Her daughter is gone, and yet somehow, somewhere, the killer is pretending to be her. It’s a nightmare. I don’t have children and it still sounds horrible. I can’t imagine what it would actually be like to experience that.
“Well, if you say so,” I say. Now I inject my voice with just enough skepticism to leak through. “Ifyou’resure, that’s all that matters.”
“Of course I’m sure.” Another laugh, clipped this time, and forced and sharp around the edges. “Why, look—she texted me just this morning. A nice photo, see?”
My gut twists at the clear desperation in her voice, at the coaxing, convincing tone that I know she’s using only on herself. But I lean forward, ignoring my gaping top this time so that I can see the photo she holds up—one of Sandy with her hair pulled into a ponytail, making a peace sign at the camera. I try to look more closely, but then Tonya scrolls sideways.
“And another from the other day, see?” she says as anew photo appears.
Another Sandy von Meller, smiling again, the sun casting her in a halo of light. She’s got on a fuchsia hoodie, a color that looks good on almost nobody—but it looks good on her. The hood is pulled up, the strings tied so that it scrunches around her face, but her blonde hair peeks out nevertheless. Even like this, she’s truly beautiful. There’s something almost defiant in her smile, too, a glint in her eyes that makes me think she would have been a handful. Maybe that spark means that she fought back against her attacker, at least.
I commit the photo to memory as well as I can, since it would be too weird to ask for a copy. I wish she would show us one that might have been photoshopped, but I can’t ask for that either. When I lean back into place, though, finally tearing my eyes away from the picture, Tonya is still looking at it. Her face is a mask of stone, the only hint of concern betrayed in the lines around her mouth, the tight press of her thin lips.
Yes. Whatever she’s told Garrity, she’s worried.
Is it a mother thing, I wonder—that instinct that something is wrong? Or is it a human instinct? The human brain is incredible. One theory is that gut feelings and intuition are actually our subconscious mind connecting dots and spotting patterns that our conscious mind is unaware of.
What patterns is Tonya von Meller spotting? Which dots has she been connecting in the dead of night when she can’t sleep?
The three of us jump when Tonya’s phone rings.
“Excuse me for a moment,” she says, her perma-smile back in place. She looks relieved, frankly, to have an excuse to take a break from this conversation; she shoots up out of her chair with surprising dexterity and hurries to the marble-top desk, where a landline is stationed.
“Hello,” she says, her voice breathless. She listens for a second or two and then says, “Yes.”
More listening—both by herandby Aiden and me. I have no shame. If you are the in-denial parent of a girl I know to be dead, and you are on the phone in the same room as me, I will eavesdrop with every ounce of listening power I have.
“Yes,” she says again after a stretch of quiet. “Any time today would be—” She breaks off, her eyes darting over to where Aiden and I are sitting on the world’s least comfortable couch, watching her with rapt interest. Then she turns her back on us and says, in a much lower voice, “Now would be perfect, actually. Head on over now. Yes. See you in a few.”
Aiden looks at me; I look at him. It seems we’ve officially overstayed our welcome.
When she returns to the sitting area, Tonya doesn’t even bother pretending she’s sorry to see us go. “Unfortunately,” she says through the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her thus far, “I’ve got a rather important guest who needs to swing by for a few things. It’s terribly rude of me, but I’m going to have to ask if we can wrap this up a bit early.”
“Of course,” Aiden says, his voice desert dry. “Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”
“So kind of you to understand,” she says. “If you will?” She gestures to the door, her bracelet jingling with her movements. A ray of sun catches the massive diamond on her ring and reflects right into my eye, rendering me blind for probably the next hour. But I stand anyway, Aiden following in my wake, and together we see ourselves out.
The door shuts behind us with an awful air of finality. I don’t think she’s going to be willing to meet with us again.
“Was it necessary to attack her?” I say, rounding on Aiden.
“I didn’t attack her,” he shoots back. “I just asked questions thatsomeoneshould ask?—”
“But not you,” I say. “Can’t you tell she’s worried? She knows something is wrong. She just doesn’t know what or why, and she doesn’t want to admit it. Especially since she’s the one who let Sandy go off by herself.”
“It’s not her fault her daughter was killed?—”
“I know that,” I say gently. “But I have to assume that she would still feel responsible. I think that’s a parent thing.”
Aiden grunts but doesn’t respond further, which is probably for the best. This is not a conversation we need to have right here or right now. I head down the path instead, making my way back to the driveway as I watch a shiny black town car pull up to the front curb.
Fancy, fancy.
I continue walking, keeping my eyes on the ground mostly so that I don’t trip in these heels. That would be the icing on the cake here—falling on my face in front of Tonya von Meller’s VIP guest. When I look back up, though, it’s in time to see a large figure unfolding from the back of that fancy-pants town car.
I freeze in place, my eyes narrowing as I try to get a clearer look. Aiden steps up from behind me, nudging me lightly with his elbow.
“Come on,” he says, crouching down to tie his shoe. “Why’d you stop?”
