Maya paced back and forth in the kitchen. Her body ached from all the walking she’d done earlier, but her feet moved as if trying to outrun her thoughts, every neuron and nerve ending on the fritz. The kettle shrieked. She made chamomile tea when what she really wanted was the pint of gin she’d bought at the package store on her way home from the museum—but she’d told herself she wouldn’t drink before five p.m. The metal spoon clattered noisily in her mug as she stirred in honey.
She’d all but forgotten the strange key Frank had showed her, the key to his cabin, but hearing about Cristina’s tattoo had sparked Maya’s memory of Balance Rock, and though she couldn’t be certain, she sensed that this wasn’t the only time she had seen the key.
She heard a text message come in on her phone. Maya spilled hot tea on her fingers as she rushed to her room to answer it. Please be Dan, please be Dan. He still hadn’t responded to her text from last night, but she’d been trying not to worry.
It was her mom: Chili tonight?
Brenda was clearly trying to make amends—chili was Maya’s favorite—but it wouldn’t make up for last night.
Sure, Maya wrote back. She wasn’t expecting an apology, but neither did she intend to offer one. She knew that she was right. The key. The cabin. The late-night calls on the landline. They all pointed to the same truth that lay just beyond the dark spots in her own memory.
The problem with Steven’s theory about Cristina’s damaged heart was that it didn’t explain what happened to Aubrey. Steven had never met Frank. He didn’t understand. What Maya needed was to talk to someone who knew him in the way she and Cristina had.
She thought of Ruby.
All Maya knew about Ruby was that she’d once professed her love for Frank in Sharpie on a mix CD. Maya had been jealous at the time, but never found out who Ruby was, and four days later Aubrey was dead. Maya had forgotten all about Ruby then, but now she remembered the mix CD—Songs for when we can’t be together—and wondered if Ruby had loved Frank enough to know his secret.
The battery on Maya’s phone was low, so she knelt to plug it in, and as she did, she caught her reflection in the window. She hadn’t realized she was grinding her teeth. Her lips were pale, eye sockets like caves, and the backyard bled through her reflection in such a way that the lawn lay across her chest while the trees beyond ran through her head.