“You’re anorexic.”
The girl wasn’t impressed by Tess’s insight. “That’s easy enough to see, isn’t it?”
“How long have you been here?”
“Three months.”
“I’m looking for a girl who might have been here over a year ago. Has anyone been here that long?”
“Doubtful. Three months is the average, in fact.” Sarah got out of the rocking chair and walked over to the window where she had been keeping vigil when Tess first saw her. “I’m considered quite pathological. Much worse than my cousin. She came home cured.” She permitted herself a tiny giggle. “Like bacon.”
“When was this?”
“Last summer.”
Which could be right, if Jane Doe was here in the months just before she died. A long shot, but it was all she had, all she was going to get.
“And your cousin’s name is-”
“Devon, Devon Whittaker.”
“Where’s your cousin now?”
Before she could answer, the auburn-haired housemother yanked open the door.
“This is not a public area, miss.” Her mechanical voice buzzed with anger. “I’m sorry, but you must not wander around the premises. It’s upsetting to our girls. Please come back downstairs until your friend arrives.”
“Miss Hollinger-” Miss Hollinger. The name was for Tess’s benefit, and she dutifully filed it away. Sarah kept her face toward the window, but her voice was sweet and plaintive. “It’s almost Christmas. Do you think I’ll be allowed to go home? The family is going to Guadeloupe soon, as we do every year. All the cousins, I mean, even Devon. She made the honor roll at Penn, did I tell you that? Everyone’s so proud of her.”
“Well, that depends on you, doesn’t it, Sarah? If you make the right choices, the kind of choices Devon made last year, you’ll have a lovely Christmas.”
Sarah did not turn around, did not acknowledge in any way the help she had given Tess, just stood in her window, looking across the bay. The light shown through her white gown, and Tess could see the dark hair along her arms and back. Lanugo. Sister Anne and Bluebeard, all rolled into one. She hoped this frail child would make the right choices, the ones that would allow her to leave this place in a stronger, sturdier body.
But she feared spring might never come for this particular Persephone.
chapter 14
ONLY WHITNEY PROFESSED TO BE SURPRISED WHEN Tess began developing the symptoms of a raging head cold within hours of her impromptu bay swim.
“Getting your head wet in cold weather doesn’t cause colds,” Whitney proclaimed the next morning. Proclaimed, it should be noted, over the phone, intent on keeping herself at a safe distance from whatever germ Tess carried. “That’s the oldest of old wives’ tales.”
“Yes, but a wet head, wet feet, and wet internal organs when the temperature is in the forties-don’t you think that could make one the teensiest bit ill?” Tess was irritated, and frustrated. How could her body let her down when she was so close to finding Jane Doe?
“All in your head,” Whitney insisted.
“Of course it’s in my head. It’s a head cold.”
“Get lots of rest,” Whitney said, as if this were a revolutionary piece of advice. “And eat a lot. Feed a cold, starve a fever.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the exact opposite.”
“Okay, then do that.”
As it happened, Tess did neither. She ate as she always ate-heartily, happily-while discovering that technology made it almost too easy to work from one’s sickbed. Crow, who was temping in Kitty’s store for the holiday rush, left her Monday morning with a mug of cocoa and her laptop. By 10:30 A.M., she had exhausted the garden-variety directories in trying to track down a current phone number for Devon Whittaker. She had several numbers for other Philadelphia Whittakers, but she was too stuffed up to bluff her way through phone calls to people who might or might not be relatives. They’d think they were getting obscene phone calls from Donald Duck.
Tess then searched the online archives of the Philadelphia papers, looking for the name Whittaker. The surname was there, it was all over the place, in the benign, bland bits that made up the society pages, but she couldn’t find it attached to Devon. By lunchtime-a scorched but well-intentioned grilled cheese from Kitty-she conceded defeat and made a snuffly call for help to Dorie Starnes, one of the robber barons of the Information Highway. There was no freight that Dorie couldn’t highjack, but she charged dearly for her black-market goods, especially if speed was required.
A restless Tess had progressed from bed to sofa when Dorie arrived the next day. Her cold was now mostly in her chest, leaving her with a wet, slushy cough and a wonderfully husky, Lauren Bacall voice.
“I wish I could lie around on the sofa when I was sick,” Dorie said.
“You can,” Tess rasped. “You’re the one who works for a corporation, the one with paid sick leave and medical. I’m self-employed, and pay for my own health insurance.”
“I run my own business, too.”
“From your office at the Beacon-Light.”
Dorie shrugged. She reminded Tess of a robin, with her round, full torso and ruffled, cowlicky hair. “They get what they pay for.”
Esskay wandered out of the bedroom and began circling excitedly at the sight of a guest. Dorie, who wasn’t much taller than she was wide, held her ground, putting out a tentative hand. “Nice doggie,” she said, fingers tapping the top of Esskay’s skull the way someone else might dribble a basketball. Luckily, Esskay wasn’t fussy about human contact, as long as she got some. She returned contentedly to bed. It had disrupted Esskay’s routine, having Tess at home during the day. When left alone in the apartment, Esskay was used to moving freely from bed to sofa and back again, and now here was Tess taking up her space, throwing little bits of tissue around.
“Ready?” Dorie asked. Tess was one of the few customers that Dorie didn’t exact payment from before she spoke. Suspicious of computers, hostile toward paper, she worked from her own memory, which she claimed was impeccable. “Devon Whittaker is a student at Penn-”
“I knew that. I told you that.”
Dorie didn’t acknowledge Tess had spoken. “-but she lives off campus, in an apartment. She’s nineteen years old and her phone number is unlisted.”
“But you got it.”
“I couldn’t charge these prices if I didn’t.” She recited it, wincing slightly when Tess wrote it down.”
Tess didn’t ask how Dorie had gotten the number. Don’t ask-don’t tell was the cornerstore of their working relationship. She suspected Dorie used the Beacon-Light’s commercial side to run credit checks on people, which was definitely illegal. Besides, even if Dorie’s methods were within the law, Tess wasn’t sure she wanted to know all her secrets. She liked Dorie’s magic act aura.
“Finding this girl was actually much simpler than most of the stuff you bring my way,” Dorie said. “But then, she’s only nineteen. It’s hard to leave too many electronic footprints at that age. How many addresses can you have?”
Something in Dorie’s voice tripped Tess’s paranoia switch. “Have you ever run my vitals through your programs?”
“You’re not much of a challenge. Baltimore is full of people who know your business, and how to find you.”
“That’s not a no,” Tess pointed out.