Patch sat with Saint on the rear deck as the charcoal cooled and a breeze he could not feel kicked up white ash from the grill.
That morning Patch had walked into the law offices of Jasper and Coates, both now moneyed with their navy suits, salt-and-pepper hair, gold cufflinks and watches. He was unsure of why he had been summoned, and he sat beside Mrs. Meyer, who reached out and took his hand in an act of such unexpected compassion it could only have been born of tragedy. The days since had robbed her of something vital. Thoroughly beaten, she looked a woman who had outlived her child.
The reading had been brief. Misty had left her estate to her daughter, of course. A small amount to charity, her trust would be nullified and eventually redirected and repurposed. She left a picture to Patch.
And then Jasper had straightened a little, cleared his throat, and removed his gold horn-rimmed spectacles. “Charlotte Mary Grace Meyer will be left in the sole custody of Joseph Henry Macauley.”
Patch sipped beer, crossed his legs, and watched Saint in the kitchen, scraping their plates into the trash. She returned and settled beside him on the swing seat, her feet folded beneath her.
“I’ll bet Mrs. Meyer had something to say,” Saint said.
“She already knew.”
“She’s old now. Not as old as the woman inside the house.” She glanced in through the window to where her grandmother dozed in a leather wingback. “She can’t give Charlotte the life you can. The girl needs to get out and see the world outside of this town.”
“That’s why she did it?” Patch said.
“We both know the answer to that one, too.”
“The kid, she steals.”
Saint bit her lower lip.
“Not like I stole,” he said.
“Kids do stupid things.”
“Like the time you fashioned me a new eye out of papier-mâché.”
“That wasn’t stupid.”
“The protrusion.”
“So you could see around corners.”
“You can’t think the kid would be better with me. You’ve seen the Meyer house, the life…”
Saint chased the errant flutter of a bat with her eyes. “I saw it. And you saw it. But seeing and—”
“Knowing?”
“Understanding. We all see you, Patch. We all tell you to move forward, but where exactly is forward? There’s no other place we can go. To face the past is to momentarily turn your back on what is now. And when you do that, you miss so damn much.”
“So what then?”
“Misty is setting you free.”
“And if I don’t want to be free—”
“Then you see out your days in that basement, trying to make sense of the dark.”
Patch exhaled. “Tell me about the Oklahoma girl.”
Saint exhaled. “Not on your list or ours. No way of knowing exactly how long she lay there. Mother is dead. Another of Eli Aaron’s. I looked into her life as best I could. No reason. Nothing.”
“We need a break. In all of this, we just never caught a break.”
“A parking ticket. A stolen car.”
“Anything, Saint.”
Saint yawned and stretched. “Breaks tend to happen when you call off the search.”
“This girl could be Grace,” he said.
“Yes. But you don’t believe that.”
“No.”