Clara Hastings's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Mildred's tea sat cold on the saucer. Clara had written seven names in her notebook and drawn seven lines beside them, one for each thing she knew. The lines were mostly empty. A baker's son. A schoolteacher. A dockworker. A fiddler. A laundry girl. Two more the landlady had named in a whisper. Clara needed the thing that tied them together, or she was guessing at where the taker would reach next. Guessing, she'd learned, was how a person ended up on a flyer. She went to the police station on the corner with the brick front and the neat white trim. The desk clerk barely looked up. Clara asked for anyone working the disappearances. A young deputy came out from the back, black hair, uniform still stiff at the collar. Four months on the job, she'd heard at the market. The other officers called him something behind his back. "Officer Marsh," he said. "You're the reporter." "Clara Hastings. I have seven names. I need to know what they had in common." He looked at her list. His jaw tightened. "Come around back." He took her to a side room with a folding table. On the table sat a cardboard box of paper the station had pulled from the community chapel's basement, water-stained, half-sorted. "Nobody's had time," he said. "Or nobody wants to." Clara sat and started reading. Church rolls. Utility complaints. A petition about the tunnels. Nothing lined up. She was ready to close the box when Marsh set another page in front of her. "Blood drive," he said. "Two months back. Church basement." She took the sheet. Phone. Email. Donor ID. Check-in time. Signature. She ran her finger down the column of names. The baker's son. The schoolteacher. The dockworker. The fiddler. The laundry girl. All seven. Every single one had signed in on the same afternoon. Her hand went cold. "They all gave blood. On the same day." "Same hour, most of them." Marsh's voice stayed flat, but he pulled a chair closer. "Whoever ran that drive has their names, their phones, their addresses." "Who ran it?" "Sheet doesn't say. Nobody at the chapel remembers signing off on it." The door opened. A young man stood in it, brown hair sticking up, jaw set. Marcus Webb. Clara had seen his flyer taped inside the chapel window. His grandmother. Marcus looked at the sheet in her hand. "She donated in September," he said. "She told me. She was proud of it." Clara turned the sheet toward him. He found the line. His finger stopped. He didn't speak. "Eight," Clara said. Marsh took the page back and slid it into a folder. "I'm keeping this off the log for now. If the wrong person hears we have it, we lose it." Clara had her pattern. She also had a list that named her next, and two men who now knew she was holding it.