The Lies They Tell(51)
Pearl rested her elbows on the table, her gaze landing on another framed picture of Indigo sitting on a shelf. This one was a candid, Indigo wearing a lavender snowsuit and pom-pom hat, smiling beside a snowman with the trailer in the background. Pearl thought of what the boys had said about Indigo, how everybody knew her; did Marilyn know about that? “How did Cassidy act that last summer? Did she seem like she was scared at all? Or nervous?”
“She was nervous as a cat, but that wasn’t anything new. Just how she was wired. High-strung.”
“Did you ever see David hurt her?”
“No. Never saw him lay a hand on the other kids. Cassidy had the pressure on her because of her talent, but David seemed real soft on Joe. Maybe it was because Joe was the baby, but he was the only one allowed to be a regular kid. They’d let him bike all around town on his own, go swimming with his friends. I don’t think Sloane cared much either way, anyhow. That woman was concerned with dolling herself up, running up her credit card bill, and parading Cassidy around.” Marilyn took a small sip from her glass, pushed it away as if bitter. “Who knows what really goes on inside a family? All I know is the little I saw. But if you ask me, the real trouble was between David and Tristan, always had been. When the two of them were in a room together, they didn’t hardly speak, but it was like lightning coming, all the time. You didn’t want to be there.”
Pearl leaned on her elbows. “Did you know they were planning on coming back for Christmas break this year?”
“Nope. Not until two weeks before. Sloane called me, asked if I could get the place spruced up, have somebody deliver a Christmas tree to the parlor.”
“Do you have any idea why they decided to come back to Tenney’s Harbor?”
“They didn’t give me reasons, I didn’t ask. Except when I was cleaning the first Sunday they were there, I got the feeling it was the girl’s idea. David was going on about the fact they’d come all this way, so Cassidy better enjoy it while it lasted, something like that.”
Cassidy’s idea. Pearl turned this over in her mind, glancing up when Reese cleared his throat and said, “Do you think Tristan knows who killed them?”
“Couldn’t say. But what you asked earlier, if I was surprised when I heard?” Marilyn shook her head. “Something was going to happen. Sooner or later. I just never thought it’d be anything so awful as that.” She put her hand to her mouth for a moment, then dropped it. “I never thought anybody’d end up dead. Especially not them kids.”
She walked them out and stood on the front step as they crossed the yard. “Reese.” He looked back. “When you see that granddaughter of mine, tell her to get her butt out here more often. Probably been a month since I’ve seen her.”
“Will do.” He and Pearl sat together in the car when Reese said, “She raised her. Indigo.”
Pearl looked up, watching as Marilyn went back around the trailer to her laundry. “Where were her parents?”
“Her dad was never in the picture. Indy lived here with her mom for a few years, with Marilyn helping them out. I guess her mom decided she couldn’t take it anymore, the whole mothering thing. She split. Marilyn’s been it for Indy ever since.”
Pearl tried to think of something to say to play off her surprise, but nothing came, so she started the engine, gazing out the windshield at a single dandelion that had escaped the blades of the lawn mower. She knew what it was like when a family split apart. She had no idea how it felt when neither of your parents wanted you.
The miniature club was waiting inside the club when they arrived, sitting on a drop-leaf table in the lobby. It sat open on its hinges with the lights on, every tiny replica room flawless and still. The dining room was complete with tables and chairs, white linens, place settings, oil paintings, and potted plants. A miniature piano sat on the stage, the bench pulled out expectantly.
Reese stopped, leaning down to look in. “This is it, huh? Think anybody knows who made it yet?”
“Probably not.” Pearl shook her head. “What’s it still doing here? Somebody won it in the auction on Friday.”
“Maybe they figured out it’s haunted and gave it back. Could you sleep with that thing in your house?” Reese bumped her shoulder, his uniform stuffed under his arm as he walked toward the staff restrooms. “See you in there.”
“Yeah.” She lingered a moment, considering the dollhouse, all the places Cassidy’s and Joseph’s hands had touched. The tiny wall sconces flickered then, ever so slightly, and she stepped away as if touched by a spark.
Dinner shifts were highly coveted; higher prices on meals and more courses meant, in theory, bigger tips, and management tended to schedule the older servers for the dinner hours, giving the teens and college students breakfast and lunch. A few of those usual servers had requested some days off, so this was the first dinner shift Pearl had been given since May; she’d almost forgotten the more formal air, and how to make lugging a fifteen-pound serving tray look effortless.
It was a busy night, multiple families dining together, most everyone discussing the ball, who’d worn it best, who’d had too much champagne. Pearl told herself she wasn’t looking for him, but in her moments of downtime between delivering salmon Florentine or lemon sorbet, her thoughts were on Tristan. Tristan, an outcast among even his family. Being hit, being made to feel small. It was such a stark contrast to his role among the boys that she almost felt like she had to see him, try to imagine a mark on his face, for it to seem real.