An Honest Lie(57)

By the time Rainy was finished with her food, the breakfast bar had filled with a variety of singles and one family of four. Sara’s son. She could see Sara in the way he slouched his shoulders. He darted around the dining room, a coffeepot forever in his hand. Around eight, another server came in and Derek came over with her check, looking almost embarrassed to hand it to her. She handed him cash and he started digging around in his apron to make change, but Rainy said, “Keep it.”

“Really?” he said. Rainy had left him an eighty-dollar tip.

“Yeah,” she said, standing up. “I wanted to leave my town, too.” She bent down to grab her phone from the table and saw that she had texts from Grant in addition to the Tiger Mountain group.

Instead of looking surprised, he looked relieved she’d said it. “Did you leave it?” His liquid brown eyes reminded her so much of Sara’s, the way they dipped down at their outer corners. His skin was pale like hers, too, and he had three dark moles on his cheek. Sara hated her moles, said she was going to get them burned off when she was an adult.

“Hell, yes,” Rainy said, and he smiled. His teeth were crooked, but clean and white. The kid seemed more upbeat as he stuffed the money into his apron and nodded at the floor. She watched him in amusement, remembering her first restaurant job in New York as a hostess and then, later, a server. He could leave here and work at any restaurant; it was good money if you found the right place and got decent shifts. He could make it. When she’d first seen him, knowing he was Taured’s kid, she’d wanted him to leave, get the hell out of Dodge, and now that she saw Sara’s face when she looked at the boy, her heart ached.

“Your mom,” Rainy said, staring into his eyes and thinking of her own. “Always let her know you’re okay.” She supposed it wasn’t such a strange thing for a woman to say to a kid; she could have been a mom herself for all he knew, making sure some other mom’s kid didn’t run off without her knowing.

Derek seemed frozen in place. He blinked at her and then finally said, “My mom’s dead.”

Rainy hadn’t bitten her nails since she was nineteen and her college psych professor called her out for it in front of the class. It had been a humbling experience in not showing her tells. But as her Uber sped through the desert, she bit them till they bled. In her lap: the rescued Ziploc bag she’d dug up after burying it twenty years prior. She was purposefully not looking at it, afraid of what it might make her feel. Her jeans were brown with the dirt they were carrying; she imagined her face didn’t look any better. How had it stayed undisturbed for so long? But Rainy knew how; she’d chosen the spot for that very purpose. The locals called it Charlie Cactus: a thirty-foot saguaro cactus that Rainy agreed was impressive. She’d come here with Sara on their few trips into town for nonperishable food. It grew behind Red’s, away from the freeway and a five-minute walk up a hill. None of the adults had cared enough that they’d wanted to go see it each time they were in town, but it became a thing for the girls to walk over to visit Charlie.

She’d buried her baggie deep beneath Charlie Cactus on one of those trips, double-wrapped in plastic bags from Red’s. Sara had kept lookout. Sara hadn’t asked what was in the bag; she’d just helped Rainy get rid of it. That meant that after she left the compound for good, Sara could have gone back for it and dug it up.

She’d been so lost in thought thinking about Sara and her son that she’d forgotten about the texts on her phone. She read through the updates Grant had sent first. He didn’t mention anything about her staying in Vegas, which meant that the husbands were still out of the loop. She looked at the time, calculating the difference between her and Grant. It was three o’clock in the morning for him, so she’d text him when she got settled in the hotel and he had a chance to wake up for the day. There were four texts from Viola, asking what time she was getting back, detailing the snowfall the night before, and then another, sent an hour later, saying, Never mind, they told me you’re staying an extra day, party animal. In the group chat, Ursa had taken to updating their status through the check-in process like Rainy might change her mind at any minute and come after them. Braithe and Tara were strangely quiet. She decided to ask Viola if she knew anything more about Braithe staying behind. Viola sent a voice text.

“I texted her whatsup this morning and she told me she’d stayed. She seemed to be fine. She sounded elated actually. She mentioned getting a flight early tomorrow, said she’d be back before you all had time to unpack. That was before she knew about you staying, too, and—”

Viola’s voice cut off abruptly and Rainy frowned while she waited. When the text never came, she sent a question mark.

A few seconds later, a shorter voice text appeared. “Sorry... I totally forgot we’re late for a doctor’s appointment. Tata is pulling the car around, talk soon.”

Rainy sent a quick message wishing them good luck and leaned her head back against the seat.



19


Then


They weren’t allowed watches, so she had no way of knowing what time it was. Dawn and Frank came to get her, and just like Sara said, they took her to Ama and Tom’s room.

“Why do I have to stay here?”

Dawn pretended not to hear. Sara had told her she’d have to wait at least an hour before Sara could come and free her, but the wait already felt agonizing. She pounded the door with both fists in frustration. Sara would come. She had to. It was Summer’s only chance.