The Good Daughter: A gripping, suspenseful, page-turning thriller. Alexandra Burt

and her skin clammy. “Nothing’s wrong.”

      Sigrid took one look at her plate. “Are you going to eat that?”

      “I’m not hungry,” Quinn said and took a sip of water, hoping it would cool her swollen tongue. Her throat barely allowed the water to pass. She pushed the plate toward the center of the table.

      “Your father didn’t leave me a rich woman and wasting food is not something I condone.”

      “I understand.” Quinn bit her lip. “Maybe I have the flu or something.”

      “In July?”

      “It feels like the flu. I don’t know.”

      “Eat.”

      “I can’t. I don’t—”

      “Eat.” This time sharper.

      Quinn remained silent.

      “Eat, child.” Sigrid’s voice was steady and low but carried the fury of a tornado.

      “I can’t eat. I feel sick.”

      Quinn didn’t even recognize her own voice. She pulled the plate closer, picked up the fork and began eating. Her stomach lurched and gurgled, but she finished her plate. Later, after she threw up, she sank back into bed. When Sigrid came to check on her hours later, she was delirious and hallucinating. Strawberry fields, you said, Sigrid later told her. I need to get to the strawberry fields.

      When Quinn awoke, she wouldn’t have known where she was if it hadn’t been for the constant stream of nurses and doctors. The diagnosis remained elusive to Quinn. Pelvic infection, the doctor said, hydrosalpinx, he told her. The infection caused your fallopian tubes to be blocked and filled with fluid.

      Benito, Quinn thought. I wonder if Benito knows what happened. What they did to me.

      “How long have I been here?” Quinn asked when her thoughts became clearer.

      “Two days. You are on heavy antibiotics. We have to wait for the infection to completely clear up. You are young and healthy, but …” The doctor paused and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry to tell you that your fertility will be affected.”

      Affected. Quinn wasn’t sure what that meant, had never thought about anything remotely related to fertility, was detached from the whole diagnosis. Nevertheless she tried to make sense of it all, but not for one second did she consider telling the doctor what had happened.

      After her fever ceased and the pain was dull and manageable, she tried to erase it all from her mind. She imagined that a fine paring knife cut out the part of her brain that held the memory of it, but regardless of how hard she tried, the images didn’t disappear, and instead she felt a longing for the woods, the pure creek and its cold water running over her. She longed to immerse herself in it, even wondered how far down the bottom was.

      After the doctor left the room, absolute clarity was bestowed upon her. She wondered if it was possible to live life as a ghost. She could not live one more second in this body as the person she used to be, and that’s what she felt like anyway, a mere ghost of the girl Quinn. It was that or nothing at all.

       Chapter 11

       Dahlia

      When this latest episode is over, I’m famished. I pop a TV dinner in the microwave. I’ve been living off microwaved and prepackaged food all my life. I haven’t developed an aversion to it—its American ingenuity comforts me: the divided trays, the thin plastic covering, and the eventual sliding of the empty tray into the box. Even now I stick with the foods I ate in my childhood: meat loaf and mashed potatoes, chicken-fried steak and corn.

      While I eat, I stare at the papers I thumbtacked to the wall the previous day: composite woman, my Jane. I refer to them as my missing people as if it is up to me to tape a red LOCATED sign over their pictures.

      After I eat, exhaustion takes over. I want nothing more than to close my eyes and stay on the couch for the rest of the day, but it’s Wednesday and I have to pick up my mother at Dr. Wagner’s office.

      My hair is still wet from the shower when I pull into the parking lot of the clinic located next to the Metroplex compound famous for same-day lap band surgery.

      Minutes later, a middle-aged woman in pink scrubs shows me into an office. I’ve barely had time to look around when Dr. Wagner enters the room. The first fragrance I notice is the minty scent of hand sanitizer as he furiously rubs his hands together. When he’s satisfied, he extends his right hand toward me.

      “Dahlia Waller. I’ve heard so much about you.”

      I manage a cheerful smile and shake his cold hand. He sits and inserts some sort of ID card in a slot of his laptop. With his posture straight and his coat as white as snow, he hits the keyboard, his every movement precise and purposeful.

      “How’s my mother doing?” I ask and the image of the finely arranged crickets pops into my head. I imagine her with her packed bag on her lap staring at mauve-colored plastic cups on the tray of her bedside table, her hair styled, her eyes staring straight ahead, impatiently looking toward the door.

      “She’s ready to go home.”

      “Good,” I say and clear my throat.

      “Did you ever find her purse?”

      “Not yet, I don’t know the exact location the police picked her up,” I lie. My mother’s purse had completely slipped my mind until last night. “I’ll track it down after I drop her off at home.”

      Dr. Wagner takes a deep breath in. He seems annoyed by my inefficiency, and I feel the need for him to like me. I want him to know that I’m here for her, that I love my mother. Despite her craziness. Despite everything. And that I need her to be okay, but I also need her to answer my questions.