I shake my head.
“Put the code in, honey.” He steps aside, clearing space for me at the door. I punch in the numbers, my fingers clumsy from the cold. Beep-beep-beep, and then a long trill, the keypad glowing red.
“Mom changed the code,” Olivia says, shifting around me to press the numbers, and the door unlocks. I watch her hand, watch her thumb depress the lever on the oil-rubbed bronze handle, and push the door open.
There is a sound, like a billiard ball rolling across a pool table. I see one of the artificial green apples from Cat’s dining room centerpiece, which was nudged by the opening door. It trails slowly down the entryway, getting caught in the groove between two stones. Across the floor, more apples are scattered. Discordant in their chaos, out of order and unsettling against the backdrop of this magazine spread of a home.
Outside, ice pelts the windows like pebbles. The eaves groan from the force of the wind, a low moan that sounds almost human.
I shoot out an arm to stop Olivia, like when I brake hard at a red light and one of the kids is in the front seat. I push past her so I can be the first in the house.
As I make my way slowly through the entryway, Dad calls out from behind, “Catherine?” his voice a blend of frustration and worry, but it’s met with an eerie silence, broken only by the whistling of the wind. I glance back to see one of his hands on his radio, the other hovering above the holster at his belt.
Aside from the apples, the house is staged for a showing. A lamp and a potted plant arranged just so on the console table. A plush blanket folded neatly over the back of the sofa. My throat tightens as I force myself forward.
And then—Cat’s feet, one bare, the sole facing me, and on the other, twisted at an odd angle, a house slipper.
When Cat was drinking, she’d pass out. She always drank until she couldn’t feel anything, until she’d drowned her guilt, until her body shut itself down. I was always worried about her. Always. Every second of every day. What she would do when she drank. What she would say.
Once, the Austin cops arrested her because they’d found her passed out in Zilker Park. I’d had to travel back and forth to the Travis County Jail, bringing her socks and shampoo, getting together money we didn’t have to post bail, to hire a lawyer. The truth was, I was impossibly tethered to her addiction, having to ride the turbulent waves of her ups and downs, always working to get her back to solid ground. To start again.
I want to stop, to turn back, but my body drags me on. One step. Another. Until I see the rest of her.
Cat lies face down. The heavy marble bowl that used to hold the apples sits beside her, broken into two large pieces. Blood pools around her head, matted in her blond curls, staining them red. The blood is clotted around the wound, which is a canyon, deep andlong. The back of her skull is cracked open, so deep I can see past the bone, so deep I can see her brain. I turn away, sickness bubbling up inside me quickly and violently.
I turn and watch Emily, already with her arms around Olivia, pulling up the large hoodie that she threw over her shoulders to shield her. “Mama,” Olivia says with such desperation that I break inside, that I have to steady myself on the counter.
Cat is dead, and a piece of me is dead with her.
Dad steps forward, his hand brushing the grip of his gun before lifting his radio. “This is Sheriff Ryan at the Sherman Ranch model home. I need units and the medical examiner on scene. Possible homicide.”
The words hang in the air, and I feel them settle in my chest, heavier than the storm outside.
This wasn’t an accident. Cat was murdered.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWOOLIVIA BLAKE
2015
Olivia Blake is only seven years old, but she’s been going to Encore Dance Studio for four years. She’s the only girl in her grade chosen for a solo at the annual recital, held in the auditorium of Preston High. The high school feels as big as a theme park. She peeks around the curtain to see the audience packing in—moms and dads, aunts and uncles—and all their chatter feels like the hum of bees that gather at the mountain laurel her dad planted at the end of the driveway, the one that always smells like grape candy when it blooms.
The older girls stretch backstage, their limbs long, their smiles pretty, like princesses in movies. They coo over Olivia, clap at her pliés and sautés. They smooth gel into her slicked-up hair until it shines. They paint up her face like theirs, overly garish, so it shows under the harsh stage lights. Red-red lips, thick layers of mascara, round stamps of blush like you would draw onto a doll’s face.
In her platter tutu, Olivia poses in the mirror, fifth position, arms arched above her head. She is excited, excited about everything, most of all excited because her mother will be here today. Her mother will see her dance.
The thought of it fills her up with warm sunshine. She can feel it shooting like beams of light from the tips of her fingers, fromthe points of her toes, as she takes the stage, as the crowd cheers, awestruck at her grand fouetté into arabesque, balanced, spinning on one foot and then sweeping her straight back leg forward into quick, sharp leaps. The move takes both strength and grace, impressive for a girl so young, and when she is done, she knows she has done it well.
She is proud. Her heart hammers. Her breath is quick.
She searches the audience, searches with applause in her ears, searches as that sunbeam in her heart dims, searches for a mother who isn’t there.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREEMELANIE
Dad sweeps his flashlight along the threshold of the back door, shoulders taut, checking the lock, inspecting the slushy ground outside.
Emily led Olivia back toward the Amenity Center on Dad’s orders. She didn’t need to be in this house one minute longer than necessary.Don’t say anything yet. Not until we know more, Dad had told her, and Emily only nodded, face ashen and expression numb with shock.
On the coffee table, a plastic camo-painted trail cam sits. The side panel is unlatched, hanging half open. I work my jacket over my finger and open it fully.