Page 128 of The Sister's Curse

She nodded sharply. “I’ll go to the hospital, protect Mason.”

There was no use in trying to persuade her to do anything different. Sheriff’s deputies would be coming, so I had to get out of there.

Drema shoved a suitcase at me. “There are clothes in here.”

I stared at the hard-sided pink luggage.

“Go. Before they get here. Find him.”

I flung the luggage into the back of Nick’s SUV and peeled out of the driveway. In the distance, sirens echoed.

Gibby cried piteously at the fresh blood on my clothes.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. She’s gonna be okay,” I recited to him like a mantra. I meant it to be soothing, but I wasn’t sure it was true. There wasn’t any way I could be sure.

All I could do was try to find Nick before the Kings of Warsaw Creek managed to hurt him, too.

I drove down back roads until I found a spot to pull off near a pond. I pulled Drema’s suitcase out. In it I found clothes for Mason, small shoes, a bag of cosmetics, and a couple of changes of clothes for Drema. I stripped out of my bloody clothes, and rinsed the blood off my arms and face in the pond.

I stared down at my reflection. I didn’t see my own image there. I saw the Rusalka.

I wriggled into Drema’s jeans and donned a very expensive-feeling black blouse, which clung to my skin like silk. I gazed at my reflection again. I still saw Rusalka, unblinking.

“Come on, Gibby,” I said. “Let’s go find your dad.”

I got Jasper’s address from good old Google and rolled up to his home. It was a small trailer on some pretty meadow acreage that was less than a mile from the Sumners’ house if you cut through the marshland in the back. His car wasn’t there, but I still knocked on the door. I peered through the windows, seeing that no one was home.

I couldn’t imagine that Jasper was capable of hurting anyone.

But then again, I couldn’t imagine that I was, either.

I tried the door. It was locked, but not with a particularly good lock. I plucked my driver’s license out of my wallet and used it to press the tongue of the lock back into the door, and I was in within minutes.

Jasper wasn’t living large. Not at all. I respected that; a lot of guys in law enforcement spent every last overtime dime they had on cars and big houses. Not Jasper. I poked through the kitchen cabinets. Everything was clean, and neat as a pin, but there wasn’t any food there, except for a few cans of soup. There were a couch and a television in the living room. No computer.

The bedroom contained a double bed with simple coverings. The trailer felt like a temporary residence, with no real personality or, it seemed, intent to stay. His clothes were hung neatly in the closet.

On the dresser was a picture, and I paused. It was a picture of a boy and a girl in high school, in their prom clothes. It was of Dana and Jasper. Before it was a river pearl. I wondered if she’d given that to him.

I went outside, to the marsh. Part of me half expected to find Jasper’s and Sumner’s bodies floating there, but the water was peaceful, reflecting the sun and sky above. A lawn chair was set up on the bank, and there was a fishing pole stuck in the ground beside it. A breeze pushed dragonflies across the water’s surface, creating bright spots of sun dazzle.

I blinked, and the dazzle churned. I saw the glitter of lights at a dance, young Jasper and Dana. They looked happy, like they had their whole lives ahead of them.

The vision faded, and I was staring at the glassy water once more.

A lump rose in my throat. He had really loved Dana. And he hadn’t built a life at all after she was gone. He was just…existing. Not moving forward. Waiting. Waiting for what? For her attackers to be brought to justice?

And when they weren’t…he’d gone to find justice himself.

Jasper and I understood each other.

—

I headed over to Mark Lister’s house. If that son of a bitch was there, I was going to wring every last drop of knowledge out of him.

I pulled up before the Lister house and found Ross opening the back of a white minivan.

I emerged from the SUV, with Gibby close beside me. The young man grinned when he saw the dog.