Chapter Sixty-Seven

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

"How'd it go with Charles?" she asks.

I look across the high-top bar table at Detective Natalia Garcia. She came to meet me straight from work, and I'm guessing by the way she keeps nibbling at her thumbnail that something happened today she isn't easily able to shake off. A troubling new case, maybe.

I wait while the waiter delivers our drinks—a whisky on the rocks for her and a Malbec for me—before answering.

"I was surprised by how easy it felt to forgive him. I can understand why Charles did what he did. He thought if he could just save me… Not that it would erase everything that happened, but—" I'm fumbling for the words to explain.

"I get it," she interjects. "He did the wrong things for the right reasons. Most important, his heart was always in the right place."

She sums it up so simply and accurately. It feels good to be understood.

I take a sip of wine, feeling its warmth all the way down into my stomach. Adele's rich, soulful voice is playing over the speakers, and the votive light on our table casts a golden glow over Natalia's tan skin. I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

"Do you think Harriet's going to get out of jail while she's still alive?" I ask.

"Probably," Natalia says. "She's taking a plea, but I doubt she'll serve more than ten to fifteen years. She could have a decade of freedom after that."

Rose will be a young adult by then. She'll be in control of what kind of relationship she has with Harriet—if any.

If it were me, I'd cut Harriet out of my life forever. Harriet's cunning, born of desperation, was breathtaking: After she discovered Tina and Ian slept together for the first time, she tried to turn Rose against Tina, figuring that might make Tina quit. Harriet told Rose about the affair and said Tina was planning to live with Ian and become her new mother. Rose could see Tina liked Ian too much; she couldn't discount Harriet's stories. That's why Rose was so conflicted; she really did alternately love and hate and fear Tina.

When Tina didn't leave, Harriet stepped up her campaign. Police found her secret stash of electronics: She hid mini-cameras in Tina's room to monitor Tina and Ian's trysts and gauge the seriousness of the affair. That led to the creepy note telling Tina she should have worn the red dress.

Harriet also hid a tiny tracker in Rose's coat when I took Rose to Lucille's. When Harriet saw the photograph of Rose cuddling the baby squirrel, she made Rose look especially disturbed by texting the roadkill photo to Lucille.

"I just lost you," Natalia says. "What were you thinking about?"

I slowly twirl my wineglass by the stem.

"I thought I heard Rose say something once when I was with Harriet. It turns out Harriet had downloaded an old video of Rose waving at the camera and saying ‘Hi' and she played it when I was in the basement to make me think Rose was choosing not to talk."

"That would be a natural assumption," Natalia tells me.

But I know better. I remember what it was like when people didn't believe I couldn't talk.

"That old Frank Sinatra song must have really freaked out Tina," Natalia says, referring to another recording found on Harriet's phone: a snip of the Frank Sinatra song "Tina." Harriet told police she played it through the air duct that led into the attic late at night to terrify Tina.

"Harriet did everything she could think of to drive Tina out. But when she realized Tina was pregnant, she lost control." I shake my head. "Did she really think Rose would just go back to normal after a few months, like nothing happened?"

"Harriet will pay for that." Natalia's shoulders square, like she's getting ready for a fight. I think about what Charles told me when he was urging me to take the Barclay case—that I haven't gotten jaded. Natalia hasn't, either. She takes on cases involving the worst things human beings can do to one another. She runs straight into the storm. I wonder what makes her tick.

"I found out why Beth left Yale, too," she tells me.

"Oh, yeah?"

"She was a little shy and different from other girls, like her daughter. There was an incident with a boyfriend—they were together one night, and he invited a couple of his buddies in to watch without Beth knowing. Word spread around campus. He was expelled and she decided to leave, too."

There's a parallel between Rose and Beth here, too—but not the one I feared. Rose truly was bullied at the school she attended before Rollingwood, which is why she left.

"How is Rose doing?" she asks.

"Better," I tell her. "I'm going to her piano recital next month."

She takes a sip of her whisky. "Are you going to break your rule again and work with more young kids?"

I look down at my hands. "I don't know. They're tough. Sometimes they distort their own realities. Other times people deliberately do it for them."

"Is that the only reason why they're tough for you?"

She wants to know what makes me tick, too.

"It's easier for me to work with older kids. They've got more agency, you know?" She deserves my full honesty. "And obviously I didn't have the greatest childhood, so…"

I see it in her expression, her recognition of a counterpart in me. Silence stretches between us for a beat, but it isn't uncomfortable.

"I get it," she interjects. "The thing is, people like us—we want to go back in time and change things for ourselves. We can't. But when we help other people… well, it doesn't fix us. But for a little while, every time I close a case and I've gotten some justice for a victim, I get this feeling of—"

"Peace."

"Exactly."

Our eyes lock and I feel a little dizzy.

"So what do you do for fun on the weekends?" she asks.

"Well, on Saturday I'm going out for a drink with my ex-husband and his new girlfriend."

She smiles, full on. I feel it all the way down to my toes. "Sounds interesting."

The question flows out of me, like it's the most natural thing in the world. "Want to join us?"

I see it again: the corners of her mouth fluttering. Her answer is perfect.

"It's a date."

She leans across the small round table, very close to me. "Remember that time in my office when I told you I like puzzles?"

I nod; her proximity takes my breath away.

She leans a few inches closer and kisses me lightly. Her lips taste of whisky and feel like a promise.

"You're a puzzle," she whispers.