“If at any time you want me to stop talking, and you’d rather we turn in for the night, tell me, okay?”
“You’re scaring me.” I let go of Trace’s neck.
He takes my arms and circles them around his neck again. His eyes focus on mine. “Remember, this is a true-crime story from Phoebe, who likes to overdramatize stuff to make it sound macabre.”
“That’s a big word.” I backtrack. “I’m sorry. I’m nervous.” I grasp and let go of the hair at his nape.
“I’m here, Sorrow.” He slides his arms around me and interlaces his fingers over my lower back. “Ready?”
I nod. He exhales.
“Phoebe said there was an instance in the news around the time you were born of a pregnant woman being gutted and her baby stolen from her belly. This happened in San Francisco. The perpetrator was never found. Same with the baby. Phoebe sent me the article. I didn’t want to show it to you. I will only if you’re ready to take everything I show you in, Sorrow. What I show you could be life-changing.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Good. It’s good, Sorrow. Well, a mixed bag, really.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, inhale, and exhale. Am I ready? I have to be. What could be worse than losing my parents and being the social pariah of the town? I open my eyes. “I’m ready.”
Trace grabs his phone off the nightstand, unlocks the screen, and shows me a picture.
The girl in the picture looks like me. Same long black hair and eye color. Next to her is a man in his late forties with dark-brown hair and blue eyes. He’s in a police uniform. They must be at a high school graduation. She’s wearing a royal-blue gown and a cap.
“The woman is Isla McCabe. Her father is Ian McCabe. She’s eighteen in this picture.”
“The same age as me,” I say with awe. We look so alike we could be twins. I enlarge the picture and zoom in on the cap’s tassel. “Isla would be twenty-one now.”
“Yes.” He tightens his hold. I relax into his strength. “Her mother, his wife, died eighteen years ago. Phoebe believes you’re the baby.”
I tear up. “She looks just like me.” I can’t get over how much we look alike.
“She does.”
“This is my family.”
“I believe so.”
“Then what’s wrong? Why is it a mixed bag?” Hope soars in me. I have a family. An older sister. A father who is a police officer.
“Sorrow, the McCabes are Irish mobsters.”
20
Trace
Sorrow is silent on the drive to the mountains. Rush is driving, Gunner is riding shotgun, and I’m stuck between Sorrow and Beckett. She didn’t say a word this morning over homemade pancakes and freshly squeezed OJ. I thought for sure my pancakes, special with whipped cream for eyes and chocolate syrup for a smile, would cheer her up, but she ate like she is now—silent.
“Hey, what’s up with the tense-as-fuck silence? You two fight or something?” Rush looks over his shoulder. In his line of sight, I shrug. Our business is no one else’s.
“How long will we be on the mountain?” Sorrow asks in her quiet, timid voice. She’s staring out the window.
Hearing her speak after she went silent when I told her the McCabes are Irish mobsters wakes up my slumbering anger. Why is she back to being quiet and timid? Why doesn’t she want to talk about her nightmares?
Nightmares, like dreams, are buried subconscious thoughts or memories someone doesn’t want to fucking remember. I didn’t mention Sorrow’s nightmares to Phoebe, but it’s like she has a sixth sense and brought up the part about subconscious thoughts.
“It might not be completely the subconscious or repressed memories. It could be from a movie.” Phoebe shrugged. “Either way, nightmares and dreams come from somewhere, including our insecurities and desires.”
I rolled my eyes. Phoebe laughed. Then we fist-bumped and went our separate ways. I’m glad she took the news well. With how I see Phoebe—as more of a friend, with how she’s trying to figure out Sorrow’s situation—I have no inkling whatsoever of hooking up with her ever again.
