The gym bag full of cash makes a thudding sound as I drop it to the floor by my feet.
Then I wait quietly for her to say something, because the hell if I know how to approach this, and she’s impossible to read.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” she finally offers, her eyes flickering to me, skittering over my body before snapping back to the wall. Color crawls up her neck. “I have a hard time keeping my temper in check.”
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t think things through; I jump to conclusions and then I act.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I was angry with you and I just . . . I wasn’t trying to . . .” She’s stumbling over her words.
I didn’t expect this reaction, and it’s all I can do to press my lips together to hide my smile. I’ll gladly let her barge into my shower and scream at me if it means I get this softer, docile version afterward. “Yeah, I’ve noticed the anger issues.”
Awkward silence hangs in the room once again, broken momentarily by the crack of my beer can.
I guess it’s my turn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you about that.” I gesture toward the bag. “I found it last night with a note, asking that I give it to you. Here, see for yourself.” I fish the sheet of paper out from my pocket and hand it to her to read.
She sets her jaw but, after a long pause, I get a small nod of acceptance. “I knew about your mother already,” she admits quietly, taking a sip of her own beer as her penetrating eyes land heavily on me. “That she died. And how she died.”
Her words stir a sharp pang in my chest. “How?” I ask, clearing my voice against the sudden gruffness that comes whenever the topic lands on my mother’s suicide.
“On the news.”
“But you live in Tucson.” Why the hell would my mother’s death get coverage here?
“My mom has an unhealthy obsession with Texas. Especially anything to do with the Austin Police Department.” She stretches out on her bed with her back against the headboard and her long, shapely legs crossed at the ankles. She looks like she’s getting settled in for a long night of talking. “She says someone there framed my dad. She’ll swear up and down that he would never sell drugs.”
Exactly what my mother alluded to.
Dina must know something. But would she have told Gracie?
I do my best to feign ignorance, and hope that Gracie can’t sense the tension coursing through my limbs. “It would be hard to accept that about someone you loved and trusted.” I hesitate. “Why does she think that he was framed?”
“Because she’s a crazy, cracked-out woman? I don’t know.” Gracie snaps off the tab on her beer can and tosses it haphazardly toward the trash can in the corner. “But it’s ruined her life. And mine.”
Either Gracie’s an A-list actress or Dina hasn’t told her anything. “Do you believe he did it?”
“I didn’t. And then I did.” Her gaze shifts to the bag of money, her throat bobbing with a hard swallow. “And now you’ve shown up here with that, and no explanation. So, I’m thinking that he’s guilty of something.” She seems to consider her next words for a long moment. “My mom talks about Jackie a lot.”
“Oh yeah?” I take a big sip of my beer and then coolly ask, “What does she say?” I can already tell I’m not going to like it.
Gracie picks at a piece of thread on the bedcover. “That she was part of my father’s setup.”
“We are bad, bad people.”
I push my mother’s voice out of my head. “Does she have proof?”
Gracie’s head shake brings me an odd sense of relief.
“Why did you leave Texas?”
“The neighborhood turned on us. That’s what she told me, anyway; I don’t remember, but she said people watched our every move, glared when we walked by. Neighbors who’d had us over for dinner before wouldn’t even say hello. Some yelled at her. I remember that happening once or twice.” Her face tightens with a cute little frown. “I didn’t understand why they’d be so mean to us because my dad had an accident at work. That’s what my mom told me happened: that he had an ‘accident’ and he wouldn’t be coming home again.
“Then one night, someone threw a brick through the window. So she packed us up and we left for Arizona.” The sadness in Gracie’s voice has quickly changed to bitterness.
I guess having a neighborhood turn on you might make you up and move. Maybe overnight. Maybe. But according to Canning, Dina never came back, never even asked to see the police report. Why?
“Why accuse my mother of being a part of it?” Is she simply a heartbroken widow turned junkie? Or is there more to this part of the story? There must be, because why else did my mother have Abe’s gun holster hidden under our floorboards?
What does Dina know?
Gracie responds with a shrug, but there’s nothing nonchalant about it. She’s still suspicious, still calculating in her gaze as she studies me. “My dad and your mom were best friends and partners for years. Even after your mother got promoted. But then my dad died, and she cut us off. She stopped answering my mom’s phone calls.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“Why would my mother lie?” Gracie’s piercing eyes settle on me. “It seems odd, doesn’t it? They were partners and friends for years, and then she just turned her back on us. For fourteen years. And now you show up with this.” She gestures to the bag. “Why?”
Why, indeed? I focus on the beer in my hand as I try to recall those first few weeks, those months, after Abe died. We went to the funeral, that I remember. Dina simply stood there, a husk of a woman, her eyes puffy but no tears shed—as if she’d already drained herself of the ability. Tucked in next to her, a sullen little Gracie, her gaze wide as her eyes roved the crowd of faces around her.
We left soon after. I don’t remember attending a reception. All I remember is Silas and my mother sitting in the backyard, my uncle speaking quietly while repeatedly topping up the glass in my mother’s hand. My mother . . . all she did was stare into the depths of the pool and empty her glass over and over again.
She went back to work a few days later. And that’s when I started staying home alone. She said I was old enough, that there was no need for me to go to Dina and Abe’s after school anymore. At the time, I was more thankful than anything. I figured she was doing it so I wouldn’t have to walk through Abe’s front door every day and remember that he was dead.
But if what Gracie is saying is true . . .
If my mother believed Abe was such a good man, why would she cut Dina and her little girl off like that?
I don’t have an answer for Gracie—or myself—so I divert. “We didn’t exactly have it easy after he died, either. My mom started drinking and my parents divorced. I moved to Seattle to live with my dad.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard Seattle is rough. Was your trailer park like the Hollow?” She doesn’t hide her scorn.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I’m an ass.
She shrugs. “You didn’t have anything to do with it.”
And yet I can’t help but feel responsibility here.
She pauses. “What do you think? You’re older than me. You must remember him, right? Do you think my dad was guilty?”
“He was a good man.”
“I need her to know.”
My mother’s words are a constant thrum. Why can’t I bring myself to give voice to them? “I don’t know.” I chug half the can of beer so I can gather my thoughts. Based on what George and Silas said, the case is firmly closed, the evidence irrefutable. Would knowing what my mother mumbled—drunk, and moments before she decided to take her own life—help Gracie and Dina? I’m not sure I believe her, and it doesn’t feel right to repeat it. It could hurt them more. It would definitely hurt the memory of my mom.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
How many times will I have to tell myself that before this guilt lifts from my chest?
The weight of that green-eyed gaze on me is suffocating. I need off this topic. “The Hollow. Sounds like a horror movie.”
It’s delayed, but Gracie’s face finally cracks with a smirk. “Even the cops call it that. Suits it, doesn’t it?”