Andrew's voice.
Piper's eyes flew open. Both brothers loomed over her. Her first impulse was to cover up her table of articles, books, notes, scratchings of card-catalog numbers. But that would only alert them that she was working on something she didn't want them to know about.
"We recognized your bike out front," Benjamin said, and Piper could feel her stomach lurch as she recognized his expression for what it was: masked fear. She turned to Andrew and saw that mix of irritation and gravity that she'd always known—probably since the day their mother died—hid his fear.
"Hannah?" She almost couldn't get it out.
"She passed out at the wheel." Benjamin kept his tone crisp, businesslike, as if that would keep his sister from panicking, himself from panicking. "She ran off the road and smashed into a trash can. Just missed a couple of old people out for their afternoon walk. They called an ambulance, the police."
"She's okay," Andrew said. "A few bumps and bruises. Liddy and Pop are at the hospital with her now."
Benjamin nodded. "We thought you'd want to go see her."
They didn't ask about her notepad, her time lines, her books on the Russian revolution, her histories of Cape Cod, and stacks of old magazines, although she noticed Andrew's flicker of interest. But he restrained himself as she scooped everything up, shoved it in her knapsack, and nodded, her pulse racing, her stomach twisted, that she was ready.
Twenty minutes later, they were at the hospital.
Hannah had been admitted with dizziness and nausea; her few bruises were of little concern. Doctors wanted to run tests to find out what had caused her to pass out.
She, of course, had her own ideas, which she articulated to Piper the moment her brothers, father, and sister-in-law had grudgingly left them alone together. Andrew retreated, muttering that this was what always got the two of them into trouble in the first place.
"I was poisoned," Hannah announced.
Piper immediately glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot, but Hannah looked so green and frail that Piper couldn't even summon up a good warning glare. "It was warm today. Maybe you had too much sun."
"I wasn't even in the sun. No, I was poisoned. I'm not sure what it was, but the doctors will never find it in my blood because they won't know to look for it. It's probably dissipated by now anyway."
"Did you try a new tea?"
Hannah scowled. "I didn't poison myself. Someone else poisoned me."
Piper suppressed a groan of disbelief, frustration, exasperation. She was at her wit's end. Her aunt was driving her insane.
"Hannah, how on earth could someone poison you?"
"Very easily. A few drops of the right poison in my springwater, and here I am, nauseated and dizzy. I don't keep an armed guard at my townhouse, Piper. A clever sort could easily have slipped in and done the deed. Perhaps it was even a guest."
"Hannah."
"You mustn't be shocked, dear. We know someone's trying to stop you from digging up my father's treasure."
"No, we don't know that. We know I've been receiving nasty phone calls warning me off date's land, but that's all. Besides, you said nobody knows about the treasure."
"I said I didn't tell anybody about it. That doesn't mean someone didn't already know." She took a shallow breath, her eyes clear and sparkling green, a contrast to the sickly green of her skin. "Possibly the killer."
The killer? It took a moment, but Piper finally realized what her aunt was saying. "Oh, Hannah. The person who lured your parents onto the sandbar would be even older than you are by now! I can't see some old codger slipping you a mickey and leaving lines from rap songs on my message machine."
"Old codger, Piper? Oh, I see. You can believe everyone in town will blame me for making those calls to you, me for sneaking out behind your back to dig treasure. I'm eighty-seven. Why not someone ninety-seven or a hundred?"
Piper stared at her old aunt. She was so slim that her body barely made a lump in the thin hospital blanket. "Okay. Name me a ninety-seven-year-old candidate."
Hannah snorted, annoyed. "Always such a pragmatist. Maybe he's not alive."
"What do you mean, a ghost is responsible for the call on my cell phone? Oh, come on, Hannah, even you can't believe that."
"I'm keeping an open mind," she said airily. "And now that I've had a chance to think about it, I'm sure the poison was in the springwater your father delivered yesterday."
"Hannah!" Piper quickly lowered her voice before her father and brothers heard her and burst through the door. She leaned forward, her voice shaking she was so upset. "Hannah, are you suggesting my father poisoned you?"
"Heavens, no. He's always been such a sweet boy. I remember when—"
"Hannah."
She sighed. "Oh, all right. Someone must have gotten to the water before him. It's the only sensible option. I'll have to speak to him."