Saturday, 1:10 p.m.
That damn adamduranlives countdown and the bouquet left at the edge of her property had gotten to Meredith. What other excuse did she have for telling Leyna that Grace wasn’t a saint?
Meredith turned her back to Leyna, eager to hide her mistake. She fought to keep her eyes off the back of the canvas of Grace.
Behind her, Leyna sighed deeply, but Meredith had no intention of turning toward her. For the conversation she knew was coming, it was better if Leyna couldn’t read her expression.
“What do you mean, Grace wasn’t a saint?”
“I shouldn’t have said that about your sister.”
“Actually, you should’ve said more.”
Meredith sighed. “Let it go, Leyna.”
Her daughter’s resolute silence told her that wasn’t happening.
Although she’d urged Leyna to drop it, Meredith found herself struggling to do the same. The memories insisted, and Meredith was again in Grace’s bedroom sixteen years earlier. Adam on the floor. Grace angry. Back then, she’d always been angry.
After Meredith struck Adam in the head with the mallet, Grace rubbed the side of her neck where it met her shoulder, the spot occupied seconds earlier by his hands.
She’d slurred, “Why’d you do that?” The words ran together, her confusion amplified by whatever drink she’d imbibed or pill she’d popped.
“He was choking you,” Meredith reminded her. Her indignation faded quickly as she realized she’d misread the situation. Adam had been holding Grace down, not throttling her. Still not okay, of course, especially with her daughter visibly impaired. But she couldn’t stop herself from wondering about that fight and what might’ve led to it.
The mallet grew abruptly too heavy, and Meredith dropped it on the rug. Its handle landed against Adam’s leg, as if, even though he was unconscious, he was holding it for her.
Meredith’s gaze darted to Adam’s head. If he was bleeding, she couldn’t tell in the shadows of the bedroom floor. The only light, from the lamp with its crooked shade, fell on Grace. The spotlight was always on Grace.
Now Leyna moved to the other side of the counter, locking her eyes on Meredith’s, arms crossed as she awaited answers. She seemed to be feeling much better now. Meredith shouldn’t have given her that yogurt.
“I only meant that Grace was in a foul mood the night she ran away.”
It was more than Meredith had ever offered Leyna, but her daughter appeared dissatisfied. “Why do you assume she left on her own?”
“Like I said, she was in a bad mood that day.” She motioned to Leyna’s scar. “As you know. She’d been talking about leaving for months, and I always assumed that’s why she left.”
Meredith declined to mention all that had happened with Adam after she’d thwacked him with the mallet.
Grace’s question that night came back to her but in Adam’s voice: Why’d you do that?
Meredith almost told Leyna what she’d realized when her daughter started suspecting Adam in Grace’s death: If Adam killed her, it might have been in self-defense.
Meredith was girding herself for whatever question came next when Leyna said, “I don’t believe she ran away, though maybe she intended to.”
Leyna let her statement settle, a challenge—she was offering her own memories, but they came at a cost. One Meredith couldn’t afford to pay, for Leyna’s sake. And for Grace’s memory.
But perhaps she could give enough that it felt at least a little like the closure her daughter had been seeking for far too long.
“Tell me,” Meredith said.
Leyna nodded once, confirmation of their unspoken contract—a secret for a secret.
“I saw Grace leave that night. She’d changed from the blue blouse to a black one. There’d been… a fight, and there was blood on her sleeve.”
Meredith struggled to keep her expression masked, even as her thoughts churned. Was it possible Leyna knew about Meredith hitting Adam with the mallet? There had been so much blood—head wounds were like that—and some of it had indeed landed on Grace. Meredith hadn’t realized Grace had changed her shirt, but of course she had. She must’ve been a real mess by the end of the night.
But she quickly realized that wasn’t the blood Leyna referenced. She’d meant the fight between her daughters that had left Leyna with a wound on her arm. Meredith didn’t know all of what had happened—Leyna had always been stubborn with her secrets—but she knew enough to understand the fight had been Grace’s fault. It was always Grace’s fault.
Leyna stared at her before she finally said, “That’s the problem with the anonymous tip about Grace being seen at that campground after she went missing—the caller said she was still wearing her blue shirt. She wasn’t.”
A cold dread seeped into Meredith’s bones. So from the beginning, Leyna had known the tip was fake.
Did she also suspect Meredith had been the one who called it in?
Meredith composed her expression but didn’t trust herself to speak. Leyna’s gaze was sharp, her smart green eyes assessing. But she would never see the guilt there. Meredith was a master of deceit.
“I think she might’ve meant to run away but something happened,” Leyna said. “Someone stopped her. And even if she did leave on her own, I don’t think—” She paused for a quick breath. “I don’t think she would’ve been in good shape.”
Meredith fought a tic at her right eye. Why can’t she ever let things go? “Why would you think that?”
“She wouldn’t have left for good without taking some things with her.”
“What would she have taken?” Meredith said dismissively. “Not her phone, because that could be tracked. She didn’t have credit cards. So cash, her ID. Or, even better, a fake ID. A photo or two. All of that could fit in her pockets.”
Leyna’s expression didn’t waver. “She would’ve taken her camera, at least.”
Meredith had nothing to say to that, because Leyna was right.
“She was heading into the forest, not toward the road,” Leyna said. “She didn’t have access to a car, and how far is it to town? She couldn’t have gone on foot. She wouldn’t have.”
Another truth. Grace loved to run, to dance, to move. But in spurts. She bored easily, and a long walk into town or even to the main highway wouldn’t have appealed to her.
Leyna continued. “Besides, she was alone. Wasn’t your theory that she and Adam left together?”
“It wasn’t just my theory. They’d talked about going to Chicago, and remember that woman, Charlotte something, who owned the house before the Millers? She saw them walking toward the road holding hands.”
“Charlotte lied,” Leyna said. “I know what I saw.”
“Perhaps she decided to go it alone. She and Adam were fighting. It could’ve been because she wanted him to leave with her, and he didn’t want to go.”
Leyna’s eyes became lasers. “Like I said, she would’ve taken—”
Her expression faltered, and her breaths came quicker. Whatever had occurred to her, she kept it to herself. But a moment later, Meredith got there too. The three Polaroids from Rocky’s place. Creased. Smudged.
Voice shaky, Leyna said, “If she’d taken photos with her, she would’ve had to fold them so they fit in her pockets.”
And yet, all these years later, the photos had found their way back into this house.
Leyna looked away. Unfortunate, since that brought her gaze to the hidden canvas at the end of the room. Her thick brows shot together and she canted her head. Meredith sensed her intention before she took a step. She slipped between her daughter and the easel.
“Why’re you painting in the kitchen?”
Meredith never painted in the kitchen.
“I’m not,” she said. “I just wanted to see it in this light.”
“The lighting’s too warm in here.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Or so you’ve always told me.”
Not for the first time, Meredith wished her daughter were more obtuse. “For painting, that’s true, but it’s perfect for viewing this particular work,” she said, hoping the authority with which she spoke would kill her daughter’s curiosity.
It didn’t. “What’re you painting?”
“It’s for a client.” That should do it, she thought. Leyna avoided extended conversations about Meredith’s work. Her profession wasn’t illegal—not exactly—but the grayer areas of life had always made her younger daughter uncomfortable. That was Leyna—driven to do the right thing, as if it were ever as clear as that.
“Let me see.” There was an unexpected challenge in Leyna’s voice.
“It’s not finished.”
“That’s fine.”
“Not my best work either.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true. Let me offer you a second opinion.”
Leyna had once said a cow sculpted of butter was the most amazing work of art she’d ever seen. “We should think about evacuating before the roads are blocked,” Meredith said.
“Deflect and confuse.”
“What?”
“What’re you hiding?”
Meredith opened a closet and quickly stowed the painting. She hardened the planes of her face.
“Leave it.”
Irritation flashed in her daughter’s eyes, but when she spoke, her voice was weary. “Do you think Grace is dead?”
Meredith wanted to reassure her as she had so many times before, but she knew any attempt would ring false. For the past sixteen years, she’d been protecting her elder daughter, but if Leyna was right—if Grace had walked into the forest alone that night—maybe Meredith was wrong about everything else too.