“But you never actually saw them after the Homestead burned.”
“Not that I recall. I would’ve asked them about the fire if I’d seen them.”
“So it’s possible they left just before the fire instead,” I said, less a question than a statement. The Grassis leaving their new town: the fire a day or two later. A woman with long dark hair approaching Ricky Peters, desperate for revenge. The shape of a skull. The length of a femur. A piece of land in a sun-bleached world, a property title changing hands. The office felt like it was closing in on me.
“Okay,” I said carefully. My voice still sounded normal. “Do you have any of the Grassis’ things left? Maybe we could look through them. They’re old family friends, and we’ve been trying to get in contact with them for a long time.”
“Like I said, they didn’t have much. I sold a little of it, threw most of it out. I felt bad, but it was just papers, clothes, things like that.” He frowned. “You know, this is the second time in the last month that someone’s come around asking about the Grassis and their things. Years without anyone mentioning them, and now—”
My whole body tightened. “Somebody else was asking about the Grassis?”
“Yes,” the landlord said. I had the impression he enjoyed our captive interest, that maybe there was a thrill in doling out this useless information, suddenly in high demand again. “I always have tricks to remember. Keeps me sharp. And this was right around the time that those birds came falling down and made all that racket. It all happened right around the same time that somebody was here, asking about the Grassis, poking their noses around—a lot like you girls are doing now. Older fellow. Big beard. Dark glasses. He had a girl with ’im.”
“A girl with red hair?” I asked, almost not wanting to say it. My mother had been right all along.
“Yes.” The landlord gave me a strange look. “Bright red.”
Red like fire. Like open flame. Red hair like the mother she’d lost; red hair like the sister she’d never known.
* * *
All this time, I’d been grieving a man who was out there, somewhere, vital and alive. All this time, I’d been grieving Fiona, when I should have been mourning Gina Grassi. So much love poured in the wrong directions. I could hardly pull in a full breath. I was swirling, heart racing, all the oxygen sapped out of my blood.
“Morrow, are you ready to tell me what all that was about?” asked Cate. She tried to sound annoyed, but she just sounded worried. I’d been pacing the motel room for an hour now, feeling like I had to move or else I’d combust.
I had to get it together. I tried to lay it all out like an elaborate equation that had nothing at all to do with me. “Okay, so, the Grassis haven’t been in Freshwater since 1977,” I said. “Right before the fire. Ricky said that he spoke to a woman with long dark hair threatening to kill Bellanger. He assumed that it was my mother because she was one of the only people there. He didn’t realize that Angela Grassi was back in Vermont after she’d already left. Junior said the bodies had discrepancies that Henley managed to hide all this time. Fiona’s body was closer to Gina’s age. Bellanger’s body could’ve been a woman’s.”
Cate nodded, face still creased with concern.
“And the land in Utah,” I continued. “Bellanger sold the land to Henley, who’s been covering for him all this time. That means something.”
“What?” she asked softly. “Just say it. Just say it out loud.”
“I can’t.” Something broke inside me, a deep snap. “Cate, I can’t say it.”
Cate reached for me, and at her touch my whole body stilled. “You can say anything.”
I took a deep breath. “Joseph Bellanger is still alive. He’s been alive all this time. That fire never killed him. Fiona’s alive too, and she must be with him.”
Cate pulled me close, surrounding me with her scent, her warmth, the steady pulse of her being. I pressed my face into her neck, and it was only then that I recognized the wetness of her skin against me, her body trembling. No: I was the one trembling. The one crying.
“It’s okay,” Cate said, her voice aching. “It’s okay. I know how much this hurts.”
“I’m not—no, I’m not hurt. Just—” But that was what I was running from. Beneath the ache, beneath the shock, there was anger. Rage. A betrayal that could still reach me, even after I knew what he was and what he’d done.