Grace, who thought she’d have been inured to the harsh realities of her daughter’s condition by now, inwardly cringed at the black-and-white terms Navarro used to articulate the situation.
“Got it,” Whitmore said. “So right now, all we know is Darla got a note that caused all sorts of problems.”
“That note…” Navarro spoke softly, as if talking to himself. “Does anyone find it interesting it was written in crayon?” he asked.
Whitmore seemed indifferent. “Access to our computers and printers is more limited than our art supplies,” she said.
“I suppose,” said Navarro, who inhaled deeply as he sank into thought. “It’s just a bit coincidental, isn’t it?”
“Are you talking about the drawing Chloe made?” Grace asked him.
Navarro nodded. “Mitch reached one of Penny’s alters and she makes a picture using crayons, and then this note shows up, done in blue crayon, and—” He shrugged. “And I don’t know … just a coincidence, I guess.”
Grace read the troubled expression on Mitch’s face.
“That’s an interesting point,” he said.
“How so?” asked Grace, shifting uneasily in her seat.
“Chloe could be lingering … I think there’s this leaking of one alter into another that might be taking place,” Mitch said.
“The bleed thing you told me about?” asked Grace.
“Yes, that … we can call it consciousness leaking for lack of a better term. It’s possible that Chloe didn’t completely go away, that she’s still present in Penny’s subconscious.”
“What’s the significance of that to the note?” Grace wanted to know.
“I don’t have proof, of course, so it’s all conjecture at this point, but it’s conceivable that Penny herself wrote the note and gave it to Darla, or rather slipped it into her Bible so she’d find it later.”
Wonderment sparked on Whitmore’s face. “Are you saying that Penny wrote a note that would obviously incite Darla? Why in the world would she do that?”
Navarro pursed his lips and Grace could almost see his thoughts flickering.
“Guilt,” Mitch said. “She has a guilty conscience—bad girl, right? She knows what she did, knows it was wrong, and she’s trying to punish herself for it. Penny knew when she’d be in the therapy room. She could have easily dropped Darla plenty of hints.”
Whitmore looked at Mitch, aghast. “Are you suggesting that Penny wanted Darla to come after her?”
Grace keyed in on Mitch’s hesitancy.
“Maybe not come after,” he said, following a weighty silence. “What Greg said might not be far-fetched. Penny’s guilty conscience is surfacing, perhaps even from the work I’m doing with her, and she gave Darla the note not to get punished, but as something of a suicide attempt.”
CHAPTER 34
GRACE AND ANNIE WERE bone-tired but not about to give up. They had spent the day locked in a stuffy back room at Navarro’s law office, much to Ryan’s continued displeasure, sifting through the cartons of evidence that included depositions, her daughter’s fingerprints, DNA analysis, printouts of the twisted correspondence between Eve and Maria, police logs, and a slew of paperwork.
Grace found herself in one of her darkest moments. The crime scene photos she came across in a folder, along with disturbing pictures of Penny after her arrest, were gruesome, and for all the hours spent searching, she’d found nothing that might bolster the defense. Now it appeared her daughter may have become suicidal, as well.
“Eve protects,” Grace said to Annie. “That’s just what she does. I don’t see her wanting any harm to come to Penny.”
“But it’s not just Eve anymore,” Annie reminded her, taking the contrarian position for discussion’s sake, as she so often did. She’d been properly debriefed and knew all the theories being bandied about. “Mitch is accessing her other alters, so she might be picking up those thoughts.”
Grace shuffled some papers back into a folder with a harrumph that announced her refusal to accept that possibility.
“It’s that guard Blackwood, the one who nearly clubbed Penny to death,” Grace said, slipping into a scowl. “I know it. Can’t prove it, but I’m not going to stop looking.”
Annie smiled and went back to work. “If Blackwood knew how tenacious you can be, I doubt he’d get much sleep,” she said.