The Watcher Girl(42)

“She was so young at the time. It didn’t seem right to involve her.”

“So you were just going to wait . . . as long as it took . . . hoping I’d figure out the truth one of these days?” I ask.

Her lips press flat and she nods, and I realize the only thing this woman has is time. Time and maybe a handful of items from the commissary.

The weight of this moment is overshadowed by thoughts of Campbell.

“Tell me, Grace,” Mom says, adjusting in her chair until her posture is straight and her shoulders are lifted. Leave it to Daphne McMullen to remain poised and proud in the most humbling of situations. “Tell me about the young woman you’ve become.”

I answer her with generic, summed-up responses.

I live in Portland.

I work for Watchers and Guardians.

And I tell her the kinds of things I think she’d want to hear.

I’m happy, healthy, and well.

I don’t have the energy to go deeper. The only thing I can think about is Campbell, attempting to wrap my head around the fact that she came back. Trying to surmise what Sutton will say when he comes home and finds her.

Will he reward her for returning?

Or will he punish her for leaving?

“Rose has been waiting . . . I should go grab her,” I say to change the subject, and then I leave to get my sister.

The instant she walks into the visiting room, she waves the sonogram like a tiny flag, and Mom begins to cry.

It feels invasive to watch this moment. It has nothing to do with me, and I’ve never understood the concept of happy tears.

“You’re going to be an aunt,” Mom says to me later. “How’s that feel?”

To be honest, I hadn’t thought of that. Not once. Not yet. Our parents were only children. Growing up, aunts, uncles, and cousins were a foreign concept. The kinds of people friends, teachers, and neighbors referred to in conversation and nothing more.

I don’t know the first thing about being an aunt.

“She’ll definitely be a cool aunt,” Rose says. The two of them impart identical smiles in my direction.

I roll my eyes, playful, and point a thumb at my sister. “I don’t know why this one thinks I’m so cool.”

Mom says something about big sisters being automatically cool. I don’t ask how she would know that, given the fact that she never had one, but Rose nods and shares a story about the time she came to Boca Raton for Christmas and I taught her how to kick the vending machine in Grandma’s laundry room at just the right moment to get two Snickers bars instead of one.

“So Gracie,” Rose says. Mom laughs, and I wonder if sharing these memories with her makes her happy or sad. Maybe a mix of both.

I keep an eye on the clock and the guard with the clipboard, and when she walks our way to tell us our visiting hour is over, Rose fights tears and Mom divides her attention equally between us as we say our goodbyes.

On our walk to the car, I’m numb. I liken this visit to meeting a familiar stranger for the first time. Someone from a past life or a lifetime ago.

“She looks good, doesn’t she?” Rose asks as we start the drive home.

Rose doesn’t remember twenty years ago when our mother was young and her beauty was fleeting but undeniable.

“She does,” I lie.

We merge onto the freeway, and Rose quiets the volume on the radio from the steering wheel. Her hands grip at a perfect ten-and-two.

“You doing okay?” She checks me from her periphery. “Awfully quiet over there.”

“Aren’t I always quiet?” I wink, but she can’t see me. She’s too focused on the beginnings of New Jersey rush-hour traffic.

“This is true,” she says. There’s a lightness in her voice that wasn’t there earlier. “Think you’ll visit Mom again sometime?”

“Sometime.”

“It meant the world to her today. I could tell.”

I don’t know how my sister could know that, given the fact that the two of them were never alone together. Maybe it’s an unspoken mother-daughter bond, something they’ve been cultivating over the past twenty years.

One of these days, maybe I’ll get in on that.

“You know, if you think about it, ever since you came back, it’s like everything has changed for the better.” Rose readjusts her grip and clears her throat. “You should know that.”

“I’m glad you feel that way.”

I think about Campbell. Her situation isn’t better. At least not yet.

Locating my phone in the bottom of my bag, I slide it out and shoot a text to “John,” asking if he can try to make one more drop next week. Now that I know she’s home, maybe he’ll have better luck getting her that burner phone.

Tuesday, he texts back almost immediately.

I darken my screen, shove the phone back, and sink back into the passenger seat of Rose’s car.

I can’t force Campbell to do the right thing, but I can throw her a lifeline.

If she chooses to drown after this, my hands—and my conscience—will be clean.





CHAPTER 24

It’s been forty-eight hours since John made the drop.

If I don’t hear from Campbell by tomorrow, I’m booking a flight home and leaving Monarch Falls this weekend. If Sutton wants his knock-off life, if Campbell wants to spend the rest of her life as an abused consolation prize, that’s on them.