I didn’t know where he’d gone, but I hoped he was okay.
I had been lying in my bed in the ER for about seven hours when Sammy showed up.
“Sammy, thank God. Have you guys found Grant yet?”
He shook his head no. His face had a weight to it I’d never seen before, and I knew at once that it was bad news.
“I need to tell you about Patience,” he said.
He handed me a bag of clean clothes. Then he sat with me and waited for the results of the MRI. As he did, he recited the facts.
“Whoever did it used the Kalashnikov, Pix. Remember? Yuri’s gun? We know it was that weapon because of the caliber of the bullet. They still haven’t recovered the gun yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
“Whoever did it would’ve shot her at close range. The first bullet would’ve made her jump. You remember how vocal she was? There would’ve been a great big aroo. But she wouldn’t have felt the other thirty-two. Thirty-three bullets total, Pix. Thirty-three. That’s some seriously twisted shit right there.”
I know not all brothers are like this. Some might have said she wouldn’t have felt a thing or gone on about burying her under the azaleas that would bloom lovely and pink in the summertime, like that shit would’ve consoled me.
But not my Sammy. Sammy was all about statistics and records. So he counted the bullets. He told me the facts. He let me draw my own grim conclusions.
Sammy had no way of knowing my part in all this. That I’d hidden the Kalashnikov when Henry and I had been alone searching the guard shack for Yuri and clues to where Grant had gone. I remembered how big the gun had been and how I hadn’t wanted it lying around where anyone could swipe it and use it on some little kid. That gun had scared me, so I stashed it out of sight in the Scotch broom.
But the fact that it had been found and used meant that someone had been watching us—had been watching me.
The night before, when we’d fanned out to look for Grant, we’d all been in a position to be picked off by that Kalashnikov one by one—Lawford, Frank, Henry, me—who knows how many more.
But no. Whoever had been watching us had deliberately taken out the dog—the one with the well-trained, professional nose.
I didn’t know what that meant, but I was going to find out. And when I did, I was going to shoot the bastard who did it with thirty-three slugs myself.
That’s how I felt like mourning.
twelve
HENRY
I was right about agent Armstrong. After we found what was left of Pixie’s dog, things started happening.
He began to notice what we hadn’t, the first of which was to wonder why, when we’d searched the house and the garage and even the guard shack, no one had thought to search the Breakers.
“The Breakers is shut tight,” Dad told him. “The only time we open it is if we have guests. And we haven’t had any in months.”
“What if Grant wanted to play hide-and-seek there?” I suggested, mostly to myself, but agent Armstrong seized on the idea.
“Let’s open it up and take a look around,” he said.
“Okay,” Dad said. “But I don’t see why. Grant doesn’t hide unless one of the Grays is abetting him. Usually at their house.”
“That’s not true,” Meredith said. “He likes small places. He likes spots where he can be alone with his book of Russian fairy tales.”
I hadn’t even realized Meredith was with us at the time. We were standing on the patio, facing the bay, getting buffeted by the wind and rain.
I should’ve known things would change for Meredith with Lyudmila gone. They would be different for all of us, but for Mere especially.
Mine wasn’t the only family to have a boys’ team and a girls’ team. While Lyudmila was around, Meredith mostly spent time with her. Mere usually talked to Dad and me only at the dinner table to make sure we were all well versed on the issues of the day. Sometimes talking to Lyudmila and Mere was like talking to a foreign species. We didn’t understand why they needed to spend $98 on yoga pants in slightly different accent colors. Black with a purple waist. Black with a pink waist. Black with a red waist. Now that there was no Lyudmila, Meredith had two choices: spend time with us or spend time with her phone.
Even odds.
And it turned out that she was right about Grant and small spaces and the Breakers, because when agent Armstrong turned the knob on the door to the cottage, it was unlocked. There were many possible reasons for it, but I liked Mere’s the best. Private spaces. Some place to curl up alone and read Russian fairy tales.
“Stay back,” agent Armstrong said, and he took the safety off his gun as he went through the door, Sheriff Lundquist following closely behind.
Dad and Mere and I stood outside, anxious, getting drenched, wondering what they’d find.
The two of them were inside a long time. When agent Armstrong came out, he said to the other cops, “Can we get eyes in here?”