What We'll Burn Last, page 13
Finally, he said, “Why would you think that?”
“She was in the neighborhood, and Serena Silvestri saw her walking toward this trail. Which leads to your place.”
“I know where I live.”
“So did you see Ellie?”
He turned to face her. In the days following the incident and even now when someone heard her story, people looked at her a certain way. Their eyes softened, their mouths gaped, curiosity hiding in a show of horror. Relief there, too, that it had happened to her and not them. Rocky’s jaw remained tensed, his eyes hard. Leyna would’ve taken comfort in that if she hadn’t believed he knew what happened to Grace. After a few seconds, he shook his head.
“She didn’t knock on your door?”
His posture was relaxed, but his eyes went flat. “Even if she had, I wasn’t there. From what I’ve heard, she was here around noon. I didn’t get back from town until late afternoon.”
She scanned his face for some sign of guilt. She’d seen it enough in her own face to recognize it in others, but Rocky’s expression was nearly serene. “What were you doing in town?”
He started walking again. “I’ve already told the deputy who came asking. Some of the neighbors too. I’m not hiding anything.”
“But you won’t tell me?”
“You can understand why talking with you might give me pause.”
“Because of Adam.”
“Guess you’re a smart girl after all, though obviously not smart enough to know when not to stir up shit. You pissed off a lot of people.”
“I take it you’re one of them?”
“I don’t piss off easily, but yeah. Taking a shot at Adam’s memory will do it. He’s family.”
“The suspects have always been limited. Adam—or you.”
“Me?” He seemed taken aback, then laughed. “That’s the thing about zealots. They fail to see the big picture.”
“I’m not a zealot.”
Rocky’s expression was bland. Deliberately harmless? The truth of the situation hit her. She was alone in the woods with a man who might’ve hurt her sister. The forest had always been her safe place, and because of that she’d been reckless.
“I’m sick of this conversation,” he said. “We’ve been having it for sixteen years. I’ve said everything I’m going to.”
“But now another girl is missing. She was seen here. And I found her bracelet in the Miller house.”
His face relaxed, eyes going flat again. Leyna was starting to recognize the expression. He was hiding something.
“Serena called you the king of Ridgepoint Ranch, and she’s not wrong. You know everything that happens here.”
“Maybe once.” He gestured toward the land surrounding them. “This isn’t mine anymore.”
“You still own the land. You still live here. And seeing as you don’t have a job, you must spend plenty of time in these woods.”
“The land belongs to the banks and the lawyers, and I make a decent living fixing things. And where else would I go? My family’s here.”
Leyna knew he did projects around the county, but she wondered if there were other things Rocky fixed. “So you have no interest in finding a missing girl?”
Rocky’s jaw tensed, his patience obviously waning. “Leave it alone, Leyna.”
“You know I won’t do that.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He turned and began walking, shouting over his shoulder, “See you in another ten years.”
Dog clutched to her chest, she took deep breaths of air, warm and earthy, as she hurried to catch up to him.
“You’re the one who brought it up by saying I didn’t see the big picture. What did you mean by that?”
As if waiting for a response too, the wind ceased, and the forest grew quiet. The wrong kind of quiet. Goose whined, growing agitated.
Leyna looked around, less familiar with this part of the forest, before finding Rocky’s back again. It was as broad as many of the tree trunks they passed. “What do you think happened—”
Rocky stopped suddenly, raising his hand to silence her. She bristled, but the surprise of the gesture and the fact that she’d nearly collided with his back had the desired effect. She stepped up next to him.
He stood as still as the immovable hillside and stared ahead. At what? At nothing.
Goose started wriggling in her arms. She feared he might leap to the ground and break a leg. But instead, he burrowed against her, head butting her chest as if he were trying to find a way inside, like that famous Alien scene played in reverse.
In front of them, the shadows shifted.
Someone watched them.
No—something.
A pair of yellow eyes locked with hers. The dog whimpered low in his throat.
Though Leyna had been told that a pack of gray wolves lived in the hills, she’d never seen one. As far as she knew, no one in the neighborhood had. Wolves generally avoided humans.
So why was this one so close to the houses?
Rocky whispered, “Wolves are crepuscular by nature. More active at dawn and dusk.”
She understood what he was saying: It was an odd hour for a wolf to be roaming.
She kept her voice low. “Then why is this one here?”
Rocky said nothing, but his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. “Not sure,” he said, but he looked worried.
In her arms, Goose grew more frantic, and she feared she’d misread his intentions and that he might jump to the ground and charge with unearned confidence or hobble away, spurring the wolf to give chase. While wolves usually left humans alone, they were also opportunists. And they were patient hunters.
The wolf assessed them too, as if deciding if these creatures that walked on two legs were a threat. Did holding Goose, now mewling, make her more of a target?
She held her breath and aggressively petted Goose’s head, trying to quiet him, afraid any sound might convince the wolf to strike.
“Stand your ground,” Rocky whispered. “Don’t run. And shut that dog up.”
After Dixie, Leyna heard stories of wolves turning up at nearby ranches to feast on dead cattle. She held the dog more tightly, and her legs tensed as she dug her sneakers into the earth. Don’t run was worthless advice. She couldn’t have outrun the wolf if she’d tried.
Rocky took another deep breath. For a man who spoke so calmly, his body vibrated with tension. If she could sense it, she was sure the wolf could too.
Her arms strained at the effort of containing the dog. She felt him slipping. She held tighter, but he fought her, and the hand that had been cradling his rump slid to his waist.
Rocky reached out and—slowly, carefully—extracted the dog from her arms. He took one small step and angled his body so it blocked more of hers. Secure in new hands, the dog stopped struggling but continued to whimper.
In front of them, the shadows shifted again, and several additional pairs of yellow almond-shaped eyes blinked into focus. The wolf’s pack.
The wind blew, and with it came a hint of woodsmoke. Fire.
The reason for Rocky’s tension. Likely the reason the wolves were here in the middle of the day. They’d have to move territories, wait the fire out somewhere. In the Sierra Nevadas, there were plenty of burn scars to offer them refuge.
How close was the fire they ran from?
A moment later, a gust scrubbed even that trace of smoke from the air, but Leyna remained on edge as several pairs of yellow eyes pinned hers. Reminding her: The forest is ours.
Then the alpha turned away and trotted with the pack deeper into the forest.
CHAPTER 20
MEREDITH
Saturday, 11:28 a.m.
As Meredith inspected the generator, Serena loomed over her.
“That was quite the show you put on earlier,” Serena said. “Olivia’s head nearly popped off.” She leaned in, blocking Meredith’s light. “Did it run out of gas?”
Meredith shooed the other woman out of her light and shot her a You can’t be serious look. “Of course not. I filled it this morning.”
She sniffed the air for gas, which might’ve indicated a fuel-line leak, a cracked exhaust pipe, or a malfunctioning pump. The scent was no stronger than it should’ve been, as it competed with the bite of hot pavement and pine.
Meredith leaned in to check the fuel gauge. Serena leaned in too. The tank remained a third full.
“Looks like there’s gas,” Serena said.
Because I can’t read a gauge? “Looks that way.”
Serena moved away and leaned against the house, crossing her arms. “Your daughter paid me a visit. Asking questions about Ellie. Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything.”
Meredith scowled. “There’s nothing to say. I don’t know anything about that missing girl.”
“That seems to be everyone’s story.”
“It isn’t a story.” She gestured toward the siding Serena leaned against in her white blouse. “It’s been a while since I pressure-washed the exterior.”
Serena leaped away from the wall like a startled cat, moving back into Meredith’s light. “That girl of yours is stubborn.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Nosy too. I can see why all the neighbors hate her.”
Meredith bristled, but she kept her voice low: “Get the fuck out of my light.”
Serena’s eyes went wide, but she stepped back. After a few blissful moments of silence, her neighbor tilted her chin toward the generator. “You didn’t use old fuel, did you? Frank says you shouldn’t use old fuel because it can degrade.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Yes, old fuel, and I topped it off with raccoon piss.”
If Leyna were there, she would’ve said something like Fresh raccoon piss, at least?
A smile nearly slipped out before she was hit by an unexpected pang of worry, a result of all the talk of that missing girl. Where was her younger daughter? She’d gone next door chasing some shadow and never come back. Typical.
“What about the coolant?” Serena asked.
“Checked it this morning.” Still, she knelt to check for leaks she might’ve missed. There were no dripping connectors. Nothing pooling on the ground.
Meredith kept her back to Serena as she set the key switch to the off position, then did the same with the battery.
A second later, she tensed. She leaned forward, studying the cable that snaked into the battery.
What’s that?
Meredith touched the cable, bending it to confirm what had first caught her attention. A small tear, no larger than a thumbnail clipping but large enough.
“Someone cut the battery cable.”
Meredith hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, but Serena moved closer to study the tear.
“Sure it isn’t just frayed from overuse?” she asked. “Frank says that can happen if you don’t perform regular maintenance.”
Meredith ignored her, studying the damaged cable. By itself, she might not have given it much thought. She would’ve taken it as the prank of one of the Durans or the work of a particularly crafty rat. One with a sharp knife to cut it so cleanly.
But when considered alongside the phone call with her art broker, she knew someone dangerous was messing with her.
Brian’s words still echoed in her ears: He said you’d know how to find him.
Meredith hadn’t seen Adam in sixteen years.
But though it had been that long, every moment of that night remained etched in her memory like acid in stone. It wasn’t like she could forget that image of Adam’s hands wrapped around her daughter’s throat.
Adam Duran had been a quiet boy. Bookish, like Leyna, and if he and her younger daughter had been closer in age, they might’ve been the better match.
Not that anyone could steal someone’s attention away from Grace once she’d claimed it.
Grace was spontaneous and dramatic, often in the most engaging ways. When Leyna slipped into one of her funks, Grace might throw together a scavenger hunt in the woods or perform a monologue from A Midsummer Night’s Dream with her expressions exaggerated to make her sister laugh. If faced with an awkward silence, she might break into song. She had a passable voice, but her passion convinced others her talent went deeper.
Grace wasn’t book-smart like Leyna or Adam, but she could read people better than anyone, and even those she’d just met were moved to please her. When they did, the smile or laugh she’d give in return intoxicated them. She was like champagne that way—bright, bubbly, and likely to give you a hell of a hangover if you had too much.
Because Meredith recognized that her older daughter had a mean streak.
The year he turned fifteen, Adam sprouted up a few inches, and his shoulders started to widen. Still a boy, but he bore a hint of the man he might become. Grace finally took notice, and the teens started dating.
It went well, for a while. But then Grace turned hostile. The expensive new shampoo she’d requested left her hair dull. The concert tickets Adam had given her as a gift ended up in the trash. The must-have suede boots had been worn once before being left in the rain to mold. She’d convinced her father to let her live with him, but he’d quickly kicked her out, and she’d come back even crankier. If Meredith had believed in that sort of thing, she might’ve googled How to tell if your teen is possessed by a demon.
As foul as Grace’s mood had been that evening, she’d skulked back into the house with surprisingly little fanfare for a change. No slammed doors vibrated in their frames. No proclamations of Worst day ever bounced like bullets off the hallway walls. The demon seemed to be taking a smoke break.
Later, Meredith wished she’d seen Grace’s mood as a warning, but she hadn’t yet recognized the violence silence could hold. So instead of worrying, she’d taken advantage of the quiet to try to paint. Inspiration hadn’t come, though, and she’d been packing away her supplies when Adam knocked on the door.
“Grace home?” he’d asked.
Meredith had never been the kind of mom who refused to let her daughter be alone in her room with a boy. Better there than in the living room with the TV blaring or in the kitchen making a mess they’d forget to clean.
So she’d pointed Adam toward the back of the house.
“She’s in her room.”
Meredith had actually experienced a pang of gratitude. Grace was his problem now, not hers. The younger Duran boy could usually lighten Grace’s mood instantly. But not that night. The argument had started within minutes. Meredith had no interest in eavesdropping, but the harshest words carried.
From him: “You’re acting crazy” and “Stop being a bitch.”
From her: “I hate you” and “It’s over.”
After nearly two hours of that, an irritated Meredith had decided to self-soothe with a cocktail. She’d just wrapped the ice in a tea towel and picked up the mallet—a few tension-releasing strikes, and the rum would do the rest—when the fighting stopped as abruptly as a switch flicked.
At this new silence, Meredith stilled, cocktail forgotten.
They must’ve made up, she told herself. There could be no other reason for the argument ending like that.
But instinct as cold as the ice she’d been about to crush settled along her spine. Grace never calmed that quickly.
Never.
Meredith had already started toward Grace’s room when something heavy thudded against a wall. A second later, a crash like glass shattering.
As luck would have it, the usually locked door had been unlatched. Though, in hindsight, it hadn’t been good luck.
When Meredith shoved open the door, Grace was on the bed, Adam astride her. Her head was thrown back at an unnatural angle, her mouth set in a grimace. Both of them were breathing heavily. For several heartbeats, Meredith thought she’d interrupted an intimate moment.
Not the type to be embarrassed, she’d nevertheless felt the tingle of heat in her cheeks. Why hadn’t they thought to lock the damn door?
But then she noted that they were fully clothed. The shards of a ruined desk lamp rested at the base of one wall. The shade of a floor lamp had been knocked askew, casting the couple in a dim, honeyed light.
And Adam’s hands were wrapped around Grace’s throat as she struggled to breathe.
Meredith’s own hand clenched around the mallet she’d forgotten she was holding. The wood bit into her palm as she raised it, her shoulder coiling as her body reacted ahead of conscious thought, the rush to protect Grace so complete that she trembled with it.
Get off my daughter.
Only a thought, left unspoken.
Meredith swung, the fury behind the movement as cold as it was unexpected, and when the mallet connected with the side of Adam’s head, she couldn’t tell if the crack came from wood or bone.
Then Adam fell away from her daughter, onto the floor, and Meredith saw the mallet was intact.
So not wood, then.
Serena took a couple of steps away now, as if she finally meant to leave. “With the fire north of here, are you staying?”
“Of course,” Meredith said. “We’re as safe here as anywhere.”
Which, really, wasn’t safe at all.
If it had been anything to worry about, though, the county would be issuing evacuation orders and knocking on doors. Her thoughts were fully focused on the call from Brian.
He said you’d know how to find him, Brian had said.
The trouble was that Meredith did indeed know exactly where Adam Duran was. She just hadn’t thought he’d wait so long to cause her trouble.
CHAPTER 21
LEYNA
Saturday, 11:35 a.m.
For several minutes, Leyna and Rocky stood in silence. Then Rocky set the dog down. Both of them watched to make sure Goose didn’t intend to run off, but he instantly burrowed between Rocky’s legs, his belly flat on the ground, resting his snout between his paws.
Rocky looked down at Leyna. “Smoke can travel hundreds of miles,” he said as if to comfort her.
“So you don’t think the fire’s close?”
