Saturday, 9:52 a.m.
Olivia left, but Dominic stayed, assessing Leyna with eyes the brown of a scorched redwood. Since she’d last seen him, a decade of grief had sharpened the planes of his face. Heavy stubble shadowed his jaw, midway between Forgot to shave for a few days and Heading into the woods to harvest timber.
Though Dominic was only thirty-four, a shallow groove already cut between his brows, and the skin crinkled at the corners of his eyes when they narrowed. Leyna supposed it was inevitable that life had left its mark.
At the echo of the front door closing, his mother gone, he said, “That was a rough one.”
“I’ve had rougher.”
The lines near his eyes deepened, but he ignored her reddening face, just as he’d ignored her thoroughly inappropriate crush until that summer she’d been eighteen. He came in the room, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms.
“Aren’t you trespassing?” he asked.
“Aren’t you?”
“We have a key. Surprised my mom hasn’t already called the police on you.”
Though he’d been joking, Leyna felt abruptly awkward, being alone in the bedroom with him. She glanced toward the door.
“We should probably leave,” she said.
The entirety of him grew too much for her, so she focused only on his hands, weathered since the last time she’d touched them. Like her, Dominic had always enjoyed the outdoors. Fishing. Hiking. Building birdhouses with the scraps of wood he found at the abandoned homesites. Back then, no matter how often he scraped beneath his nails, there always seemed to be crescents of dirt under them. Now his nails were clipped and clean. Leyna wanted to believe he’d manicured them in anticipation of seeing her, but she thought it more likely he’d just grown more careful about his appearance in the past decade. Since she’d hurt him, he’d probably grown more careful about everything.
She walked across the room and paused on the threshold to wait for him, but he made no move to follow. If anything, he seemed to further relax against the wall. His hands dropped into the pockets of his slacks, causing the fabric to strain against his thighs. Her cheeks grew hotter, and she forced herself to blink.
“So—what did you and my little sister talk about?” he said.
Leyna sighed and walked over to the bed. She smoothed the comforter before she sat. “She wants me to teach her how to pick a lock.”
He smiled, and even with all that was going on, she caught her breath. Those damn dimples.
“I’d forgotten you had that particular skill.”
“What kind of trespasser would I be if I couldn’t pick a lock?” she said. “Actually, I can only do interior doors. I’m not the person you’d call for a heist.”
Her eyes burned—she’d obviously forgotten to blink again. She pulled her attention away from Dominic, focused on a distant spot on the floor where a water stain ringed the laminate. But that just made her more aware of his breathing.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “I think you’d be great in a heist.”
She looked at him again, her gaze a challenge. Proof she was immune. “And why’s that?”
“Even though we were all older, you were always the smartest of us.”
Yeah, brilliant and unemployed. That’s me.
Dominic sat on the bed next to her, and her pulse quickened like she was eighteen again, before she’d ruined everything.
He shifted so he faced her. He looked so damn tired that her heart seized, and she fought the urge to comfort him. She’d forfeited that right long ago. “Thanks for coming.” He sounded as exhausted as he looked. “I wish it were under different circumstances.”
She inhaled and prepared to launch into the apology she’d practiced in the car. “Me too. I can’t believe this is happening again here, of all places. And also—I just—I’m sorry for how it ended between us.”
She meant to say more—on the drive, she’d clocked the full version at five minutes—but he waved her off after only a few seconds.
“It’s okay.”
“You’re missing a damn good speech.”
“I’m sure I am.”
When Dominic’s knee grazed hers, her stomach lurched, and she was grateful she hadn’t eaten.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Dom, but—why do you care so much about Ellie?” To keep from fidgeting, Leyna folded her hands in her lap, then immediately pulled them apart when she realized she looked like a chastised child. “How do you know her?”
“I don’t.” He paused, and his gaze on her sharpened. “You sure you don’t?”
At the intensity of his stare, she thought, Finally. This was the reason he’d asked her to come—what he couldn’t say in a phone call.
“I met her only that once at the restaurant. I thought you knew her from the youth center where you work?”
“I’ve never met her.”
“But you said…” Her voice trailed off as she realized he hadn’t said he knew Ellie. He’d only told her the missing girl had shown up at the center, and Leyna had assumed the rest.
“One of the volunteers called to let me know Ellie had been there asking questions. The next day, when I saw she was reported missing, I started asking around the neighborhood. You know how places like this are—word gets around.”
A surge of bitterness flared. Yeah, she knew, though the one time she’d counted on this, she’d been met with silence. Karma, she supposed, since she’d kept her own secrets about that night.
“That’s when you found out she’d been here.” Though it hadn’t been phrased as a question, he nodded. “So this volunteer called you on Thursday?” Another nod, which only deepened her confusion. “But Ellie wasn’t in the news until yesterday.”
He continued to stare expectantly, as if waiting for something from her. But what? She’d never had enough to offer him.
Finally, he said, “Ellie was asking about me—and Adam.”
Dominic said his younger brother’s name like a prayer, and she fought an urge to reach out and smooth the worry lines on his forehead.
The Duran brothers had always been close, closer than her and Grace. In one of the first memories she had of them, Dominic had been pushing Adam on a skateboard. Though it was not quite summer yet, Dominic was already tan, and he smelled of the shea butter Olivia insisted he use to keep from peeling. Adam was several shades lighter, his cheeks that day pink from excitement as much as the sun. She thought they’d been nine and seven, though she wasn’t sure. Back then, one month dissolved into the next, leaving only bits of memory Leyna strained to remember now.
This day was clearer than most. Adam had been wearing a helmet, but the straps hung limp, unsecured. Each time Dominic gave his brother a tiny shove, Adam coasted a few feet, laughed, and begged him to push harder. After about ten minutes of that—or had it been only seconds?—Dominic placed his palms on Adam’s back and shoved hard.
Too hard. Adam wobbled, then toppled off the skateboard. The helmet slipped from his head and rolled across the packed dirt. Stunned, Adam held back tears for several seconds before finally releasing them in chest-shuddering, nearly silent sobs. In her memory, Leyna still saw the horror on Dominic’s face when he realized that he’d not only failed to keep his brother safe but caused him pain.
“Ellie had a photo of us—you, me, Adam, Grace.”
Leyna rocked back on the bed, stunned. “She had a photo of us?”
“She also mentioned meeting you at the restaurant. And the woman from the youth center sent me this.” He took out his phone, and Leyna expected a photo. Instead, he called up a video. “It’s from the security cameras there. I’ve watched this a thousand times, but maybe you’ll catch something I didn’t.”
Leyna squinted at the screen. In the video, Ellie walked through the door and talked to several people, each time holding out her phone. The angle made it impossible to see clearly what was on Ellie’s screen, though by the way the others studied it, Leyna guessed it was the photo Dominic had mentioned.
Leyna watched the video several times, zooming in on different parts of the frame, each time sighing in frustration when Ellie pulled up the photo. She guessed which one it was—the photo taken the year Grace and Adam disappeared that had run in many of the newspapers. If only there was a better angle on it so she could be sure.
Before Leyna could ask, Dominic shook his head. “That’s all we’ve got. But at least it confirms the timing. She left by one thirty.”
“And the police have this?”
He nodded and shifted on the bed. Sitting that near to him, with a possible lead on Grace so close too, Leyna felt her head buzz as if filled with a thousand honey-drunk bees. “When Ellie was asking around, did she mention my sister?”
He shook his head and stowed his phone. “Just me and Adam.”
And now a thousand tiny stings. “What else did she say?”
“I wouldn’t have called you if I’d been able to find out more on my own. No one knows this stuff better than you.”
I wouldn’t have called…
Of course. It had only been about Adam. With Dom, it was always about Adam, just like for her it was always about Grace. It was the reason their relationship would never have lasted.
Her expression must’ve telegraphed how deeply that admission wounded, because his eyes softened. “I know how much you hate it here. I knew you wouldn’t want to come back. There’s something else—”
But he’d hurt her, and she lashed out without thinking. “I stopped at the market in Sierraville on the way here. The cashier remembered Ellie. He said she bought the snack cakes that were Adam’s favorite.”
His jaw tensed; whatever he’d been about to say was forgotten. “And?” He spoke sharply, as if he recognized she’d shared the detail to wound him as he had her.
Leyna already regretted the comment; her cheeks flamed. “Nothing.”
But Dominic wasn’t letting it go. “Thea loves cupcakes too. Think she’s involved?”
“That’s ridiculous. She wasn’t even born yet.”
“So that’s why it’s ridiculous?”
They both fell silent, breathing more heavily than they had been a few minutes before but unwilling to break eye contact.
When Dominic spoke, his voice was chilly. “After I found out she’d been in the neighborhood, I talked to the Kims. Nari took the twins to a water park, and Daniel was at work, so they were all gone until after seven. The Silvestris were home. My dad and Thea too. Rocky was gone until late afternoon, but even if he’d been home, his place is a decent walk from here and not easy to spot. It’s unlikely Ellie would’ve made it that far.” His gaze was sharp, as if daring her to say something else about his family. When she didn’t bite, he said, “What about at your house?”
She heard her mom’s voice, evading as she always did: If that girl was here, she didn’t knock on my door. “My mom was home, but she didn’t see Ellie.”
“You’re sure?”
Not at all. “Of course I’m sure.” Because in the feud between the Durans and the Clarkes, Leyna would always back the Clarke—even when that Clarke was her mom and the Duran was Dominic. “How sure are you that the Kims were gone?”
“Kind of hard to get two six-year-olds to lie convincingly about something like that. Unless you think they’re in a crime ring with my little sister?”
Leyna held up her palms in a gesture of surrender. “Come on, Dom. Truce?”
He exhaled, his body releasing its tension. “This disappearance has stirred up… a lot of shit.” He shifted on the bed, putting a few more inches between them, and she pretended not to notice. “With my mom at a client meeting in Reno until Thursday evening, that leaves the Silvestris and my dad and Thea in the neighborhood when Ellie was here.” He paused. “And your mom.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Frank and Richard both admit they saw Ellie that day, and she was flashing that same photo. The one of us. Don’t you think it’s strange that Ellie visited every house but yours?”
So much for our truce. She folded her arms across her chest. “What did your dad say?”
“Ellie knocked on the door around noon, showed him the photo. He confirmed it was taken in the neighborhood, but he wouldn’t tell her more.”
“Why not?”
“He didn’t know who she was, and you remember that podcaster who showed up here for the ten-year anniversary.” She didn’t. She’d moved out long before then. Dominic seemed to realize that too, because his jaw tensed again. “Anyway, everyone imagines themselves an investigator these days.”
“You mean like what we’re doing?”
“That’s different.”
Is it? “So what happened next?”
“He made Thea a sandwich.”
“That’s it?”
“Whole conversation took about twenty seconds, he says.”
“What about Frank?”
His eyebrows knit, as if her question surprised him. “He won’t talk to me.”
“That’s strange.”
“Not really. Serena’s close with your mom, and you know how this neighborhood is. Your mom got custody of the Silvestris.” He rubbed his forehead until it reddened. “The Silvestris talked to the sheriff’s office, at least.”
Leyna felt herself slipping into a familiar darkness. In her mind, she saw Ellie walking away from the restaurant, and Grace walking away from the house. The two images blurred together until they became a single movie chronicling her failure. She imagined them both turning and staring at her in reproach for not doing more.
She pulled her gaze away, focused again on the water stain on the floor. A gold ring on fake oak.
The stain flashed.
Not a stain.
Metal.
Leyna jumped up from the bed as if scalded, heart in her throat. She rushed to the dresser, dropped to her knees, and reached for it even though she didn’t need to hold it to know what it was. She’d recognized it the instant it glinted in that shaft of sunlight.
An open gold cuff with a glass-petaled rose capping each end.