Saturday, 12:08 p.m.
Meredith took the cordless phone into Grace’s bedroom. It was where she liked to go when she was angry. She despised being threatened. The words from the man claiming to be Adam Duran came back to her.
I want to hang the painting over the mantel so everyone who comes into my home can see what she’s done.
Meredith opened the closet that once held Grace’s clothes. Not long after Grace went missing, Meredith had packed up her daughter’s clothing and put the boxes in the garage. Despite everything, she still expected Grace to show up at the house demanding her things.
In the years that followed, she’d turned the closet into a different kind of shrine. This was where she stored her daughter’s portraits.
Most of the time, all the portraits but that year’s were wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam and sealed in boxes, but for the month of Grace’s birthday, Meredith would pick a few to display in Grace’s room. She should’ve packed them away a week ago, but she hadn’t. It seemed wrong to put them back in storage when she hadn’t yet finished the one that would mark Grace’s thirty-third birthday.
Meredith sat on the edge of the bed facing the closet and the wall where three portraits had been hung. Grace at eighteen, twenty-five, and twenty-eight. She put her notepad and pen on the bed next to her and called the courier service first. As expected, they had nothing to tell her.
After she hung up, she checked her phone contacts for a number she’d called only twice before. While Meredith had threatened her art broker’s Braque, Brian would sell his father’s fake leg when it came to high-value commissions. His sweet assistant Katie, however, would be much easier to persuade.
Let’s see if fake Adam’s identity stands up to the same scrutiny my replicas get.
With three pairs of Grace’s icy-blue eyes watching her, Meredith punched the number into the handset and offered a breezy greeting.
“Hi, Katie.” As if they were old friends, the kind of friend you did favors for. She’d met Brian’s assistant only in passing, but Katie had made an impression in her sunflower-yellow blouse, garish green eye shadow, and bright orange braids. Meredith figured she used color to compensate for falling just short of five feet, even in heels. It worked. People noticed her. Unfortunately for Katie, her personality wasn’t nearly as bold. Meredith found herself comparing the assistant to Grace, as she always did with women of that age. The comparison wasn’t favorable to Katie.
“I need some information about a client who approached Brian about a commission. Girl in White in the Woods. I heard you spoke with him today.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Clarke. Truly. But I’m not allowed to give out that information.”
“Brian’s already talked to me about it. It’s my commission. I just need to confirm the identity, since I must’ve written the name down wrong.”
The assistant paused, then lowered her voice. “What’s the name you have?”
“Adam Duran.”
Katie sighed in apparent relief. She really was a nervous young woman. “Yes, that’s right. That’s the name.”
“But you see, it’s not. I know this for certain.”
“It’s the only name I have.”
“Like I said, it’s the wrong name.” An edge crept into her voice. “You must understand why I’d need to confirm the identity of someone asking about me, especially since they have such sensitive information about my work. About my family.”
“I really am sorry. Would you like to speak to Brian? I can see if he’s available.”
So Katie had finally stolen a backbone from the gallery’s lost and found. Meredith would’ve been impressed if it hadn’t pissed her off.
“No, I don’t want to speak to Brian. I’ve already spoken with Brian, and now I’m calling you. Brian mentioned that when the client called today, he seemed anxious that he hadn’t heard from me.”
“I can confirm he called, but I can’t share the details. I’m sure you understand.” Her voice was annoyingly chipper. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Ms. Clarke?”
“You haven’t yet helped me, Katie.”
The assistant went silent, but she didn’t hang up. She wasn’t the type to disconnect first.
Meredith released her breath and spoke to Brian’s assistant as calmly as she was able. “Listen, Katie, the worst that idiot boss of yours will do is fire you, and you know I’m capable of worse than that. Plus he won’t fire you. Then who would schedule his bathroom breaks?”
For focus, Meredith studied the three portraits of Grace. She’d selected the newer paintings at random, but the first portrait she’d hung because it remained her favorite. It was the truest to the Grace she remembered. Unlike the others, which were interpretations of what Grace might have looked like in later years, this one captured her as she was then. In this first portrait, Meredith hadn’t yet perfected the pale blue of Grace’s eyes, but her skin and hair were exactly right, the same as they’d been when she was sixteen. Meredith had taken artistic license with only a single detail: She’d given Grace a smile, although it had been lost long before she’d gone.
Meredith returned to her friendly voice but with enough of a threat to make Katie wonder at the undertone. “I won’t tell Brian you told me anything. Unless you don’t help me, in which case I’ll tell him I’ll no longer work with him because of you.”
The young woman huffed. “That’s not cool.” Katie sounded a little angry. Good for her.
“I agree, it isn’t cool at all. But neither is being threatened by someone hiding behind a fake name.”
On the other end of the line, Meredith heard a faint click-clack that might’ve been heels on tile. When Katie spoke again, her voice echoed as if she’d moved to a smaller room. Meredith could hear paper shuffling. “That’s the only name I have.” She dropped her voice. “But I got the impression it was someone who knew you well.” Brian had said the same thing, and an impatient Meredith began drumming her fingers on her leg. “There is one thing…”
As she waited for Katie to finish both her shuffling and her damn sentence, Meredith went through her list of suspects. She thought first of her ex-husband—John always sought the easiest route to a paycheck, which was part of what made him a crappy artist, and he’d been the one to connect her and Brian. But Meredith and John had divorced long before the teens disappeared. On the rare occasions they’d spoken since, John had shown little interest in Grace, let alone the young man she’d been dating. Besides, John wasn’t exactly the mastermind type.
She’d just dismissed the idea when it hit her that she was wrong. Grace herself could’ve told John everything about that night. Their daughter had spent a few months with him not long before she disappeared, and when she left Plumas County for good, she might’ve returned to her father for help. He wouldn’t have helped her financially, of course, but he might’ve provided a ride and kept her secret—if the price was right. And there was the added bonus of sticking it to Meredith.
John could be petty and mean. After Brian rejected John’s fake Monets, John had keyed the broker’s Range Rover. Her ex-husband wouldn’t have hesitated to blackmail her and use Brian to do it, especially if it meant John came out of it six figures richer.
But John was far from the only suspect. The neighborhood was full of people who hated the Clarke family. No one more than the Durans—
Olivia. Richard. Dominic. Even that damn dog, always crapping in her yard. She would’ve added Thea to the list if she’d thought the girl capable of such a complicated plan.
Rocky had never been her biggest fan either, and Meredith was pretty sure the Silvestris were deep in credit-card debt. Serena loved her Fendi bags and Garavani sandals.
The names of those who might have betrayed her buzzed in her head like a swarm of damn mosquitoes, trying to bleed her. Filling her lungs, Meredith tried a visualization technique Serena had taught her, picturing each annoying mosquito clenched in her fist, its wings and thorax broken. It did little to lighten her mood. Maybe because she’d done it wrong—Serena’s version had involved watering flowers or some such crap.
On the phone, Meredith heard more paper shuffling, then a sharp intake of breath. When Katie spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “Found it. Got something to write with?”
Meredith grabbed her pen and notepad. “Go ahead.”
“When the courier dropped off the note, he mentioned the client had promised to promote his band—‘Creatives should support creatives’ is what Mr. Duran said, according to the courier. So they exchanged social media handles.” She paused. “You won’t say you got it from me?”
“Of course not.” Meredith knew that if Adam Duran had let slip that information, he’d intended it to find its way back to Meredith, and it was only Brian’s incompetence that had kept it from her for this long.
Katie released a breath, her relief obvious even across the phone line. Meredith thought it was sweet that the girl trusted her so easily. Stupid, but sweet.
“I can’t believe I didn’t remember it,” she said. “It’s adamduranlives. Hope that helps.”
Then Katie hung up.