Page 35 of The Sister's Curse

“You can wait here. I’ll send the doctor in when he gets test results.”

Rustling sounded in the bay beside me, as if someone sat heavily in a chair. Then the voice began again: “Jeff, this is Mark. There’s been an accident at the river.”

I leaned forward. The elusive Mark Lister. He had to be on the phone.

“Ross almost drowned. Yeah…yeah. I don’t know.”

There was a pause, and I assumed this was Jeff Sumner’s side of the conversation.

Mark’s voice sharpened. “No. Let me tell you. My son better be okay. No, I’m going to say what I want. Yeah…go fuck off.”

There was an exhalation, then the tapping of a shoe on tile.

I stared up at a fluorescent light. Mark didn’t seem to think the two near drownings were a coincidence. Maybe someone had it in for those guys and was taking it out on their kids?

Mark sounded angry. Perhaps there was a fracture in the brotherhood of the Kings of Warsaw Creek. Maybe Mark would talk.

The PA arrived to rinse out my wound, and seemeddetermined to chat to distract me from the pain, but I was more interested in eavesdropping on next door. I caught fragments of a tearful reunion between Ross and Mark, and a few snatches of Nick talking.

“What about…infection?” Mark asked hesitantly.

“We’ll make sure he gets a course of antibiotics to counteract any waterborne bacteria he might have inhaled,” Nick said.

“But…I keep reading about parasites and brain worms. Could something like that hurt him?”

“We don’t get brain worms in this climate. But if he starts showing any kind of unusual symptoms, I’ll have you follow up with his PCP.”

I struggled not to hiss as the PA sewed my wound together. I stared down at the angry red weal in my calf, about eight inches long.

“This is a bad spot,” she murmured. “Take it easy, and don’t flex that muscle much. No marathon running.”

“No danger of that.” Running a marathon sounded like a really bad time to me on a good day.

In the next bay, Mark whisper-yelled at Ross: “I told you not to go into the water.”

“But my friends and I were just—”

“Don’t go into the water!”

The rest of the conversation was unintelligible. I wondered what Mark knew that I didn’t.

—

Later that night I was cleared to go home, with a bottle of antibiotics and a heavy dose of my boyfriend’s worry. Monica came by to pick me up. Thankfully, she brought me the rest of my clothes from the beach.

I hopped on one foot, trying to jam my swollen leg into my jeans, wincing.

“Luckily, there were no other injuries,” Monica was telling me as she scrolled on her phone. She was wearing her swimsuit, with a pair of cargo pants, and a pink sweatshirt jacket withGirl Poweremblazoned on the back. “Jasper’s liaising with DNR. They’re going to comb through their records, try to figure out if there have been any similar injuries recently.”

“Anyone see anything at the beach?” I kept my voice low to prevent anyone from eavesdropping. “Any sign of the girl Ross talked about?”

Monica shook her head. “No one saw her. I interviewed Ross’s friends. They said they lost sight of him but didn’t see a girl.”

I rubbed my forehead. “I hope to hell we don’t find another body.”

My swollen leg wound up not fitting into my jeans. Monica was kind enough to use the PA’s funny bent safety scissors to cut a slit in the side.

“Fashionable,” she observed. “Kick flares are back in.”