Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(69)

“Bodie . . . a killer.” She laughed, then stopped. She stepped back from her work and thought about what Bodie had told her about his persistent psychiatrist. Why was she so invested in her brother? What had she seen in him? What had he said?

The basement flashed in her mind with its stench of death. She remembered how otherworldly the silence had been. After their gruesome discovery, she never saw her father go down to the basement again, but she knew he did. She could feel it, sense it, though not a single sound had ever breached the padlocked door.

She would lie in bed at night and imagine what might be happening floors below her and who might be on the table. The abnormal had a way of becoming normal. All it took was the will to let it. Amelia knew at twelve that it was her father this way or no way, and so she adapted, accepted, and ignored. She’d made a choice that Bodie hadn’t been equipped to make. No, Bodie had no stomach for killing. He had no stomach for life either. Bodie was a broken train, a damaged birdhouse, a casualty of blackhearted blood. Now Amelia needed a plan.

She let out a long exhale, then picked up another brush, a smaller one, and dipped it in white, then approached the canvas again. Art. Her art. Art from her mind, her soul, her essence. Her life. Her blood and sweat, her gift. Smiling, contented, she expertly painted a tiny rose. She thought of secrets and how they took on a life of their own after a time. Everyone had secrets.

She stepped back to admire the rose with a critical eye. “Dr. Mariana Silva.”

Amelia stepped forward again, grabbing another brush, looking for a good spot on the canvas. “Ah. There.”

She painted a door, a padlock, a tree, and the still face of a woman with the bluest eyes.





CHAPTER 47


Foster had requested a couple of hours of personal time. There were things she needed to do, things she’d neglected, things she had to be there for. She slid her car to the curb in front of Glynnis’s house and sat for a while watching kids play on the front lawn, birthday streamers festooned along the front door of the neat Georgian home. Balloons. It was Glynnis’s son’s birthday. Todd was ten today.

She didn’t see him roughhousing on the lawn with the other boys but didn’t have to wonder why. Glynnis’s death had hit them hard. She doubted Todd would be in much of a party mood. Leaning over to the back seat, she grabbed the brightly wrapped gift from the seat and got out. She’d bought him a model airplane, hopefully one he didn’t already have. She would have promised Glynnis that she would stay close to her family, be there for them, if she’d had the chance.

After weaving through the kids, she rang the doorbell and waited, the box in her hands, feeling a little self-conscious about being here, feeling like an outsider in a place that, until two months ago, had felt like a second home. There’d been backyard barbecues and dinners, cocktail hours where she’d find that Glynnis had invited an unattached man she thought Foster would hit it off with. Glynnis’s husband, Mike, had been a pallbearer at Reg’s funeral. He’d helped keep her upright at the grave site, she remembered, as the world had spun around and all she could see through tear-filled eyes was a silver casket with a Superman decal plastered on it, the casket holding all that she was or ever would be.

Mike smiled, happy to see her. “Hey there, stranger.” He opened the door to let her in, then gave her a hug that threatened to crush the box. “Glad you could make it.”

“Like I’d miss Toddie’s birthday.”

“Thanks. Here. Let me take that.” He reached over and took the box, setting it on a side table of gifts piled high. “He’s in the back, I think. They’re tossing the football around. C’mon.”

She followed him back, past a few adults—parents of the kids outside, she figured—offering nods and smiles as she passed through the front room and the hall, past Glynnis’s perfect sunny kitchen, to the open back door. Through the screen she could see Todd sitting on a swing, languidly moving back and forth, watching three boys about his age scramble over a dusty football on the patchy grass, their party clothes in disarray, grass stains at the knees. He looked so small and so much like Glynnis—a mess of brown curly hair, thin, eyes the color of a cherished teddy bear.

“Oh crap,” Mike said, taking in the scene. “He was playing with them a second ago. One minute it looks like he’s okay, the next . . .”

“He and Jamie aren’t doing well?”

Mike turned to her, true heartbreak on his face. “They’re not doing great. It’s just . . . how do you get past it? I have no idea what to say to help them process what happened.”

“Having your mom here’s got to help.”

“I couldn’t do this without her, that’s for sure. But it doesn’t take the place of their mother, does it? I’ve put us all in therapy. I need my boys to come out of this whole. I want that for myself too.”

She gave his arm a comforting squeeze but said nothing. He was right. Nothing could ever take the place of their mother, and therapy was good. Glynnis would approve. She stepped out onto the patio. “Let me wish him a happy birthday. I can’t stay long. I’ve got to get back. I’ll come find you on my way out. Say goodbye.”

“Wait, you haven’t said how you’re doing. You two were besties. Hell, I think she liked you more than she liked me half the time. Now you’ve got this monster case. Three women? How’re you holding up?”