Savilla was rubbing reassuring circles into her stepmother’s back. I followed their eyes to the sign at the bottom of the image of particular interest:Miss 2001, Exhibit Coming Soon to the Rose Palace!
The cutout featured two women with a man, Dr. Bellingham, between them. He smiled proudly into the camera, happy to have two beautiful women flanking him. The woman to his right was obviously a young Glenda Finch. She wore no sash but held a single rose. Her smile was toothy and didn’t reach her eyes. I could envision her having only just flung the losing sash from her body before pasting on the runner-up smile for the camera. The woman to his left wore a sash that readMiss 2001and a crown—the one that my aunt had been accused of stealing only days ago.
This was the cutout that had been missing from the row of images greeting guests in the long entryway on my arrival. It was also an enlargement of the photo that had been cut up in the archives.
I squinted, trying to recalibrate my vision as I took in the image of the other woman in the photo with Dr. Bellingham. To the attendees who passed it without a thought, this was one of many sights, sounds, and smells assaulting their senses. They had nothing personally invested in this pageant. But for me, I couldn’t stop staring at this other woman, the original winner of 2001, head and all.
The figure in the cutout in front of me had to be the elusive Cathy Peabody.
I couldn’t pull my eyes away because she looked remarkably similar to the person standing in front of me: Savilla Finch. In fact, if I hadn’t known that this photo had been taken more than two decades ago, I would’ve thought it was Savilla.
I shifted from foot to foot, realizing how uncomfortable my tight dress had become, as I pieced together what this photo meant. Could the original Miss 2001, aka Cathy Peabody, be Savilla’s birth mother? Could that be why, according to the forgotten police report, she’d taken Savilla with her on the morning after she’d won the crown? Perhaps she’d never competed to win the pageant but instead to get close enough to her daughter to steal her away. But she’d been found within hours. Something had gone terribly wrong, and then… she’d disappeared.
My eyes drifted back to the man in the center of the cutout: Dr. Bellingham, the person who seemed somehow present in all of this. I moved closer to Mrs. Finch and Savilla, who spoke to her stepmother as the older woman composed herself, glancing around to ensure no one had seen her shock.
“Everyone knows you’re the real Miss 2001, StepMommy,” I heard Savilla say, her words tense. “This is just a nice little way to remember this… this other woman.”
Savilla’s voice caught on the last words, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t tell whether or not she knew that thisother woman—who had somehow disappeared off the face of the earth—was actually her mother.
THIRTY-FIVE
My feet felt like they might break off at the ankles. Somehow, as I’d been trying to grab lunch and get back to my cottage, I’d ended up being pulled in different directions: helping Lacy by rushing from a Disco-mania performance in the 1970s to an appearance of members of the cast fromSaved by the Bellin the 1980s.
All the while, I’d been tossing around questions I wanted to ask Savilla:Do you remember when Miss 2001 kidnapped you? Do you realize how much you resemble that woman? Do you feel any kind of animosity toward your father and stepmother for keeping you from your birth mother all these years? Would you have tried to kill either of them because of it?
As I observed the smiling Savilla, I tried to see a crack in her armor, but she was very good at giving the visitors and contestants what they wanted: a young heiress—and now makeshift judge—ready to ascend to the pageant owner throne.
When I accepted there was no way I was getting Savilla alone, I finally excused myself during a break in the late afternoon, set aside for visitors to grab an early dinner at one of the numerous upscale food trucks parked in front of the estate and for contestants to prepare for the grand show. Hair and makeupwould happen in our individual rooms, but backstage would also be lined with rows of well-lit mirrors and beauty supplies for in between the main events: the opening dance routine in our ball gowns, talent, swimsuit, interview, and presentation of the crown.
When I finally reached the sanctuary of my cottage, I peeled myself out of the Minnie Mouse dress I’d worn for the 1950s pageant-girl skit and tossed it onto the floor just as Aunt DeeDee let herself in. She was beautiful in a one-shoulder pink dress.
“Dear, you look exhausted. I thought you were going to rest.” Aunt DeeDee laid out my dress and assessed her makeup tote.
“Did you know?” I asked, resting my head against the back of the couch.
“Did I know what?”
“That Miss 2001 is Savilla’s biological mother?”
“I see you visited the 2000s,” she said as she fluffed the bottom of the gown. “No one else said a word about that cutout. I was almost offended, going to all that trouble to bring it from the back of the property for nothing.”
I waited for her to add more. When she didn’t, I asked again. “Did you know?”
Aunt DeeDee plugged in the hair straightener and curling iron and motioned for me to hold out my nails for inspection. She gave me a pointed look as she gripped my hands. “I am not at liberty to say,” she answered firmly. “I signed a nondisclosure agreement that I cannot violate.”
“What?” I frowned. “When?”
“I am not at liberty to say. I signed an NDA.”
The phrases sounded like a troubling rhyme. “Is that one of those things that lawyers train you to say?”
“I am not at liberty?—”
“Okay, I get it. You can’t tell me.”
“You’re brilliant, Dakota. It’s right in front of you, all you need to do is put the pieces together.” She gave me a sad smile, but I knew she believed in me. “I have no idea if Dr. Bellingham was working alone, but I do know that, in the past, some things have happened at The Rose, things that have only been speculated about in Aubergine. A missing pageant queen, a secret child…”
“Then Cathy Peabody is?—”
