Angelina sniffed. “You can’t talk about me like I’m not in the room.”
“Well, it’s true. I could be telling him all this and he could be thinking who is this crazy girl? I don’t know if he really was my mother’s father.”
“He was.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
Charlotte grimaced. “Doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Angelina cocked an eyebrow. “Do you want me to ask Martisha to tap a vein so you can run some tests? Maybe you’d like to pluck a hair off his head?”
Charlotte hooked her mouth to the side, feeling guilty she’d already thought about stealing a hair.
Though maybe hair wasn’t the way to go.
She’d taken a DNA test before and all the online service needed was some spit. If Angelina left the room it might be easy enough to grab some drool without getting needles involved...
Charlotte shook her head.
I’m turning into a ghoul.
“Your mother is the reason he took Siofra.”
Lost in her thoughts, it took Charlotte a moment to digest Angelina’s statement. “What?”
Angelina sighed. “That was the deal he made with Estelle. She kept the first kid so he got the second.”
Charlotte felt her eyes bug. “What sort of thing is that? Who has occasional children with someone and then doles them out like playing cards?” She pantomimed dealing. “One for me, one for you...”
Angelina smirked. “Estelle and Mick, apparently. I don’t think either of the kids were exactly planned.”
Charlotte lifted her hands in the air and let them slap back to her thighs. “Oh for crying out loud. Now I’m the byproduct of an oops.”
“Maybe you were an oops, too,” suggested Angelina, studying her nails.
Charlotte gaped. “What? Did you know my mother, too?”
“No. I’m just saying. It’s possible. I might have been an oops too. Maybe we’re all oopses.”
“Are you crazy? Is everyone in this hotel crazy?”
Angelina shrugged without looking up. “Open for interpretation.”
Charlotte turned back to Mick and tried to block Angelina’s presence out of her mind. “Anyway, Mick, I’m your granddaughter, according to the crazy lady behind me. And I think I might have found your other daughter, Siofra.”
Charlotte thought she saw a flick of movement near Mick’s mouth and leaned forward to watch. Nothing else happened.
“Are you going to kiss him?” asked Angelina.
Charlotte straightened. “No, I think he moved.”
“What?”
“His lip twitched when I mentioned Siofra.”
“He does that. Used to freak me out but Martisha told me it doesn’t mean anything. Tell him what you figured out about Siofra.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You’re trying to trick me into telling you what I figured out.” She paused. “I was going to tell you anyway.”
“I know. I don’t think I’m tricking you.”
“You do, a little.”
Angelina bobbed her head from side to side. “Maybe a little.”
“I’m telling you. You’re not tricking me.”
“Okay.”
Charlotte took a deep breath. “The postcards are from cities with sensational crimes.”
Angelina scowled. “What does that mean?”
“It means she reads about crimes, online, I assume, or seeing them on television maybe, and then she goes to wherever they’ve taken place to solve them.”
Angelina’s expression didn’t change.
“You don’t think that’s interesting?” Charlotte felt her annoyance shift to a new level.
“Sounds like Siofra. I’m more disappointed I didn’t think of it.”
“Yeah, well. I’m pretty sure that’s what she’s doing. I looked up the cities where the postcards came from and they were almost always sent the day someone cracked the case. If it was a missing child, the child was found on the day the postcard was postmarked. Etcetera, etcetera.”
“Why almost?”
“I couldn’t connect a couple of the locations to crimes, but I think that’s just lack of news about that particular event. Those postcards need more Googling.”
Angelina tapped her front teeth with her index finger. “So we have to figure out what crime she’s going to solve next and then run to that town?”
Charlotte frowned. “That’s the tough part. Thanks to the twenty-four hour news cycle, there’s a sensational new crime being reported somewhere every five minutes.”
Angelina mumbled something.
“What?”
“I said, I got another postcard from her yesterday.”
“One you didn’t give me?”
“Right. Brand new. From Concord, New Hampshire.”
Charlotte straightened. “What day was it postmarked?”
“I don’t know. We can go back to my room and check it.”
Charlotte glanced back at Mick. She wanted to get to know him, as much as she could in his condition, but she also wanted to go look at that postmark and start trying to find Siofra’s new case. It seemed a shame to leave Mick so soon. He was her only family, other than Siofra. It figured she’d finally find family members, only to have one in a coma and another lost on the road.
She touched his hand, sliding her fingers down his own until her hand covered his. His thumb branched to the right and hers to the left, creating a double-thumbed hand.
Grandpa. Pop pop? Gramps?
“Can I come visit again?” she asked.
Angelina stood. “Are you asking me or him?”
“Both, though I think you’re going to have to do the heavy-lifting on the answer.”
“Sure. Whenever. But for now, let’s go find Siofra.”
From the corner of her eye, Charlotte thought she saw another movement on Mick’s face.
“Is it possible he’s smiling a little?” she asked.
Angelina moved to bed and peered down at him.
“Sometimes I think that, too.”
Angelina leaned down to kiss him on the forehead, rubbed her lipstick off his skin with her thumb, and left the room.
Charlotte leaned down and whispered in Mick’s ear.
“I’m going to bring Siofra back to you.”
She watched for a reaction and, seeing none, scurried after Angelina. She offered Martisha a wave as she jogged by and the tiny
