Saturday, 3:36 p.m.
As Meredith threw the emergency radio and pallet of water in the BMW, a familiar wheezing drew her attention to the ground. When she glanced down, she saw the Durans’ dog lumbering toward her. Reflexively, she bristled—he’d better not be headed to take a crap in her garden again—but weariness quickly replaced her outrage. Her garden was unlikely to last the hour.
Have at it, Goose.
A few seconds later, the child appeared. She stared at Meredith, anxious but also with obvious expectation. What could the girl possibly want with her? And what was she supposed to do about the dog?
Thea glanced over her shoulder several times, then stopped a few feet away. “Can we come with you?”
Meredith recoiled in surprise. Of course the girl couldn’t go with her. Meredith needed to get to her own family. She didn’t have time to babysit this child and her dog.
She studied Thea’s face more closely and realized she’d misread her expression. It wasn’t anxiety but fear. Maybe even terror.
Meredith scowled. “Where are your parents?”
Thea shrugged but averted her gaze.
Meredith looked toward the Duran house. She shouted for Olivia, then for Richard, but she didn’t know where either of them had gone. She’d been too distracted by Grace, by the fact that her elder daughter was alive.
And that, apparently, Meredith had a granddaughter.
The first few years, Meredith had waited for Grace to reach out, reasoning she would eventually need money or she’d want to talk to her sister. Meredith had looked for Grace at Leyna’s first few birthdays, her graduation, all the major holidays. And instead, she’d shown up in the middle of a wildfire, so angry that she’d destroyed the portrait Meredith had painted.
Seeing Grace again, Meredith suddenly understood why she’d been unable to finish the latest portrait of her daughter. She’d gotten it all wrong. The eyes she’d believed she’d perfected weren’t the right shade of blue at all. They were colder now. Muted. The portrait also lacked the faint lines etched near Grace’s lips and the skin grown ashen. On the canvas, her hair held a deeper luster too.
The portrait hadn’t done her daughter justice.
Meredith recognized that age alone wasn’t to blame for all the changes in Grace—the loss of Ellie marked her as surely as it had Meredith when it had been Grace who disappeared. But unlike Meredith, Grace didn’t hide behind a carefully constructed mask or erect posture. The intensity of her daughter’s loss blazed—more fury than grief—and even Meredith had struggled to hold eye contact.
She’d felt a flash of pride—How strong she is now. How strong she’s always been. But Meredith quickly recognized that it wasn’t her victory to claim. By protecting Grace, had she also failed her? The idea caused Meredith unexpected discomfort. She rarely failed at anything.
She turned that truth over in her head—she’d failed her daughter. Both of her daughters, actually. Her heart seized, and yet—Grace was safe. Not okay—she wouldn’t fool herself about that—but safe. For the moment, at least. That knowledge was a salve, and motivation. Her daughters didn’t want her to follow them. Fuck them. Since when had she ever let someone tell her what to do?
But there was the small problem of the Duran girl.
“Let’s find your parents.”
Meredith started marching in the direction of the Durans’ house. She squinted against the smoke, and this time she caught sight of Richard, his back to her, moving quickly toward the Kims’ house.
“I know you hate my family,” Thea said.
“I don’t hate your family.”
“It’s okay. They hate you too.” Thea moved away from Meredith and out of her father’s line of sight. “I don’t, though. I think you’re okay. And Leyna’s going to teach me how to pick a lock.”
Meredith considered calling after Richard, but the girl’s expression made her hesitate. Thea seemed afraid of her father. Which made no sense. While Olivia had always been tightly wound, even Meredith could admit that Richard wasn’t a half-bad father. A moron, yes—he would’ve had to be to stay married to Olivia—but he had seemed more weak than frightening.
Down the street, Richard stopped. Though he was too far to hear Thea, the girl whispered, frantic, “Tell him I went with Rocky. Please.”
Meredith was about to say she would not be doing that when the girl streaked toward the trees. She lingered at the edge of the forest, watching.
Meredith exhaled sharply, coughing, and advanced in the direction Thea had fled.
“Come back!” she shouted. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
The girl’s not my problem, she thought.
Goose battered Meredith’s ankle. How the hell had she gotten stuck with the damn dog?
Though it was midday, in places where the smoke and trees were densest, it could’ve passed for midnight. Meredith watched as Thea slipped deeper into the trees. If not for her lavender T-shirt and the flash of her calves as she ran, she would’ve been absorbed by that darkness instantly. Soon, even her pale shirt and skin wouldn’t give her away.
Richard turned then. His movements were hurried, as agitated as Thea’s had been, likely looking for his daughter. When Thea spotted him, she faded into the trees, invisible now.
Meredith took several steps forward, blocking the dog from view, as Richard advanced. He stopped at the edge of her property. “Were you shouting for me?”
“Thea—” She hesitated. Why the hell did she hesitate? Thea should go with her father. But when Meredith raised her hand to point to the woods, she remembered Thea’s wide eyes and the way her chin had trembled, and she dropped it. “I wanted to tell you that I saw Thea climb in Rocky’s truck earlier. Probably wanted to be with that damn brother of hers. I figured I should say something, in case you missed it.” It wasn’t hard to slip the hint of judgment in her voice.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Which direction?”
She pointed forward, toward the road Rocky had taken and in the opposite direction of where Thea hid among the trees.
Richard nodded, relieved, but didn’t move. His face grew suddenly weary, his sadness as palpable as the heat, and she could tell in that instant that he knew about Adam.
A second later, he confirmed it. “I know what your daughter did,” he said, voice cracking. “When my family’s safe—when we’re all out of here—Adam needs to come home.”
Visibly broken, Richard loped toward his Audi. Would his grief turn to rage when he discovered she’d also lied to him about Thea being somewhere safe with Rocky?
After Richard left, Meredith picked up the dog and went after Thea. She found the girl in a stand of trees sitting on a pile of needles with her back against the trunk of a dead juniper.
Perfect kindling.
She set down the dog. “We need to get out of here,” Meredith said impatiently, even as she thought: And go where? The roads were blocked, and they wouldn’t make it far. Even the creek that had been her original plan seemed impossibly distant.
A warning she’d often heard echoed in her head: In a wildfire, if you’re near timber, you’re dead. Any place would be safer than where they were, surrounded by trees and dry brush.
The girl peered up at her, the fear Meredith remembered widening her eyes. She wasn’t moving, though, so whatever frightened her, it wasn’t the fire.
“Why’d you come?” Thea asked.
Because apparently I’m just as much of a moron as your father.
“My dad’s gone, right?” Thea’s voice was faraway. Meredith didn’t like how it sounded. At Meredith’s nod, the girl relaxed. “Thanks for lying for me.”
What a fantastic example I’m setting.
Meredith tugged gently on the girl’s arm. “If we stay here much longer, we’re going to burn to death,” she said. “Then how will my daughter teach you how to pick a damn lock?”
Thea stood, but she hesitated. “We have cameras in the house,” she said. “Rocky helped my dad put them in, but he doesn’t think it’s healthy. I’ve heard him fighting about it with my dad.” Her voice dipped; she was obviously bothered by something but taking the scenic route to telling Meredith what that something was.
We don’t have time for this. “Thea, we have to—”
“Rocky says my dad’s using Adam as an excuse to control my mom, but it was her idea.” Her eyes went soft again, and Meredith debated whether she could carry the girl. How much did she weigh? She supposed she could manage it without the dog.
“My mom says she needs to keep me safe so what happened to my brother doesn’t happen to me.”
The girl’s expression made Meredith shiver despite the heat. “Is that why you’re hiding from your dad—because you’re mad about the cameras?”
Thea shook her head.
“Then why?”
“Because I think he did a really bad thing,” she said. “The deputy asked about cameras, but my dad only gave her the video from the ones facing the street. He didn’t mention the others.” She paused and started petting Goose, the strokes growing increasingly urgent. “I think he lied because he hurt that girl. The one who’s missing.”
For a moment, Meredith forgot about the fire. “Why do you say that?”
“I was playing in the woods even though my dad told me not to and—I saw him with a body.” Thea’s lip trembled, but her chin jutted out, as if she were daring Meredith to doubt her story. “I was pretty far away, but it had to be him.”
Meredith’s mouth tasted of ash, but she was sure that ash wasn’t the cause. “Why would you think that?”
“Because he’s strong,” she said. “And my dad and Rocky are the only ones with a key to the cabin.”