Saturday, 1:04 p.m.
Whatever Leyna’s mom had been doing in her garden, it had been dirty work. Her bare arms bore the smudges of her labor. In her hand, she held a small bunch of dried blue flowers and sprigs of leaves. She tossed it in the kitchen garbage.
Upon seeing Leyna, she grimaced. “You’re back,” her mom said with as much enthusiasm as she’d earlier shown the bag of Goose’s crap. “I thought perhaps you’d taken my advice and headed home.”
Leyna pointed to the trash can. “An odd time to be gardening.”
Her mom crossed to the sink and washed her arms until they were clean if slightly red from her scrubbing.
“Not really,” she said. “We got an alert that the wildfire near Johnsville is spreading. I figured it couldn’t hurt to prune some of the dead vegetation.”
Leyna raised an eyebrow. Trimming a few wildflowers and leaves would do little against a wildfire that close to the house, but she had other arguments to start.
Behind her mom, the canvas was propped on an easel, facing away so she couldn’t see what was on it. She was considering asking about it when she felt suddenly dizzy; she quickly sat on one of the stools at the island.
She looked up to see her mom hovering, wearing an expression she hadn’t expected. If she hadn’t known her mom better, Leyna would’ve labeled it concern.
“You need to eat something.”
That was the last thing she needed, yet when her mom pushed the yogurt and spoon in her direction, Leyna ate it all in a few bites. She finished with a couple sips of water from a glass that had appeared as quickly as the yogurt.
Her mom pulled up a stool across the island from her and studied Leyna with a sharpness that made her feel exposed. As if Leyna were the one with the secrets.
I guess that’s fair.
Leyna’s hands shook as she took the three Polaroids from her pocket. She fanned them out as if asking her mom to pick a card for a magic trick.
Was your card a queen of spades?
Her mom took them from her hands and set them one at a time on the counter. Leyna was surprised to see her mom’s hands trembled too.
“Are these from Grace’s wall?”
“They’re from Rocky’s house.”
“Why were you in Rocky’s house?”
Leyna ignored the question. She pointed at the Polaroid that featured her mom, Rocky, and Grace. “I thought you weren’t close.”
The last of the concern in her mom’s expression evaporated, replaced by a more familiar irritation. “Really, Leyna. How many people live on this street? A dozen? There are photos of all of us together at one time or another, especially before it happened.”
Leyna didn’t ask for clarification. She knew what it meant.
The photo of the three of them seemed to have been taken the year before Grace went missing. If Rocky had been a visitor to their home during that time, shouldn’t Leyna have some memory of that?
“I don’t remember him visiting the house,” she said.
Her mom’s gaze challenged. When Leyna was younger, the hard edge of that stare would’ve made her look away. Even now, her eyes watered with the effort of holding eye contact.
“You were close enough to have him at our home,” she said, “and for Grace to keep his photo on her wall.”
Until she’d taken it down.
Why had she taken it down?
“If you found these photos at Rocky’s, how do you know they’re your sister’s?” Her mother tried for a casual tone but there was a slight softening in her expression when she said Rocky’s name. “Grace wasn’t the only person who had an instant camera. The Duran boys owned one too.” Her mom’s face hardened again, if it had ever gone soft in the first place. “Those damn Durans.”
That was one of her mother’s signature moves—deflect and confuse—but Leyna wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted. She was sure the photos had once hung on Grace’s wall among the others, but she shook her head. Her way of saying, I’m not letting you off the hook this time, Mom. “Doesn’t matter if they’re Grace’s. They’re of Grace.”
“They’re just a few old photos, Leyna. Not a smoking gun.”
The photos faced her mom on the island, upside down to her but every detail still clear. The first time Leyna had touched the Polaroid of Grace alone back at Rocky’s place, Grace had seemed so happy, so alive, in the picture that an imagined spark made her palms tingle. “Where was I when that one of you three was taken?”
Meredith shrugged, her shoulders too stiff to pull off the gesture. “Wherever you always were. Reading. Climbing a tree.” Her tone dismissive. “What does it matter where you were?”
“If these photos aren’t significant, why were they in an envelope taped to the underside of a drawer?”
“You went through the man’s things?” She shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. “You never said—why did you break into his house in the first place?”
“Who says we broke in?”
Her mom’s eyes flashed. “We?”
“Dominic’s the one who found the photos.”
The admission was a challenge, and as Leyna had expected, the corners of her mom’s mouth twitched. “I bet he did.”
The suggestion buried in her tone brought Leyna to her feet too quickly, and she had to hold on to the island to steady herself. She sat down again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That family has always known more about what happened that night than they’ve said. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dominic was involved in some way. Did you actually see him find the photos?”
The urge to defend Dominic rose swiftly, fueled by her own earlier doubts, which she still stubbornly shoved aside. “Dominic wasn’t even here that night.”
“Hmm.” A lot of doubt was packed into that simple interjection, and Leyna realized her mom had done it again—made the conversation about something else.
She tried to steer it back on topic. “How did these three photos go from Grace’s wall to an envelope in Rocky’s cottage?” Leyna asked. “And where’s the fourth one?”
In the silence that followed, Leyna fought an urge to climb the stairs to Grace’s room. That was part of why she was here, wasn’t it? To get the other photos and take them back to her apartment? If she saw them again, maybe she’d be able to name the doubt that wriggled just out of reach.
“I have no idea.”
“Well, what do you know about Rocky?”
Her mom huffed. “Really, Leyna, this is starting to feel like an interrogation.”
From the countertop, Leyna plucked the close-up photo of Grace—in her pale blue shirt and fake sapphire pendant—and held it inches from her mom’s face. She let the image of a smiling Grace be her only response.
After several moments of silence, her mom tilted her chin, signaling she would answer, if reluctantly. “He commissioned a painting.”
Leyna couldn’t help the knitting of her brow. “A forgery?” Rocky didn’t seem the type. Then again, she didn’t really know him, did she? That was kind of the point.
Her mom nearly smiled at that. “God, no. A landscape to hang in the clubhouse when it was finished. I knew the project was dead, but that poor man didn’t, so I figured what the hell—do the guy a favor.”
Leyna swallowed a burst of sarcastic laughter. That was her mom. Always quick with the acts of kindness.
“What was the painting he wanted?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “What always hangs on the wall in places like that?” she said. “A landscape of the local scenery. The foothills at sunset. Trite, I know, but he seemed to appreciate it.”
And no doubt he paid you well for it.
Her mom pushed away from the island and stood. A clear signal: We’re done with this conversation.
“Other than that and seeing him around here, I barely know the man,” her mom said.
Leyna stayed seated and crossed her arms. “And what about Grace? Why would he have these photos of her?”
Meredith’s face clouded, and Leyna suspected whatever came next would be a lie.
“I’m not sure about that.” To Leyna’s surprise, it sounded like the truth. “Grace was good at keeping secrets, especially toward the end.”
Wonder where she got that from.
“Grace wasn’t the saint you think she was,” her mother said at last.