Chapter Forty-Nine

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

I wake up the next morning on the couch. Charles has covered me in a soft blue blanket, and there's a pillow tucked beneath my head.

I close my eyes again and lie there, feeling exhausted to my bones.

Then I smell fresh coffee.

It gives me the incentive to stand up and shake out the blanket before folding it into a neat rectangle. I hurry upstairs to the guest bathroom and brush my hair and teeth and splash cold water on my face.

A dull throbbing between my temples has me reaching into the medicine cabinet for a bottle of Tylenol. I fill my cupped hands with water, then sip it to wash down two of the white pills.

As I walk downstairs, my stomach growls. I realize I barely ate anything yesterday.

I step into the kitchen in time to see Charles sipping from a mug I gave him, with block letters reading Let Me Be the Judge of That . He makes coffee the old-fashioned way; instead of popping pods into a machine, he grinds his own beans. Marco did that, too. It always made our kitchen smell incredible.

"Morning," I say. My voice is husky, so I clear my throat.

"Morning." Charles fills a second mug, adds a splash of oat milk, and hands it to me. He appears to be studying me, as if he is trying to figure out what tone I need from him.

He settles on the correct one. Casual. "How would you like your eggs?"

"Is scrambled in your repertoire?" I joke.

"I think I can manage that."

Sympathy would crush me right now; the only way I can keep functioning is by moving, not feeling.

I scan the kitchen for a task and settle on rinsing and cutting up the strawberries in the clamshell container on the counter as Charles slides two slices of multigrain bread into the toaster.

By the time I've finished with the berries, Charles is turning off the heat below the eggs. He divides them between our plates just as two pieces of browned bread pop up in the toaster.

"You're like a conductor," I tell him. "You timed this all perfectly."

He gives a mock bow, then reaches into the cabinet and pulls out a bottle of multivitamins, shaking two into his hand before passing one to me.

"Do you know a lot of people are deficient in D? I think it's because we avoid sunlight nowadays, which helps our bodies make the vitamin naturally."

That's what we talk about at breakfast: supplements, the weather, and a story in the headlines about a politician who laundered money through his charity.

After a second cup of coffee, we both head out for the day. My grief last night was a rogue wave; it broke over me and churned me around, stealing my breath, making me desperate to claw to the surface. Charles was my buoy.

I know I'm not finished mourning my parents. I may never be. But today I need to move through the present, not the past.

I'm going to go home to write a report that will fill Rose Barclay with fury.

Two hours later, I hit a computer key and watch the pages slide out of my office printer.

There was no way I could ever have made a decision that would have pleased everyone—including Rose. It was far easier to design a false one to inflict maximum stress not just on Rose, but on the whole household. The more pressure that builds in the Barclay home, the better for my twisted purposes.

I clip the pages together, secure them in a manila folder, and write Barclay in big block letters near the top with a black Sharpie.

I reach for my shoulder bag and take out the folder containing the documents on my mother, locking it in my top desk drawer. Then I swap the Barclay report into my bag. I tuck a thick paperback book beneath it to prop up the folder until the name just barely clears the edge, visible to anyone who is curious about my belongings.

I need to take care of a few things relating to questions about my mother's death, so I sing along with Miranda Lambert to distract my mind while I write a two-line email to Detective Garcia asking for any documents she can secure related to my mother's court case. Then I google the medical examiner's name. He's still working, and his official email is easy to find, so I craft a brief note to him, too. I can't locate the cops who came to the door of our old apartment, so I write to Detective Garcia again, listing their names and badge numbers and asking if she can track them down.

I don't want to think about what she'll want from me in return for doing all of this.

I've just hit send on my last email when a loud knocking on my front door causes me to lift my head.

I walk downstairs, realizing how vulnerable I am, given the big bay window in the living room is revealing my whereabouts to anyone watching my house.

I almost jump out of my skin when someone bangs against my door again.

"Who is it?" I ask sharply.

"It's me. Lucille."

Relief whooshes through me as I unlock the deadbolt and throw open my door. My favorite neighbor stands on my steps, her kind face creased with worry. Instead of the plate of muffins or handful of fresh mint she usually carries when she stops by to visit, Lucille is holding something else.

A cell phone.

"Come in." I usher her into my living room and get her settled on the couch. The bumpy blue veins on the backs of Lucille's hands look more prominent than usual as she clutches her phone.

"Can I get you some tea?" I offer.

She shakes her head. I'm not imagining it; Lucille looks pale and shaken.

"I got the strangest text message this morning."

My mind flits to scammers who prey on the elderly. I feel a surge of anger. If anyone is trying to mess with Lucille, I'm going to shut them down—fast.

"What did it say?"

"That's the thing. It didn't say anything. It was just a photo."

She holds out the phone to me. I nearly drop it when I see the horrible image on the screen.

It's a dead squirrel, splattered across the road, its body flattened by tires.

"Who sent this to you?" I demand.

Lucille shakes her head. "I don't know." Her distress is palpable. Someone took the thing Lucille loves most—helping injured creatures—and turned it into an ugly weapon against her kind heart.

"Has this person ever contacted you before?"

"Never. This is the first message from that number."

I start to delete it from her screen, then reconsider. "Hang on a second." I race upstairs and grab my cell phone from where it is charging on my desk, then hurry back down and photograph the picture, making sure to capture the phone number that transmitted it. The area code is 240—which links it to Maryland.

"I want to call them," I tell Lucille. "I'll get them talking and let's see if we can pick up any information."

Her forehead wrinkles deepen as she nods.

I enter the digits to call the number back, then hit speakerphone so Lucille can listen in.

A recorded message with a robotic voice comes on the line: "This phone number is not taking calls right now."

Lucille's voice is perplexed. "What does that mean?"

I look up at her, a terrible realization slowly dawning on me.

"What is it, Stella? What's happening?"

Once a client's father got so angry about my recommendation he began calling me, spewing venom into my ear. So I blocked him. But first I researched what kind of message he would get when he tried to call again, and I still remember the precise words.

They are the exact ones we just heard.

"That's a prerecorded message. You get it if someone has blocked your number."

Lucille's hands flutter in the air. "But that doesn't make any sense. The photo was sent to me . How would they possibly know you might be calling?"

Lucille is a smart woman. I see the realization come into her watery blue eyes a moment later. Emotions play across her face as she spins through the same cycles gripping me: disbelief, anger, fear.

But not shock.

Because I'm pretty sure the reason Lucille came here, directly to me, is because she had an underlying suspicion, one she might not even have been consciously aware of.

Someone would need to know several things in order to facilitate this cruel message: Lucille's phone number. Lucille's caretaking of baby squirrels. My connection to Lucille. And my phone number.

Very few people have my number; it isn't listed. But I always give it out to clients.

Which means the Barclays have it.

But the only member of the Barclay family who knows of my connection to Lucille is Rose.

Ian told me Rose didn't have a phone. But if she has access to a secret one, that could explain not only this message, but also the police's middle-of-the-night arrival at my home, since it's possible to text 9–1–1.

"Do you think that little girl could have done this? How could she get my number to text me?"

I use my phone to google Lucille's name and address. Her phone number pops right up.

I flip my phone around so she can see the screen. "These are the waters kids swim in now. They can find out all kinds of things with a few clicks."

"If it's that little girl…" Lucille swallows hard and looks down at her hands. Then she stares up at me and I see something I don't expect. A kind of fierceness.

"She needs help, Stella. Kids don't do this sort of thing unless there is something seriously wrong at home."

I don't challenge Lucille's assertion, even though I'm not sure I believe kids are fully a product of their home life and upbringing.

Instead, I say, "I promise I will do everything I can to get help for her."

"I know you will." Lucille stands up. "I should get back home."

I grab a light jacket out of the closet by my front door so I can accompany her down the street.

Lucille still looks shaken, so I reach for her arm to keep her from falling as she navigates down my steep front steps.

As I do so, a question flits through my brain.

If Rose deliberately pushed Tina to her death—and if she enjoyed doing it—then why would she be suffering from traumatic mutism?

A possible answer arrives like a thunderbolt, shaking me to my core.

Unless she isn't.