Then, a minute out from the Barnes house, the Camry slowed and turned, pulling off to a trailhead. I let out a breath, sinking back against the seat.
You’re being paranoid, I scolded myself. I kept my eyes on the rearview, but the Camry never reappeared.
The gate to the Barnes house was open. When I pulled up in front of the house, there was a casserole sitting on the front porch, covered in foil. It didn’t seem right to step over it, so I picked it up and rang the bell. It took a couple minutes for Marcus Barnes to appear. He was a tall, solid man, but he seemed smaller under the weight of his grief. He looked dully down at the dish in my hands.
“You too?” he asked.
“It was on the porch,” I said apologetically.
Marcus Barnes was an unlikely man to have married Kimiko, to have fathered Liv. The two women were both quicksilver in their own way, and he was solid as the wooden beams of his house, but maybe that was why it all worked.
“You might as well bring it in,” he said. He turned and walked inside and I followed, still holding the casserole.
Marcus went into the kitchen, which was cluttered with more foil-covered dishes. That probably meant the freezer was already full. I remembered this part. I’d been pulling potpies and macaroni casserole out of the freezer a year after the attack. I set the latest offering down on a clear patch of counter.
“It’s kind of a mess,” Marcus said. He was wearing pajama pants and an ancient Nirvana T-shirt. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now,” I said.
“Third time’s the charm, right?” he asked, voice rough.
“What?” I asked, uncomprehending.
“The first two times I got a call like that, it turned out she was still alive,” he said. His gaze was fixed on a point around my elbow. “First the woods and then the attempt. I think part of me has always known that everything since that summer was borrowed time.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if there were any words in the world that would make even the smallest difference, and if there had been, my own grief drowned them out.
“Where’s Kimiko?” I asked.
“Sleeping,” he said. “Chief Bishop was just here. Asking again if there was anyone who might want to hurt Olivia. Covering their bases, she said. I didn’t know what to tell her.”
“Liv didn’t have enemies,” I said.
His eyes flicked to my face and grew sharper. “Have they talked to you yet?”
“Yes. After I found her.”
“You found her?” he asked, voice hoarse. “They didn’t tell me that.” He sounded angry, and I couldn’t help but feel the anger was for me. As if by finding her, I’d made it all true.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Barnes.”
He looked away, and by the tension in his face I could tell he was trying not to cry. “She never forgave herself, you know. For what happened.”
My brow creased. “When we were kids? There was nothing she could have done,” I said, shaking my head. “If they’d tried to stop Stahl he would have killed them.”
It was Persephone who had saved them. They’d been down there with her while I sat stewing over some remark Cass had made. Stahl hadn’t seen them. Sometimes I thought I remembered lying under the overhang with them. I could smell the dirt, see Cass’s hand pressed over Liv’s mouth. Sometimes it was just as vivid as my real memories, and I had to remind myself that it wasn’t possible.
They’d hid, watching Stahl kill me. Only after he left did they stumble out to help me. Cass tried to find my pulse, but between the shock and adrenaline and the fact that she didn’t really know what she was doing, she couldn’t find it. I still remembered Liv promising they were going to get help, Cass telling her it was too late, they just had to run. I couldn’t move or respond, but I could hear her.
They thought I was dead. It wasn’t their fault that I wasn’t.
“She hated that she left you for dead,” he said. “Sometimes I think she would have moved on if you had died, but having you around meant she never could. She always had to remember that day.”
I kept my mouth shut. It was more or less the same thing Cass’s mom had said, only dressed up nicer. If it weren’t for me, their daughters would have been normal. Fine. But when that knife went into my body, it was their good girls who were truly wounded, and their wounds that mattered.
“She was doing so well,” Marcus said. “I don’t understand what happened.”
“I wish…” I trailed off. I wished I had listened to her about Persephone. I wished I hadn’t let her leave the car. I wished I’d gone with her. I wished I hadn’t been passed out in my car on the side of the road while she was in the woods, while she was—
“She told me you had a fight that day,” Marcus said. His eyes were on me now, sharp and focused. My mouth went dry. Marcus must have been the one to tell the police that we’d argued.
“I wouldn’t call it a fight,” I said. I chose my words carefully. “We were all feeling pretty raw. Liv wanted to talk about things, but Cass and I weren’t up for it.” I felt bad pulling Cass’s name in, using her as a shield—the Good Friend. The stable one.
Marcus considered me for a long moment. Then his shoulders slumped, his weariness settling more heavily over him. “Is there something you need from us, Naomi?” he asked.
I wished I could say no. It was wrong asking anything of them right now. “I saw something earlier, in Liv’s room. I need to look at it again,” I said reluctantly.
He shook his head. “If there was anything important in her room, the police have it. And if you know something, you should talk to them.” His look had a challenge buried in it.
“If I could look anyway—”
“You should go,” he said firmly.
“Marcus.” Kimiko appeared in the hallway, wearing a terrycloth robe and slippers. Her eyes were red from crying, but her face was hard now, closed off. She said something sharp and short in Japanese, which Marcus answered with a grunt before turning away. She looked at me. “Take off your shoes,” she said, and walked away down the hall.
I decided that was the only invitation I was going to get. I slipped off my shoes and followed her. She walked into the middle of Liv’s room. Half emptied, it had a look of ragged chaos that all her clutter never created. Its order had been disrupted and it hit me in the gut all over again—Liv was gone.
“Go ahead,” Kimiko said. It was clear that this time, she wouldn’t be leaving me alone to my search.
I went to the desk again, but of course her computer and all her notebooks and notes had been taken. The drawer was empty. They had the sketchbook. What would it mean to them? Would they realize Persephone hadn’t simply sprung from her imagination?
“What is it you’re looking for?” Kimiko asked.
I hesitated—could I chance telling her? It was worth the risk, I decided. “It was a set of numbers and letters. Four numbers followed by four letters. She had them written down on a sticky note.”
She nodded and walked out of the room. I stared after her, uncertain if I should follow, but a minute later she returned with a crumpled envelope. “She left this in the recycling,” she said. “She was always taking notes on whatever was nearby.”