Lily Dale: Discovering Part 28

"Goodnight, Odelia. Thanks for everything!"Ramona's voice carries from the front hall up to where Calla sits, knees bent and back against the wall, in the shadows at the top of the stairs.

"I'm the one who should be thanking you! If we play poker every night like this, I'll be able to afford a fancy vacation this winter."

"If we play poker every night like this, I'll have to stay in your house while you're on your fancy vacation this winter,"Ramona returns with a laugh, "because I'll be living out on the streets."

"I'll be right there with you,"Dad says. "I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to play poker with a bunch of psychics. All I've got left are the clothes on my back."

"Just be glad we weren't playing strip poker,"Andy tells him, "because then you wouldn't even have that."

Raucous laughter floats up to Calla's ears.

Please go. Just go, she silently begs Dad, Ramona, and Andy.

But she's been willing the three of them to leave for a couple of hours now, to no avail. They all had a grand old time down there playing cards while Calla paced her room, quietly freaking out about what she discovered in her mother's e-mail.

She has a sister.

In Geneseo.

Illegally adopted at birth.

Her name is Laura Logan.

Psychic skills are hardly required to figure out that there's some connection between Laura and Sharon Logan and the purple house.

From the rest of the e-mails exchanged after Tom came to Florida to show Mom the photos, Calla learned that he had gone to Geneseo himself a few weeks later. There, he had spoken to the adoptive mother, Sharon, who had seemed receptive to putting him and Mom in touch with their daughter, now grown.

I didn't get to see her, but I'm sure I will, eventually. We both will. I told her adoptive mother where to find me.

Those words ring ominously in Calla's head.

Sharon Logan had found him, all right.

Found him- and killed him.

At last, Calla hears the front door close and lock in the hallway below. She leans over and peeks around the newel post at the top of the stairs.

Her grandmother is standing at the door, parting the window curtain to watch the others leave. After a few moments, she reaches for the wall switch and flicks off the porch light, then the hall light.

"Gammy?"Calla calls, as she turns toward the stairs to start up.

Odelia gasps. "Calla! You scared the life out of me!"She rests a hand against her rib cage.

"Sorry."

"What are you doing up? It's a school night, and you have a big trip coming up tomorrow with your dad."

"Gammy, I need to talk to you."

Her grandmother peers up at her. "Are you crying? Is something wrong?"

The answer to both questions is yes, but Calla can't seem to find her voice.

"Calla?"Odelia hurries up the stairs toward her. "What happened?"

"Tell me the truth about something, Gammy. Please."

"What is it?"

"My mother had a baby, and you knew about it. You knew Darrin told her the baby had died, and that he'd thrown the body into the lake."

Odelia goes absolutely still, and paler than Calla has ever seen her.

"Say something, Gammy. Say that I'm right. Say that you knew."

Odelia sinks onto the top step, shaken. "I did know ."

"She told you?"

"No! No, she never told me, and I was fool enough never to realize. I knew Stephanie had put on weight, but that happens to a lot of kids, and she hid it so well I convinced myself it was just a few pounds. And I knew she'd been much quieter than usual, but I blamed that on her boyfriend. He was a bad influence from the start. So much negative energy."

"Because he was on drugs?"

"Probably."Odelia shrugs. "All I knew was that I didn't want my daughter around him. And the more I told her to stay away, the more she wanted to be with him."

"How did you find out about the baby?"Calla sits beside her.

"The way I find out a lot of things. Visions."

"What do you mean?"

"I kept seeing Stephanie cradling a baby in her arms. At first I thought it was a premonition. But then I started to realize it had already happened."

"How?"

"I just knew,"Odelia says simply. "I confronted her. I asked if she had been pregnant. She told me that she had, months earlier, and that the baby had been stillborn. She said Darrin had put the remains in the lake."

Choked by a sob, she can't go on.

"He lied, Gammy."Calla, too, is crying. "He lied about that. The baby didn't die."

"What?"Odelia widens her teary eyes. "How do you know?"

"I found an e-mail he sent to Mom. He said-"

"I knew it! I knew that baby was alive! I tried to convince Stephanie. I told her to go to the police. She refused. She said Darrin would never have done something like that to her, but I think she knew, deep down inside, that she was wrong. A mother knows in her gut whether her child is alive or dead. Sometimes, she just might not want to see it or believe it, but she knows."

Calla remembers Mrs. Yates's grief- ravaged face and nods mutely.

"I told Stephanie to look into it, anyway, for her own peace of mind. But she had promised Darrin she'd never tell a soul about the baby. So I told her to confront him, at least. Ask him if the baby really had died. She didn't want to do that, either."

"She did do it, though, Gammy."

"How do you know?"

"She wrote about it. She asked him, but he lied again. And he left Lily Dale not long after that. Do you remember?"

Odelia nods sadly. "He broke Stephanie's heart. I tried to convince her that she was better off, but I couldn't get through to her. Eventually she left, too. Went away to graduate school, met your father, got married, moved to Florida, had you . . ."

"You used to visit us when I was little."

"Yes."

"Then you had an argument with Mom. About the baby. After all those years."

"I can't believe you remember that, Calla. You were so young."

"I do. I remember and I . . . I dream about it sometimes."

"About the argument?"

"Yes."

"It was a bad one. I should never have brought up the baby to Stephanie after all that time had gone by. But every now and then, I would still have a dream. I just always had the feeling that I had another grandchild out there somewhere. I told your mother to look into it again, but she refused. I don't know if she was still trying to protect Darrin, or if she was trying to protect herself, or you and your father."

Odelia wipes tears away with the bell- shaped sleeve of her pumpkin- colored top.

"You told Mom that you thought the lake should be dredged, didn't you, Gammy? To find the baby's body."

"Yes. She got so angry with me. Mind you, I really didn't think they'd find anything. I had spent all those years living on the sh.o.r.e of the lake. I think I'd have sensed whether my own flesh and blood was buried in it."

"But you told me never to set foot in that water."

"Because . . ."Odelia shudders. "There was always a chance I could be wrong. Even now, every time I look at that lake, I wonder."

"But you don't have to wonder anymore. The baby lived and she was illegally adopted, Gammy- by Sharon Logan."

It takes a moment for the name to register. When it does, Odelia gasps.

"She killed Darrin,"Calla goes on, "after he showed up on her doorstep asking about the adoption. Then she killed my mother, too. And then she came after me."

"We have to tell the police."

"I know . But Gammy, I'm afraid to tell them- or anyone. Then Dad will find out about everything."

"He deserves to know the truth, Calla."

"It's going to hurt him."

"Maybe not. Maybe he'll be glad to know that Stephanie lives on in another daughter-and that you have a half sister."

"I doubt that."

"Don't underestimate him."Gammy touches Calla's cheek. "How about you? How do you feel about all of this?"

"About having a sister?"Just saying the words out loud sends a little jolt through her.

A sister.

She actually has a sister.

"I don't know how I feel,"she tells her grandmother. "I mean, I guess I won't, until I find her and meet her."

"Do you know anything about her?"

"Her name is Laura."

"That's a pretty name."

It is. Laura.

"Like the former first lady."

Laura Bush.

Suddenly, she realizes something.

"Gammy, that day at Ramona's-"

"I know . I just remembered."Her grandmother nods. "That magazine that flew off the table in the guest room-"

"Laura Bush was on the cover."

"Yes. That was no accident."Her grandmother shakes her head. "Spirit could have been a little more specific."

An image flashes into Calla's head as she speaks.

She sees a young girl wearing a calico dress and sunbonnet: Laura, from the Little House books Calla read and loved as a child.

Pieces begin to fall into place.

The same books are on the shelf in Mom's room upstairs.

That image of Mom lying on her bed reading one of them.

Even the dream Calla had about being on an airplane and seeing a pioneer girl standing on top of a tall building.

"We need to call Detective Lutz,"her grandmother decides.