Those weren’t fears of Rachel. They were fears for her, Mitch realized with growing excitement.
She didn’t want Rachel to suffer. She wanted Rachel to leave Duke Street … but she didn’t get away.
The bucket of ammonia.
Mitch considered the possibility that it wasn’t some torture on the night of the murder as they’d all believed, but rather, like the drawing of a smoking toaster, it was a specific memory from the past.
Abuse. Fear.
Penny wanted her mother to get away from her abuser. Grace mentioned some violence in the Duke Street home.
“But she didn’t go away.” Rachel didn’t leave. That happened all the time, he knew. Abused women stay. They’re too frightened to leave, or they have no place to go. Maybe Rachel didn’t abandon Penny as everyone was led to believe … maybe Rachel had left Penny in the park that day to get her to safety.
A realization struck Mitch hard. If the memories that Penny and her alters shared with him were recollections from her distant past, why then did she need to be in a dissociative state to access them?
The answer was both obvious and elusive. He recalled Grace’s words regarding the day they found Penny—how the little girl in the sweet yellow dress wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t say anything about what happened, wouldn’t even answer to her name, so Jack named her Penny.
She was traumatized, they were told.
They found her. They picked her up. She was their good luck.
Why wouldn’t she talk about what happened? Why didn’t she pine for her mother, who she had wanted to help, to save?
The answer came to Mitch in a flash, and with it a fierce chill ripped through his body. He saw it now and couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before. The Duke Street fire had opened his eyes. He had to call Grace. He needed to meet with her right away.
Everyone needed to hear what he had to say.
CHAPTER 48
AFTER HOURS AND THEY were back at Big Frank’s—all of them, Ryan too—gathered around a large table, eating pizza and waiting for Mitch. He’d called, but wouldn’t say over the phone what he wanted to talk about, only that it was important to the case and better discussed in person. Grace had been working a shift, trying to appease Ryan, and Mitch had offered to meet there.
Her sons were being icy with each other, but Grace noted how Ryan seemed extra annoyed when Jack brought up the dissociative state Eve went into while looking at the atlas.
“‘There’s a picture on his arm. I can see the picture,’” said Jack, reciting Eve’s words.
“We think it’s Vince Rapino,” Annie said for Ryan’s benefit.
“That man has more paint on his arms than anyone,” said Grace.
Pushing his chair back, Ryan rose quickly to his feet, a fierce look on his face. “I’ve had enough of this for one night. Actually, for one lifetime,” he announced. “I’m going to help Sarah clean up and get out of here. Mom, you’ve got the keys, so you can lock up. I’ve got the cash. I’ll make the deposit in the morning. It’s not a windfall, but business has picked up a bit the last few days. Guess the pretrial buzz is helping out.” He gave a wave in everyone’s general direction. “Later, all.” And off he went to the kitchen.
Jack watched him go, waiting until he’d disappeared through the swinging door before he spoke. “You know,” he said, whispering in a conspiratorial way, “Ryan was pre-law before he dropped out of school. Someone like that knows how to put a person in prison.”
A flash of anger struck Grace hard, turning her cheeks bright red. “What are you saying, Jack? Are you accusing Ryan of … of what?”
“I’m saying what I said before. Ryan blames Penny for Dad’s death, and he’s been acting very strangely since her arrest.”
“Do you think Ryan killed Rachel? For … for God knows what reason—and that he’s letting his sister take the fall for it? Is that it, Jack?” Grace spoke in a sharp-edged voice.
“I don’t know,” Jack said, sounding defensive. “It’s just weird, is all—the timing of him dropping out of school, his anger toward Penny … you know. I’m just saying, we shouldn’t close ourselves off to any possibility.”
“Well, I’m not going to consider that one,” Grace said forcefully, trying to block out the image of her son plunging a knife into the belly of an innocent woman—his sister’s birth mother, at that.
“What about what Chloe told us?” Annie asked, delivering a needed change in subject. “‘Burned it all up, but she didn’t get away.’”