers? A
And Tony Silva, the awkward boy who didn’t have close friends, whose dad was pushing him to excel at a sport he was failing at, baby-sat for her.
Maggie’s mind raced, as A
They were heading further away from downtown Winslow on roads Maggie was pretty sure she’d never seen. Or maybe it was seeing them through a canopy of wavering tree limbs and drenching rain that gave every twist and turn in the road an eerie feeling, as though whatever was ahead was unknown, and unpredictable.
Maggie tried not to focus on the road, but on what she knew about A
Was it possible Tony Silva hadn’t bought the OxyContin pills he’d taken? Could he have found them at A
And Ike Irons hadn’t found the person who’d sold the pills to Tony last spring. Could that be because no one had sold them to Tony? Because Tony’d gotten them from Ike’s wife?
How many teenagers died or overdosed from prescription medications in their parents’ or grandparents’ medicine cabinets, or those in the homes of their friends?
Too many, Maggie knew.
Sean and Josh had told her where kids could get drugs. They didn’t say they knew for sure where Tony had.
On the campus where she worked students bought and sold their own prescription medications, especially those for anxiety or ADD. Sales like that were almost impossible to control.
A
But tonight all boats had been brought in to dry dock, and the sky was low and dark. The tide would be high about midnight, Maggie remembered. That’s when houses near the Bay would be in most danger from a storm surge.
“Where are we going, A
“To the party, of course.”
“We left town behind a while ago,” Maggie said.
“I want to show you something,” said A
The car sped through the narrow streets. A
It wasn’t in the outside pocket of her bag, where she always kept it. Damn. She must have left it on the bedside table at Six Gables.
She felt for it again, to be sure. It definitely wasn’t there.
But even if she had it, who would she call?
What would she say?
That she didn’t know where she was? That she was out for a drive with A
Even if Tony Silva had gotten OxyContin from A
Maggie clutched the sides of her seat. Now A
A
If A
Something that would help find Cordelia’s killer, and clear Diana.
Now the rain was coming sideways as well as vertically. A
A
At the end of the narrow passageway she turned abruptly left onto a wider street, swerving as she turned. Suddenly, through the rain, Maggie saw a high brick wall maybe thirty feet in front of them.
Instinctively, she braced herself.
A
The car began to skid.
Maggie watched helplessly as the car fishtailed in slow motion and the driver’s side crashed into the wall, bounced back into the road, and then the left rear end hit the wall. Hard.
Chapter 39
Panax Coloni.Outstanding copper engraving of plant now called Marsh Woundwort, from Jacob Trew (Berlin) edition of Elisabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbarium, her volume of “useful plants now used in practice of physic,” published in 1757. Also called All-Heal, Panay, or Clown’s Woundwort, as a tea it was used to stop internal bleeding and as a poultice to stop external bleeding. It was also said to aid dysentery, and as a gargle, sore throats. Artist and engraver Blackwell began working when her husband was imprisoned for starting a printing business without serving the apprenticeship required by English law. Her book was a success, and she was able to obtain his release. He was later executed for treason in Sweden. She was an artist and entrepreneur well beyond the norm for a woman of her time. 9 x 12.5 inches. Price: $250.
They’d crashed. She was alive. Her neck and shoulders ached, and pain slashed through her left ankle. Blood? None she could feel. Maggie tried to focus in the dark.
The car’s engine was ru
She looked over at A
A
Maggie unfastened her seat belt, reached over, and turned off the car engine.
She needed to get A
She didn’t have a telephone.
A
She pushed aside the now-deflated airbag on her side, found her canvas bag, and foraged for the small flashlight she’d bought that afternoon.
A
She, too, was imprisoned.
She managed to turn around in her seat enough to flash her light over the back of the car. There. A