Saturday, 2:58 p.m.
Dazed, Leyna left her mom’s embrace and wandered to the spot where she’d seen Olivia digging, her movements nearly feral. She peered at the patch of earth. Though Olivia had lost interest in the grave when she’d seen Dominic injured, she’d cleared a significant amount of dirt. In the process, she’d uncovered bones. A skull and a few ribs. Enough for Leyna to guess whose they were. Grace had been wearing a synthetic blouse. Leyna thought of the woman’s body unearthed in Los Angeles after two decades, the polyester dress found with her bones. Grace’s blouse wouldn’t have decomposed as quickly as Adam’s cotton T-shirt.
“Are these Adam’s?” Horrified.
The smoke coated her throat, making her cough, but her mom seemed unaffected by it. “For years, I kept waiting for her to return. She had to know I’d keep her secret. I did keep her secret.” She tilted her chin in a gesture of defiance but a tremor was in her voice. “I called in that tip about Grace and Adam being spotted at that campground. Better they look along the banks of the Feather River than near Adam’s grave and better for everyone to believe Grace was a runaway rather than a—” She left the last word unspoken.
Leyna swayed, but her disbelief kept her upright. “Grace isn’t a killer.”
Her mom looked at her with something close to sympathy. “The night they disappeared, I found Adam with his hands around Grace’s throat. Or at least, that’s what I thought at first. Then I realized he was holding her down to protect himself.” Leyna fought an impulse to touch her scar. “I thought—I thought he was hurting her. I hit him. In the head, with a mallet. Just once.”
There was no apology in her voice, as if hitting Adam a single time made it somehow okay. A misunderstanding. One thwack of the mallet. An accident. She half expected her mom to shrug.
“He left the house suddenly, and at first I thought he’d gone home. But when Olivia didn’t call to ask what had happened, I started to worry he’d never made it.” Her voice broke, the slightest of cracks but deafening in its unfamiliarity. Meredith Clarke never showed weakness. Her eyes grew weary too, and when she exhaled, her torso curled in on itself, as if protecting its most vulnerable parts. “I went looking for him. First in our house, then in the neighborhood. And, finally, in the forest.” Her gaze softened as it settled on the spot where she’d buried Adam. “When I found Adam, his skull was crushed on one side.” When her mother saw Leyna’s look, her lips thinned. “It wasn’t from me hitting him, if that’s what you’re about to ask. It was on the wrong side of his head, for one thing, and also—it was brutal. That’s all I’ll say.”
“What about Grace?”
Her mom straightened slightly, though her shoulders still slouched under the weight of the truth. Or was this a performance meant to gain her daughter’s trust? Leyna sensed her preparing excuses, but instead Meredith went still, her eyes growing large and dark.
“Curious how you’re going to answer this one, Mom,” a voice said behind them both.
The voice was raspier than it had been all those years before. Deeper too. But Leyna’s breath caught in her throat even before she turned. She’d been chasing a ghost for sixteen years, always knowing none of the young women she passed on Virginia Street or heading north on the highway or in the aisles of Sprouts would ever actually be Grace.
Until, now, it was.
Grace emerged from the far side of their mom’s house. At first, she seemed an apparition, but she took firmer form as she drew nearer. Grace was here. Grace was really home.
But this wasn’t the Grace that Leyna had been chasing. This Grace had shorter hair, glued to her forehead with sweat. Lines etched the skin around her mouth. The girl who favored cap-sleeved blouses wore dirty khaki shorts and a blue T-shirt with stains ringing its collar.
What had she been up to these past few hours? Where had she been?
Elation filled Leyna’s chest until the stab of long-carried hurt pushed it out of the way. Her legs felt wooden and too heavy to lift. Her vision doubled, and she thought she might pass out. Cautiously, she started moving toward her sister, stopping when only a few feet separated them. Her thoughts grew muddled.
How was Grace alive?
And why had she let Leyna believe she was dead?
Leyna extended her fingers, reaching, but she pulled back at the last instant, afraid stress and the thick haze had made her hallucinate. If she’d covered those last few inches, would she have grazed skin or would she have grabbed smoke?
The smile Grace offered was as guarded as her eyes. “Hi, Ley.”
After sixteen years, the casual greeting seemed an insult. Even an illusion could be expected to do better.
Hi, Ley. Really? That was all she got?
How about an apology? I’m sorry I left you, Ley.
Or, better, an explanation: I had to go away because…
She’d been hunting for an end to that sentence for more than half her life, and Grace appeared at the exact moment they had no time for it.
Typical Grace.
Leyna sensed movement near the patio. Had Olivia finally come to get Thea and Goose? She kept her eyes on her sister, afraid if she turned to check, Grace would disappear again.
“You’re here,” Leyna said, tone reverent.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Olivia closing in with hurried strides, Thea pulled alongside. Goose waddled at their heels. Olivia stopped abruptly a few feet from Grace, her arm a vise on her daughter’s shoulder.
“It is you,” Olivia said, tone and stance hostile. “What did you do to my son?”
With great effort, Meredith pulled her attention away from Grace to look at Olivia. “Leave us,” she said, cool but not unkind. Shock softened the planes of her face. “This is a family matter.”
A strangled sound escaped Olivia’s throat, too much grief and rage in it to be called a laugh. “You talk to me about family.”
Grace took a small step backward. “We’ve all got to go,” she said, frantic. Her eyes locked with Leyna’s. “I’m not sure how much more time we have to find her.” Grace’s chest heaved, though Leyna couldn’t say whether emotion or exertion caused it. “Ley, I’m sorry—”
When Grace moved toward her, Leyna retreated. She wanted to embrace her sister. She wanted to rail against her, apologize, ask all the questions she’d gathered like priceless treasures since she was twelve. But there was only one thing she wanted more than finally getting her answers—to save the niece she’d never gotten the chance to know.
“You’re right,” Leyna said. “We need to find Ellie.” Without taking her eyes from Grace, she said, “We’ll meet you at the creek, Mom. After we find Ellie. That’ll be the safest place.”
Her mom and Olivia both acted as if they hadn’t heard her. Olivia took a step forward, nearly tripping over Goose. “That girl isn’t anywhere near here,” she said. “Why do you care so much about her anyway?”
Meredith sniffed loudly. “Because they’re not sociopaths.”
“Because she’s my daughter,” Grace said.
At once, the group fell silent. Meredith stiffened, and her mouth gaped. Olivia clutched Thea so tightly that the girl winced.
“She’s what?” Olivia shook her head. “How?” Thea tried to shrug off Olivia’s grip, but that only made her mom hold on more tightly. A second later, Olivia’s eyes grew large. “Is she Adam’s?”
Grace ignored her, eyes pinned to Leyna’s. “I’ve looked everywhere. The forest. The old maintenance building. The clubhouse.” She paused. “Mom’s house.”
Leyna flashed to the painting of Grace they’d found in the kitchen, face shredded, canvas attacked with obvious hostility. How hurt had Grace been to do that?
Beside her, she felt her mom shift.
Olivia released Thea and moved closer still.
“Is she Adam’s?” Olivia asked again, more insistent now that the initial shock had worn off.
Grace sighed, her body trembling with impatience. She spat the words: “She’s his.”
Her eyes bored into Leyna’s, wearing the same pleading expression she had that night at the window but several times more desperate. “You’re coming, right, Ley?”
“Of course I’ll come,” she said, voice heavy with years of pent-up emotion.
Meredith moved closer. “I’ll come with—”
Grace cut her off with a quick shake of her head. “I don’t want your help, Mom, and I don’t want those creepy portraits you’ve painted to memorialize your guilt,” she said, voice low, more sad than angry. “All I want is for you to leave me the fuck alone.”
As if driven by the force of Grace’s pain, the fire their mom had started with her blowtorch took hold on the Durans’ roof, suddenly ablaze in a flash of embers.