Dark Enchantment by Kathy Morgan Page A

paper that had gotten her here. Now, what did I do with the thing? Oh, yeah. Jeans back pocket.
    “Emergency services.”
    After a quick explanation of the circumstances, Arianna read the address off the crumpled paper she smoothed obsessively. Tucking the paper back into her pocket, she stroked Granny’s pale brow while answering the dispatcher’s questions. “Yes, but her respiration’s labored…. Conscious, yes, but her color is ashen, a terrible shade of gray—bluish gray.... Her—her lips and nail beds, too. And she’s in a lot of pain—Oh, for God’s sake! Just get an ambulance over here,” she finally snapped. “The woman’s having a heart attack, and you’re playing twenty questions.”
    After hanging up, she leaned over and kissed Granny’s cold and clammy forehead. “Rest now, sweetheart. Help’s on the way. Do you want me to call anyone for you? Your son or daughter?”
    A rasp escaped lips the color of blue marble. “Conor. And me grandson, Caleb.” Caleb? “Me bag.”
    “Okay, shhh now, I’ll take care of it.” Fingers trailing absently up and down the thin, age-spotted arm, Arianna searched the room for a purse. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
    Spotting a leather patchwork handbag on the counter beside a bowl of fruit, she got up and found a small, blue address book in a zippered pocket inside.
    She called the number listed for Conor, and a woman answered. “McColgan’s.”
    “Hello, this is...um...may I speak to Conor O’Clery, please?”
    Silence. And then, “Conor’s not in at the moment.” Her tone was stiff, proprietary. “He’s expected back shortly. Who will I tell him phoned?”
    “This is.... Just tell him his mother’s taken ill at home. An ambulance should be here any minute.” Please, God! “He can try calling here when he gets back, but—”
    “I’ll have him ring the hospital straight away,” the girl interrupted and hung up.
    Arianna stared in puzzlement at the receiver, while reaching up to massage her throbbing left temple with her other hand. Sparing Granny a worried glance, Arianna noted that she was lying deathly still, eyes closed, purple lips pinched with pain. Stretching the phone cord over her reclining form, Arianna knelt again beside her.
    She dialed the number for Caleb. Surname: MacNamara. Small world. Whispering, “Pick up, pick up,” she bit back a groan when the call went automatically into voice mail. She waited impatiently as the deep, all-too-familiar voice recited a perfunctory message. “Caleb, this is Arianna — um, from last night. I...uh...there’s been an emergency. It’s Mrs.—uh…your grandmother. An ambulance is already on the way here, so I guess you should go straight to the hospital.” Her photographic memory coming in handy, she recited her new cell number and hung up.
    On the off chance that Conor or Caleb might drop by here before checking their voice mail, Arianna dug a pen and notepad out of the purse in her lap. Scribbling a message, she added her address and phone number, and left the note propped conspicuously in the center of the table.
    As she gently chafed Granny’s chilled hand between her own, a longcase clock in the sitting room chimed the hour of three. The sound faded into the soulful wail of a siren. Thank God. Strange, how she had always dreaded that sound, because it meant someone was in trouble. Today, however, it conveyed something else entirely: That help was on the way.

Chapter Nine
    H is grandmother. That explained everything, Arianna decided as she thumbed through a magazine in the emergency room at Ennis General. With a sigh, she tossed the out-of-date publication onto a plastic table molded to the chair on her left. Resting her head against the puke green wall behind her, she realized she was shell-shocked. Understandable, given the way the missing pieces of her life had come flying back together like an explosion in reverse.
    Still reeling from the midwife’s disclosure, Arianna