“Because she’s so beautiful?” Suzannah asks.
Hannah nods.
“With her real blond hair and her thin body?”
Hannah nods again.
Alice reaches through the bars and takes Suzannah from me. She lays her on the ground, and then lays Hannah down beside her. Alice leans in close and so I lean in close. She doesn’t want Dolly to hear.
“I have to show you something. It has to be a secret.”
Yes. Please. Tell me your secrets.
“I promise,” I say to her. Then she gets up and leaves. I hear her walk softly to her room. A moment passes and she returns.
She sits down casually. Too casually, like she’s acting. And I can feel that her heart is exploding.
She carries a small book of nursery rhymes. She hands it to me through the bars.
“The story on page twenty-three is my favorite,” she says.
I open the book and carefully turn the pages until I find what she wants me to see. On page twenty-three, tucked into the crease, is a picture of a young woman.
A young woman with real blond hair and long, skinny legs.
I stare at the picture, trying to hide the surge of adrenaline as it pulses through my veins, turning my face crimson.
I am looking at a woman who resembles my daughter.
Alice picks up Hannah.
“That’s my mommy,” she says. “Daisy Alice Hollander.”
I look at Alice, then to the picture. Then to Alice again. Her face is transformed from that of a child to a grown, wise woman.
A woman who understands and wants me to understand what’s happening here.
Alice’s mother is dead. The mother that Mick loved so much it made him cry.
And now he’s found a way to bring her back to life. He’s found a woman who has long blond hair and a sleek body and is young.
He’s found my daughter.
I nod slowly to Alice. She reaches through the bars and takes the book from my hands.
Yes, Alice. I try to say with my eyes. I understand.
42
Day sixteen
Nic stopped just beyond the clearing where she could see Veronica Hollander’s house. The trees were thicker here, evergreens mixing in with the pines and oaks, filling up the sky. The house seemed dark inside but smoke billowed from a chimney. She could smell the wood-burning even with the windows closed.
A text broke through the silence. It was Reyes.
At the station with Watkins. Will sort everything out.
Heading back to see you.
