Grace tried to picture that necklace in her mind.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I have a bunch of them at home. As I’m sure you know, only plain wedding bands and religious necklaces can be worn in here.”
Mitch flipped to the last drawing in the stack, a seaside cottage done in acrylic paints.
“Was she doing much art in her teens?” he asked.
“No,” Grace said, shaking her head once the answer came to her. “She was trying to master landscapes, and then one day she sort of stopped doing art altogether. It was sad, because she loved it. She wasn’t necessarily a natural. Wouldn’t take art lessons, though I encouraged it. I wasn’t expecting her to be Rembrandt. I was just happy she’d found something she enjoyed, a creative, constructive way to express herself, that’s all.”
“Hmmm,” Mitch said, studying the drawing of the cottage closely. “I’m wondering if she was expecting she’d be Rembrandt.” He surveyed some of Penny’s later pieces once more.
For reasons Grace couldn’t fathom, Mitch placed his fingers over the two stocks on the left side of the anchor symbol. He turned the paper around to show Grace the result.
“Look at it closely,” he said. “Get rid of the pointed flukes, and the curved arm forms a C. Covering the two stocks on the left side of the shank, you get the letter F. I don’t think this is an anchor at all—or if it is, it serves a dual purpose.”
“And what purpose is that?” Grace asked, still not seeing it.
“C. F. Initials. Chloe Francone.”
A gasp rose in Grace’s throat.
“I think in addition to being a perfectionist, Chloe here, for a time at least, was also a budding artist—until single-mindedness stifled her creativity.”
Mitch fell silent for a time, long enough for Grace to ask what he was thinking.
“I’m thinking we might be able to stoke those creative fires once more, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll give me a way to reach her.”
CHAPTER 27
MITCH WAS CONCERNED THAT his next experiment might not go well in front of an audience, but Grace wanted to watch, as did Navarro. As a compromise, Mitch reserved a room with one-way glass, allowing Penny some illusion of privacy during their session.
Grace used the cover of that glass to take in Eve’s every movement—noting first and foremost that it was still Eve’s hard expression on display. The girl was seated at a sturdy wood table in the center of a bright white, starkly lit, wide-open space. She stared directly into the mirror across from her, anger seared on her face, as if she knew her mother was on the other side to receive her message loud and clear: It’s your fault that I’m here.
At least that was Grace’s interpretation. Mitch had stepped out into the hallway to answer a phone call, leaving Eve with nothing to do but wait—and stare.
On the floor beside the table was the same container of art supplies Grace had seen in Mitch’s office on the day they first met. Eve stole occasional glances at the contents, visible through the clear plastic sides, but revealed nothing of her thoughts or feelings.
While waiting for Mitch’s return, Navarro had another opportunity to review the artwork Grace had laid out on a table in the viewing room.
“The anchor symbol isn’t on all of the drawings,” he noted, examining an earlier piece of her daughter’s—a lopsided house rendered in a variety of colors on a sloping green hill, all done in frenzied crayon strokes.
“No, that symbol came about later,” Grace explained, happy to have the distraction from Eve’s cold eyes. “Mitch thinks Chloe might have replaced her desire for perfection in art with getting perfect marks at school—which would mean we were living with Chloe for years and didn’t know it.”
“So interesting,” Navarro said, flipping through drawings done on different shades of paper. “And drawing will get Chloe to appear?”
“There may be a subconscious response brought on by the tactile stimulus of the drawing materials,” Grace explained. “Mitch is hoping that a reminder of youthful innocence, especially here in a scary place like Edgewater, might make Chloe feel safe enough to come out.”
Navarro, who made his living with words, seemed at a loss for them.
“So it’s like the ammonia,” he said eventually. “Some sensory stimulus to encourage a switch, is that it?”
Grace nodded. The look of curiosity on Navarro’s face deepened.
“Do you think she’s … what, parsed out her memories from the night of the murder to her different alters?”