Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Maren, Colin, and Gina—along with Fleur—went straight to the safehouse while Mac went to pick up Juni.
“Okay, where’s the book?” Gina asked her.
“Hang on, I’ll get it.” Maren went into Juni’s room.
The book was sitting on the bedside table.
Her fingers trembled as she picked it up.
She held it in her hands and studied the worn cover for a moment, remembering all the time she and Mira had spent together in the hammock— reading the book, talking, gossiping, trusting each other with secrets—before returning to the front room.
“Here you go.” She handed the book to Gina.
Gina sat down at the kitchen table with the Blue Fairy book, Fleur settled at her feet.
Colin and Maren sat at the table with her.
Colin held her hand in support. Maren watched Gina handle it the way she handled everything—methodically, without hurry, her golden eyes moving over everything before her hands followed.
She started with the cover. Gina ran her thumb along the spine, pressing gently at intervals. She checked the inside front board, then the back, the hinges where the cover met the pages. She ran her hands over the endpapers carefully, checking for anything beneath them.
“Pages,” Gina said, mostly to herself. She began going through them methodically, holding each one up briefly toward the window light.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for impressions, invisible ink, anything pressed into the paper that wouldn’t be visible straight on.” Gina went through every page. It took a while. The book was old and thick and had been read half to pieces by two generations of Walsh girls.
“Anything?”
“Nothing.”
But when she’d reached the second page to the back, she stopped.
“Tell me about this.” She turned the book so Maren could see the sketch she knew by heart on the endpaper of the hammock, lilac bushes, and the two small figures.
“Mira drew it when we were kids. She was always drawing.” She paused, remembering. “We used to lie in that hammock for hours and read to each other. It was our place whenever we needed privacy. Our own little world.”
Gina studied the sketch. “Your own little world,” she repeated.
“When we were little, if one of us had a secret or needed to talk privately, we’d say ‘hammock’ and meet there. Even after we moved to San Diego and the actual hammock was gone, it just meant ‘I need to tell you something, just us.’” Maren smiled at the sketch. “Stupid kid stuff.”
“Not stupid,” Gina said. She studied the sketch a moment longer, then closed the book carefully and set it on the table.
Maren looked at her. “You don’t want to take it?”
“I want it where you can look at it. If anything else occurs to you—anything at all that Mira left you, gave you, mentioned in passing—I want to know about it immediately.” She tapped the book. “Maybe handling the book will help jog your memory.”
“That’ll be easy. I read it to Juni every night. You think there’s something I’m missing?”
Gina didn’t confirm or deny. “I think your sister was very careful and very smart.” Her voice softened. “I know you’re angry at her, Maren, but I think she loved you very much. Her secrecy kept you safe all these years. It wasn’t she who set Voss on you.”
“It wasn’t Ray, either,” Maren was quick to say.
Gina nodded slowly as she seemed to gaze far away for a moment, thinking. She stood, and Fleur was immediately on her feet beside her. “I also think whoever broke in was looking for data. A drive, a device, a document. Whoever broke in was thorough. They weren’t just looking for obvious things.”
Maren looked down at the book in her hands. “Juni’s stuffed bear that she’s had since she was born. They tore it apart.”
“They knew it was old enough that Mira would have been in contact with it, and could have hidden something inside.”
“But she didn’t. I grabbed all the stuffing I could find and then sewed him back together. There was nothing inside and nothing on the floor that they missed. They also cut open the couch cushions, everything.”
“In case you were hiding anything. Your house in San Diego,” Gina continued, walking toward the front door, “if there’s anything there that Mira left you, a sentimental object, something with no obvious value…
” She paused. “Make a list. We’ll send people.
Not you, obviously; way too dangerous. Our people who know what they’re looking for and how to look.
” She held Maren’s gaze. “You don’t have to go back there. ”
The relief that moved through Maren was embarrassingly strong. “Thank you.” She and Colin had stood up when Gina did and walked with her to the front door.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Gina almost smiled—not quite, but the lines around her eyes shifted. “We haven’t found anything.” She reached out and gripped Maren’s hand. “But we will, I promise you. This isn’t over.” She squeezed, then let her hand go.
Gina opened the door and stepped outside. Fleur padded beside her, glanced back once at Maren with those gold eyes—unhurried, assessing—and then walked with her person to the car.
Maren closed the door. Colin took her into his arms and kissed her softly. Then he looked down at her.
“Gina’s the best in the business. She’s former CIA. She’ll find what Mira left behind.”
“If they need me to go back—”
“No. You’re not going back there. You heard her, she has people who can do this for you. Just make that list.”
Maren nodded. Holding hands, they made their way back to the kitchen table and sat down.
Maren grabbed a legal pad and pen Colin had left there earlier.
She opened the book and stared at the sketch on the endpaper.
She thought about every last thing she owned that had once belonged to Mira.
It wasn’t much. The list wouldn’t be long. She closed the book.
Colin put his hand over hers on the cover of the book.
She turned her hand over and held on.