What We'll Burn Last, page 28
Then she saw Richard, curled in a fetal position. He was having trouble breathing, but when he saw her, his face relaxed.
“You’re here.” He let out a breath, a slight smile coming with it. “You’re okay.”
She moved closer, stopped a couple of feet from him, looked around. There were bottles of water and a dirty pillow on the floor. He’d tried to make his captive—her captive—comfortable, but Olivia was no longer focused on Ellie.
“Where’s Thea?”
“She’s with Rocky—” He winced as he struggled to a sitting position. “Meredith saw her get in his truck.”
Olivia’s throat, already raw from the smoke, burned from a surge of bile. “Thea didn’t go with Rocky. She was waiting for you in the car.” She fought to keep it together. “You were supposed to keep our daughter safe.”
Alarm replaced relief on Richard’s face, and he struggled to stand, but his legs wouldn’t hold him. His gaze darted over her shoulder. He scanned the space as Olivia had a moment earlier, as if expecting to see their daughter in the doorway at the top of the stairs or in the shadows behind her mom.
“Why would Meredith lie about that?”
Olivia laughed harshly. Why wouldn’t she? She’d lied about their son’s death for years.
Richard gestured with his head toward the stairs. “Leyna and Grace have Ellie.” Each word seemed to cause him pain. “She’s safe.”
He said this as if Ellie’s freedom had always been part of his plan. As if he’d been waiting for Olivia to find a way to spin what she’d done so he could let her go.
What would happen to Olivia now that he had? Ellie was her granddaughter. Surely the girl could forgive her. It had been an accident. A misunderstanding.
But Olivia didn’t care about that. She’d trusted Richard to take care of their daughter, but he’d been so fixated on protecting Olivia that he’d failed to protect the person who mattered most. If he’d just left Ellie where she was in the cabin and taken Thea to the creek as she’d asked, their daughter would be safe. They would all be safe.
Richard managed to stand, legs shaking but holding him. “You go to the creek. Find the others.” His breathing grew steadier but still required effort. “I’ll go back to the house. Get Thea.”
She laughed again, and even she heard the ugliness in it. What was Richard thinking? The others wouldn’t welcome her at the creek, not now that they knew about Ellie, and their home had been consumed by flames. Besides, Richard could barely stand. He wouldn’t have been able to make it back to Thea even if their world had not been on fire.
Olivia watched him, his balance unsteady, and a thought seized her: Her freedom had always been hers to take. She moved forward, leaned in, and kissed him on the cheek.
Goodbye, Richard.
Her eyes were too dry, too hot, for tears, but the ache in her chest took her by surprise.
When Richard touched her arm tenderly, she pushed him away. Just as she had with Ellie, Olivia shoved harder than she’d intended. He fell backward, expression equal parts hurt and confusion.
Olivia turned and left the clubhouse. On her way out, she thought she heard Richard on the stairs, but she knew he wouldn’t make it, and she had no energy left to help him. Outside, she saw that the fire had made it to Ridgepoint Ranch. In that instant, she experienced it all. She felt the hard labor of Dominic’s birth. Heard the echo of the empty house the day Adam disappeared. Saw the grave near the edge of the forest, dirt still crusted under her nails from the digging. All the worst-ever pains joined together—swirling, consuming—in the advancing wall of flames.
If Thea was behind that wall, she was gone.
Olivia had been wrong. The worst-ever pain wasn’t a single moment but her whole fucking life.
Olivia shuffled toward the center of the golf course, each step a labor. Around her, embers fluttered and dark clouds churned, and the fire’s rage had grown deafening, a mirror of her own. Rage made a sturdier handhold than blame.
As near to the center as she could drag herself, she stopped.
Not the fire or the smoke, she decided. It will be the grief that kills me.
Olivia released a rattling breath and collapsed onto the fairway.
THE FIRE
The wildfire has created its own weather, the superheated plumes mixing with cooler air, forming fire clouds. These ice-containing clouds can cause thunderstorms and more dry lightning strikes, like the one that had hit the dying pine thirty-six hours before.
It is Sunday morning, but though the sun dawned an hour earlier, the sky remains midnight dark. In the branches, embers glow, but they are fading. A stand of green trees remains untouched next to stumps that smolder on blackened earth. There are on average seven thousand wildfires a year in California. Soon, the McRae Fire will die, and another will ignite somewhere else in the state.
Deeper in this forest, near the abandoned golf course, firefighters will eventually find bones that they will identify as belonging to Ridgepoint Ranch resident Richard Duran.
While tissue and other organic matter burn quickly, the bones and teeth remain intact. Temperatures exceeding two thousand degrees are needed to break down the minerals, and though other spots exceed that, this is the spot where the fire died. It will be assumed that, disoriented by smoke, Richard Duran fell while attempting to follow his wife up the stairs to safety.
Investigators will comfort the victim’s family, including his imprisoned widow, with the news that Richard was unconscious when the flames consumed him. He went quickly, they’ll say. They won’t be certain of this, of course, since only the bones remain to tell the story. But they won’t want the family to know he might have suffered, especially since he burned not far from the fairway where rescuers found his widow alive. They won’t tell her that her husband might have survived had he not followed her up the stairs. Even if she is guilty of other crimes, these half-truths are intended to spare her additional guilt. After all, they think, it’s not like there was anything Olivia Duran could’ve done to prevent her husband’s death.
Among themselves, though, they will talk about how horrible it would have been if he was alive when the fire came for him.
CHAPTER 55
LEYNA
Sunday morning
The flames had whined like a jet’s engine, the heat so intense Leyna imagined blisters erupting on her skin, but eventually, the fire raced past them. Rescuers found Leyna, Grace, and Ellie in the nearly dry creek, where enough water flowed to allow them to wet their shirts, to cover their mouths. But what had saved them wasn’t the water but the brush, too sparse to keep the fire’s interest. The flames had flashed across the ground toward the trees on the ridge, leaving behind ash, a scorched field, and the three of them somehow alive. When Ellie was lifted up and wrapped in a fire blanket, she held tightly to her mom’s hand, and Grace held to Leyna’s just as fiercely.
What the economic crisis and Rocky’s poor judgment had started decades before, the wildfire finished. Nothing remained of Ridgepoint Ranch except Adam’s bones. Those were still there, buried at the edge of the burn scar. For a while longer, anyway. Leyna doubted Olivia would wait until the land inevitably hit the market and some new developer brought in bulldozers and excavators. She’d waited sixteen years to bury her son properly. She wouldn’t wait much longer, especially since she’d been arrested; she’d want to see Meredith punished too, despite how she’d saved Thea. The habit of hating each other was too deeply ingrained.
Everyone but Richard had survived, though with Meredith concealing Adam’s death and Olivia kidnapping Ellie, prison looked likely for both of them. Olivia had already talked with Dominic about getting custody of Thea, and the girl had Rocky too. Meredith had volunteered to watch Goose until everyone got settled. The damn dog needs some stability, she’d said. Leyna’s apartment was going to feel much smaller for a while.
It was Dominic’s tibia, the larger of the lower-leg bones, that had been broken. Above the ankle and below the knee, according to the orthopedic surgeon who’d put in the screws that would keep the pieces aligned while he healed. Dom’s leg would be immobilized in a cast for a few weeks, but the worst of his injuries couldn’t be fixed with screws or fiberglass.
In the dim lighting of the hospital room, Leyna rested her hand on his. He tried to smile, but the pain corrupted it.
“Thanks for saving me.” He slurred the words, as if his tongue were wrapped in the same cast as his leg.
“Richard helped.”
His face clouded at the mention of his father. “I’m not just talking about the leg.”
He looked at her through a haze of painkillers, but Leyna saw herself more clearly. She’d been stuck in her vendetta against Adam. Before she’d left at eighteen, how many times had she walked past his grave, hating him?
“I’m sorry about your dad,” she said. “And about Adam.”
“I am too.” His voice broke, and she could feel him fading.
“I’ll be here when you wake up.” I won’t screw it up this time.
“Stalker.” Then, his eyes hooded and slipping out of focus, he said, “I think I might love you, Leyna Clarke.”
It was probably the painkillers talking, but she leaned in and kissed his forehead.
“I think I might love you too.” When she pulled away, he was already asleep. She hoped the medication prevented dreams. Dominic had lost so much, she couldn’t imagine that any dreams would offer him comfort.
Or maybe she was wrong. In sleep, the strain of his grief and physical pain faded from his face, and she imagined him lost in a happier time. Adam on that skateboard in the minutes before he fell—beaming, free, alive—or the four of them exploring the woods before it all burned.
Leyna found Grace in the hospital cafeteria. The youth center where Dominic worked had dropped off new clothes that morning after they’d both been discharged, and Leyna smiled. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Grace in a pair of sweatpants.
Grace gestured at a paper cup on the table in front of her. “I was going to order a coffee for you too, but I didn’t know how you took it.”
Of course she didn’t. This version of Grace didn’t know this Leyna at all.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“How about raspberry tea, then? You used to love that.”
Tears pricked her eyes that Grace remembered, but she shook her head.
“Something to eat? They had some cinnamon walnut croissants in the case.”
Leyna realized Grace needed to do this, so she nodded. “That would be great. Thanks.”
She watched Grace as she moved to the counter and ordered the pastry. When she bent her head to get her card from her purse, Leyna felt a pang at the slope of her neck. She swiped at her eyes and dropped her gaze to the tabletop, studied the speckles in the plastic as intently as if she were reading one of her favorite books.
Back at the table, Grace set two croissants and a cup of tea between them, and the silence grew heavy until Leyna asked, “How’s Ellie?”
“Not good—not yet—but she’s alive. Thank you.” She paused. “How’s Dom?”
“He won’t be home for at least another couple of days,” Leyna said, “but he’s improving.”
Leyna tore off a piece of the croissant, searching for a way to start the harder part of the conversation. Grace beat her to it.
“I found out I was pregnant at the start of summer break,” she said. “I didn’t tell anyone, not even Adam. I couldn’t. Could you imagine Mom’s reaction? Things were always complicated between us, and that”—she shook her head—“Mom wouldn’t have understood. Too much shit had happened between us.”
You’re too much alike, Leyna thought but didn’t dare say. She didn’t know if Grace and their mom would ever find their way back to each other, but maybe one day they’d recognize what had driven them apart. Leyna dropped the piece of croissant she’d been holding and pushed the pastry away. She wasn’t hungry, and she’d spent far too many years feeding her grief.
“It was hard. That year… I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid to eat because when I ate I threw up, and what if Mom suspected the reason for that? Besides, I couldn’t allow myself to gain weight. Then Mom would definitely know. If there was one thing she always noticed, it was when one of us put on a few pounds.”
Grace picked at her own croissant, taking a moment to gather her thoughts before resuming her story. Had she practiced it as often as Leyna had practiced her own questions?
“As soon as the weather started to turn, I broke out the layered tops, oversize coats, loose sweaters. Stopped using the bathroom when you or Mom were around. I started wearing more makeup, hats, large earrings. Anything to distract from my stomach.” She paused, glancing down. “Until I couldn’t. One morning I woke up and it was just”—she made a gesture indicating a baby bump—“there. I know it didn’t really happen overnight, but I swear it felt like one day I went from not being able to button my jeans to not being able to zip them.”
When Dominic had shared the theory, Leyna was certain Grace couldn’t have been pregnant because they’d shared a bathroom, and she’d seen Grace undress in the days leading up to her disappearance. But she’d never noticed how Grace hid from her when her belly started to swell the previous fall.
“I had already stopped having sex with Adam, of course—too busy, not feeling well. I ran through all the excuses. But I couldn’t hold him off forever. So I manufactured a fight, and I used that as an excuse when Mom asked why I wanted to live with Dad. Her exact words: Why the hell would you want to live with that deadbeat? But as much as she hates Dad, she didn’t put up much of an argument, because she hated being a mother more.”
Her gaze grew distant. “But maybe I was wrong about that.”
Leyna wondered if she was thinking of the paintings, one of which had survived in the back of the Ford Focus. It was funny, the things that remained after everything else was destroyed.
“Dad knew about the baby?”
“Dad?” Grace laughed harshly. “Of course not. I didn’t spend a day in that apartment with him and his horrible wife. I told him I was running off with my boyfriend, and he agreed to cover for me if I convinced Mom to pay him child support. Two of his favorite things—lying to Mom and free money.”
“So where were you?”
“I found a young woman who needed a roommate, and I lied about my age. She knew I was lying, but she could also see I was in trouble. Melanie isn’t the kind of woman who’s going to turn away a pregnant teenager.” She nearly smiled. “You’ll like her.”
Grace took a sip of her coffee, and her nose wrinkled the way it had as a kid when her tea was too hot. Then she set the cup back on the table and folded her hands in front of her, the gesture surprisingly tentative. In her sister’s eyes, Leyna saw her own loss reflected.
“But I couldn’t pretend I was staying at Dad’s forever, especially since Mom was paying him the child support,” Grace said. “I always knew I’d come back.” Her voice grew apologetic. “But not to stay. Melanie would’ve watched Ellie as long as I needed her to, but those weeks I was back at Ridgepoint without Ellie, I was bursting out of my skin with missing her. My breasts ached too, and it’s not like I could ask Mom to buy me a pump. But the milk dried up quickly because I wasn’t eating.”
Even if Grace had lost the baby weight, her stomach must’ve been soft, but Leyna didn’t remember it that way. That was the thing about a child’s memory—it was unreliable, suggestible. How many of Leyna’s memories hadn’t been of the real Grace at all but of her Polaroids come to life?
“We found your Polaroids at Rocky’s place.”
She nodded. “He’s a good guy. Gave me a ride that night and didn’t ask questions.” She smiled. “Though, really, I think part of that was to get back at Mom. I gave him those photos, but I kept that one of the four of us. I almost wish I hadn’t. Then Ellie would never have—” She stopped, likely realizing that if Ellie hadn’t found out about her family, Leyna and Grace wouldn’t be sitting across from each other now.
Dominic in the hospital, Richard dead, Ellie traumatized—too large a price had been paid for their reunion.
“I worked at restaurants off the books for a while,” Grace said. “I avoided social media. Started using a new name. But none of that would’ve worked without Melanie. The lease, utilities, even my first car… all in her name. I planned on leaving California once I’d saved some money. I was going to move across the country, do an even better job of getting lost.” She smiled. “But then Melanie introduced me to her brother—Paul Byrd.”
Grace tore off a piece of the pastry, considered it, tossed it back on the plate. “I assume you saw the press conference?” At Leyna’s nod, Grace said, “That was Melanie behind Paul.”
“At the time, I thought she was Ellie’s mom.”
Grace winced. Leyna felt a stab of satisfaction, then remorse at her own pettiness.
“You can’t really stay a ghost if you’re on camera at a press conference,” Grace said.
“Paul knows?”
She nodded, then swiped her phone and pushed it across the table. On the screen, a pink-cheeked toddler nibbled on a sun hat, tufts of blond hair and eyes so blue there was no doubting whose he was.
“I have a son. Kyle. Two years old. Paul thinks he looks like me because of his eyes, but I know he looks like you.”
Leyna reached out and tapped the screen before it could go dark.
“I almost called you when he was born,” Grace said.
“Why didn’t you?” The edge of accusation slipped in no matter how hard she’d tried to keep it out.
Grace sat up in her chair, as if bracing for what came next. “I’m sorry.”
Leyna waited for her to say more. There was a lot for both of them to apologize for, and Leyna wanted to know what sins Grace counted on her list.
