Page 22 of Made for Mayhem

My chest tightened, heart racing at who would call me. Spam didn’t call three times in a row, and the only people I knew in Colorado were my sister and niece.

It continued to ring as I slammed the trunk. This time I answered. “Hello?”

“Is this Daisy Winslow?”

“Yes. Who’s calling?”

“This is Dr. Montgomery with Mountainside General Hospital in Glenwood Springs. Are you Violet Winslow’s sister?”

“Yes,” I managed, though my voice came out thin and shaky. “What’s going on? Is she okay?”

There was a pause, and that momentary silence said everything before the words even landed.

My knees buckled as the doctor kept talking, the world narrowing until all I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears. I gripped the edge of the Beetle’s roof, but my fingers slipped and I slid down the side of the car until I sat down hard on the garage floor.

His words broke through in shards, jagged and senseless.

Headaches.

Tests.

Brain cancer.

Too late.

She’s gone.

Each one cracked against my ribs like a stone, and my brain refused to string them together, refused to let them mean what they meant.

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, eyes burning, the parking lot spinning around me as if I’d been shoved underwater. Somewhere, a car door slammed, a train went by, and someone laughed. The world kept moving, but mine came to a screeching halt.

Three.

The biggest, baddest three there ever was.

And then, like a second wave I wasn’t ready for, one word rose above the rest. “…Juniper.”

My mouth moved before my brain could catch up, and I leapt to my feet. “Junie—oh, God. She’s just a kid. She—she’s afraid of the dark, or at least she used to be. I don’t know anymore. And she won’t eat carrots unless they’re the crinkle-cut kind. She—” My voice cracked, the words tumbling out in fragments, useless and desperate. “Where is she? Who’s with her? She’s not alone, is she? Please tell me she’s not alone.”

Dr. Montgomery’s voice softened, but I kept pacing. “She’s not alone, Ms. Winslow. She’s perfectly safe. They’ve placed her with a temporary foster, someone who lived next door to your sister. Has Juniper mentioned the Hudsons before?”

The name tugged at something in my memory from one of our many weekly phone calls. I could hear Junie’s voice rattling off stories about the neighbor’s animals: the dog that always ran the fence line, the chickens with ridiculous names she loved.

“She’s in excellent hands,” Dr. Montgomery assured me.

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.

There was a pause, then gently, “Ms. Winslow, are you okay? Do you need help? Is there someone we can call for you?”

A high-pitched laugh burst out of me, sharp and too loud in the quiet parking lot. It wasn’t funny, not even close, but my body didn’t know what else to do. Help? Someone to call? I had no one.

No home.

No job.

No Violet.

Nothing left but a box of junk and an eight-year-old niece who needed me in Colorado.