Free The Death Catchers by Jennifer Anne Kogler Page B

peeve, Mrs. Tweedy, I would say it’s sentence fragments. You really dislike it when a sentence lacks a subject, verb, or both. Maybe there’s a bright side, though. At least in an English paper, you can go back and edit a fragment to express a complete thought. In life, when a thought is interrupted, there’s often not much that can be done to correct it.
    I was almost finished explaining what I’d seen in the cemetery, about to launch into a flurry of questions for Bizzy, when the door to the hospital room swung wide open. Mom came in, holding a bouquet of lilies—Bizzy’s favorite flower. Dad trailed behind, fiddling with his newsboy hat in his hands.
    â€œWe came to check on how you girls were doing,” Mom said, sweeping into the room, placing the flowers in a vase by the window.
    â€œRita, you shouldn’t have,” Bizzy said. Darn right, Mom shouldn’t have. I was right at a crucial point in my conversation with Bizzy. I wanted them to leave immediately.
    â€œIt was no trouble at all,” Mom said, adjusting Bizzy’s movable tray and cleaning it with a sanitary wipe.
    â€œThey hire people to do that for me,” Bizzy said, frowning at Mom’s efforts. “How long am I in for, Phillip?” Bizzy asked.
    â€œThey want to keep you overnight.”
    â€œFor cryin’ out loud!”
    â€œHave you read How Green Was My Valley ?” Mom asked, taking a thick paperback out of her bag and putting it on Bizzy’s tray. “You’re going to need some entertainment while you’re here, I know, and it’s such an easy book to get lost in … I thought it also might appeal to your Welsh roots.”
    Bizzy shoved the book off the tray. It hit the floor with a thud. She folded her arms defiantly over her chest. “Rita, I don’t want to read, you hear me ? I want to talk to my granddaughter. Alone.”
    Every eye in the room shifted to me. Mom bent over and picked How Green Was My Valley off the floor. She gently placed it back on Bizzy’s tray, her face shadowed with defeat.
    There was a knock at the door. A nurse entered the room.
    â€œI’m afraid that Dr. Stuhl has instructed me to clear the room of visitors. The patient needs her rest.”
    â€œI’m no chi-ull!” Bizzy exclaimed.
    â€œIt’s okay, Mother,” Dad said, grabbing her wrist tenderly. “We should be going, anyway. We’ll be back later to check on you.” He leaned in and kissed Bizzy on the forehead. “Lizzy, too,” he added, smiling nervously. “After school.”
    â€œA few shackles and bars and this place’d be forced to call itself a prison!” With that, Bizzy closed her eyes. Dad, Mom, and the nurse filed out of the room.
    Soon, I was the only one left with Bizzy.
    â€œNo need to fret, Sweet Pea,” Bizzy whispered across the room. “Remember what I wrote in my note.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, unsure of what I was supposed to remember.
    Dad poked his head in. “Ready to go?”
    â€œYeah,” I said, garnering a wink from Bizzy as I left the room.
    Though Mom wanted me to go to school, I’d had no trouble convincing Dad I was sick. When he dropped me off at home, he said Mom would swing by to check on me during her free period. Despite Bizzy’s assurances that there was nothing to worry about, I wasn’t convinced. I was convinced, however, that the key to it all was Vivienne le Mort. In my judgment, there was only one person who could tell me exactly who she was: Agatha Cantare. I did the math. I had an hour until Mom would arrive at the house—plenty of time to get to the cemetery and back.
    When Drake’s black Ford truck pulled up next to me as I made my way to Cemetery Hill, I viewed it as an unwelcome interruption of my quest for information. Of course, back then, I had no way of knowing Drake Westfall was essential to every answer I was seeking.
    Drake got