“I was looking forward to the botany class starting Monday," Jane said. "I hope this was all a misunderstanding and she'll still be teaching it. I met her at a city council meeting once when the cat-haters were yapping about laws to keep cats on leashes. She had some pretty sharp things to say about the balance of nature and I liked her a lot. That woman coming out of the house looked like her. Wonder if it's a sister.”

The kitchen door opened and Jane's eldest child, Mike, came in. "Wow! A cast and crutches and everything. Cool! Does it hurt?"

“Does it hurt? Of course it hurts!" She paused. "But not a whole lot," she admitted. "The problem is the crutches. I can't control them."

“Let me try," Mike said delightedly.

Since he was about a foot taller than his mother, he had to hunch over like an old man to even reach the handles, but managed to lurch around the room briskly.

“So how are you going to decorate the cast?" he asked, tossing the crutches back on the sofa and lowering himself to the floor with the grace that only twenty-year-old knees can manage. "Shame it's a plain white one. The stuff they wrap it with these days comes in neon colors and with sports emblems, you know. Scott had one for a while on his hand in magenta."

“Neither sports emblems nor magenta goes with my wardrobe," Jane said. "Besides, I wasn't offered another color.”

The doorbell rang and Mike went to let Mel in. "Anything you want fetched, Mom?" Mike asked when he was halfway up the steps to his room.

“Carryout dinner," Jane replied.

Mel had seated himself in the other chair next to the sofa. "Bad break?" he asked sympathetically.

“Just a fracture in a big bone," Jane replied. "I saw the X ray. I never knew there were so many bones in a foot. What happened to Julie Jackson?”

Mel sighed. "She's alive at least. In a coma. She was attacked in her basement, which is a sort of workshop. Lots of lights over seedlings and a desk, computer, and a whole lot of file drawers. Apparently she hit her head on the corner of one that was open as she fell. She was certainly a well-organized person. Each file was labeled, and the contents in one of those paper folders with the clips."