by Sophie Moss
As soon as she was within earshot, Grace called out, “Good evening, ladies.”
They turned, looked her up and down, then pushed off the wall and sauntered toward her.
The woman in the boots smiled. “Good evening to you, sugar.”
Grace breathed in the scent of cheap perfume, cigarette smoke, and sex as the woman in the mini-skirt lifted a lock of her hair and twirled it around her finger. “You looking for a little fun?”
Grace smiled. “Not tonight.”
A black Mercedes with tinted windows turned onto the street. The woman in the boots headed toward it, putting a little extra sway in her hips until it slowed. The window rolled down and she leaned into the car to flirt with the man behind the wheel.
The woman in the mini-skirt turned her attention back to Grace. She looked her up and down again, slower this time, still playing with her hair. “You looking for a different kind of fun?” she asked, lowering her voice. “Cause we can get it for you, whatever you want.”
Grace didn’t doubt it. She knew most prostitutes were hooked into drug dealers, whether they were buying it for themselves or passing it along to a client. “I’m looking for information.”
“What kind of information?”
Grace pulled out a picture of Izzy, showed it to her. “Do you recognize this woman?”
The woman studied the picture, frowning. “Ain’t that the girl who shot Tyree?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “Her name’s Isabella Rivera. I’m trying to fill in a few blanks from that night.”
The woman stepped back. “You a cop, or something?”
“No,” Grace said, catching the eye of the man behind the wheel. He stared at her, hard.
“’Cause I ain’t talking to no cop,” the woman said.
“I’m not a cop,” Grace said, still holding the man’s gaze. When he rolled his window up, cranked the volume on the stereo, and sped away, she looked back at the woman in the mini-skirt. “I’m a reporter.”
“A reporter?” she said doubtfully.
“That’s right,” Grace said.
“Violet,” the woman in the mini-skirt called over to her friend, “this girl says she’s a reporter.”
Violet lifted a brow, sashaying over to them with a new gleam in her eye. “You writing a story about us?”
Grace smiled. “No.”
“I bet we could give you something to write about,” Violet purred as she rubbed up against Grace. “Couldn’t we Lana?”
Taking the cue from her friend, Lana walked over and threaded her arm through Grace’s. “I bet we could give you all kinds of things to write about.”
Grace rolled her eyes, pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, and offered them each one. “How long have you been working this corner?”
“A while,” Lana answered, eventually dropping the act.
Violet followed suit, lighting up and blowing out a stream of smoke. “At least a year, maybe more.”
“So you see who comes and goes in this neighborhood?” Grace asked.
They both nodded.
Grace showed the picture to Violet. “This is Isabella Rivera, the woman who shot Tyree Robinson. Do you know what she was doing in this neighborhood that night?”
“No,” they both said immediately, exchanging a look.
Violet took a pull off her cigarette. “We ain’t gonna talk about that night.”
“Fair enough,” Grace said, backing down. Keith had warned her that most people would refuse to talk about that night, for fear of retaliation from the gang who ruled these streets. Before he’d snitched, Tyree had been one of them. “Forget about the night of the shooting. What about before that?”
Lana was quiet for a long time, studying the picture over Grace’s shoulder. When she glanced up, she looked at her friend. Violet gave her a small nod. “Mmm-hmm,” Lana finally admitted. “I seen her around before.”
“You have?”
“I think she’s got a friend who lives around here.”
“A friend?” Grace asked. This was news to her.
“Yeah.” Lana nodded. “Another Mexican girl, like her.” She took another drag, blew the smoke in the other direction. “Your girl used to drive over here and pick her up, give her rides back and forth to work. Sometimes she’d come with bags of groceries and clothes and stuff.”
Interesting, Grace thought. “Did you tell this to the cops?”
Lana and Violet both laughed.
She’d take that as a no, Grace thought as a gust of cooler air blew down the street, causing an empty paper cup to skitter across the pavement. She looked up at the sky, at the storm clouds brewing in the distance, and heard the first low roll of thunder. “Do you have a name?”
“Nah,” Lana said.
“Any idea what street she lives on?” Grace asked.
Lana angled her head. “You got another one of those cigarettes?”
Grace handed her the whole pack.
Lana smiled. “Calhoun, I think. On the east side, toward Fremont.”
* * *
Alone in her room, Izzy sat at the desk under the window, watching the clouds gather along the horizon. She could feel the pressure in the air, hear the rumble of thunder in the distance. After three weeks of mind-numbing heat, they were finally going to get a reprieve, but it would take a storm to tip the balance back into their favor.
Was that what it was going to take with her—some kind of seismic reckoning to make her face the trauma she’d experienced? The last thing she wanted was to dredge the memories up, to relive the horror of the rape all over again, but what if that was the only way to release the pain?
The screen of her laptop blinked, going into sleep mode, and she nudged the track pad to wake it up. Staring blankly down at the spreadsheet of women who’d served under Bradley Welker, she tried to focus on her research, but her thoughts kept straying back to Annie and Taylor.
And the fact that she’d essentially kicked them out of their home.
She was the one who should have been kicked out. She was the one who didn’t deserve to be here.
Why had Will let her stay if Annie was against it? Shouldn’t they have made that decision together, as husband and wife?
Was she creating a wedge between them now, too?
Another rumble of thunder rolled over the water as she typed the next name into the search bar and hit ‘enter’. She clicked on the link to Alicia Booker’s Facebook page, expecting the typical stream of family photos, cat memes, and news articles. After five months of tracking these women, she still hadn’t found anything that would raise a red flag. She was starting to wonder if she was wasting her time.
Resting her fingers on the track pad, she was about to scroll down when she noticed that Alicia’s most recent photo had been posted over three weeks ago.
Three weeks ago?
She frowned, reminding herself that not everyone posted every day, or even every week. Some people only posted sporadically. Alicia could be one of those people who used social media more as a way to keep in touch with old friends than share information about herself.
She moved on to the next photo, a picture of Alicia’s son, and saw that it had been posted only a few hours before the first one. The next one had been posted less than twenty-four hours before that. She felt a tightening, deep in her chest, as she continued to scroll down the page, through several months’ worth of photos. Up until her most recent post, Alicia had been active on Facebook almost every day, sometimes two and three times a day.
Trying not to panic, Izzy pulled up the rest of Alicia’s social media pages, just to be sure, and found the same thing on all of them. Three weeks ago, Alicia Booker had gone off the grid. And she was currently stationed at the same base in North Carolina where Izzy’s career had ended, serving under the command of Bradley Welker.
Izzy’s hands shook as she toggled back to Alicia’s Facebook page, as she clicked on the button to send a private message. A small box popped up in the
corner, and a blinking cursor stared back at her. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to start a conversation like this?
Her fingers curled back from the keyboard, squeezing into fists. There were a dozen alternative explanations for why Alicia could have gone dark. Someone in her family could have fallen ill. Someone could have passed away. There was no reason to jump to conclusions. Not yet. Not until she heard back from her.
“Alicia,” Izzy typed out quickly. “Hi. You don’t know me, but we served on the same base last year. I need to speak with you about something. It’s urgent. Please call me as soon as possible.” She added her cell phone number and hit send before she could overthink it.
Please let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong.
She reached for her phone to make sure the ringer was on, then jumped when someone knocked on the door. “Yes?”
The door opened and Erin poked her head in. “Did you forget about me?”
Shit. Izzy checked the time on her phone, realized that she was ten minutes late for her therapy appointment. “Sorry,” she said, knocking her knees on the underside of the desk when she tried to stand. “I lost track of time.”
Erin studied her from across the room. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” Izzy said quickly. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
A gust of cold air blew into the room and Izzy turned to close the window. She saw the birds flying away from the darkening sky, the boats heading for shore, the tops of the trees beginning to bend under the force of the wind.
She remembered the storm that had ushered her onto this island three weeks ago—the pounding rain, the flooding roads, the suffocating darkness. She glanced over her shoulder at Erin. “Are you sure you still want to meet? The roads can flood out here when it storms.”
Erin held her gaze, continuing to study her. “Yes. I still want to meet.”
Izzy closed the window and snagged a sweatshirt from the closet, trying to act like it didn’t matter one way or another.
But it did matter. It mattered a lot. Because, at any moment, she could get a call from Alicia.
She pocketed her phone, increased the volume on the ringer as high as it would go, then turned to face Erin. “Ready when you are.”
Erin led her downstairs, grabbed two umbrellas from the stand by the door, and handed one to Izzy. “We might need these for the walk back.”
Izzy nodded, took the umbrella, and followed Erin across the yard to the cottage where she held her counseling sessions. It was still her least favorite part of the program, but she’d managed to make it through her last three sessions without having a full-blown panic attack. Part of that probably had to do with the fact that Erin hadn’t brought up Bradley again. The social worker had avoided the subject entirely, letting Izzy talk, instead, about her work at the farm, her ideas for how to help Ryan grow his business, and what kind of jobs she might be interested in applying for at the end of the summer.
She hoped Erin would stick to the surface-level questions tonight.
She wasn’t sure what would happen if she tried to get her to open up about her past. She might just start talking, and not know how to stop.
“I made some chamomile tea,” Erin said. “Would you like a cup?”
Izzy nodded, her hand still firmly wrapped around the phone in her pocket. There was a eucalyptus candle burning on the coffee table in the sunroom. The pillows on the sofa looked like they’d recently been fluffed. And a crocheted blanket was draped loosely over one side, the same milky green as the sea glass mobiles that spun softly overhead.
She took a seat in her usual spot, perched on the edge of the middle cushion, not wanting to get too comfortable.
“I love watching a storm roll in over the water,” Erin said from the kitchen. “Don’t you?”
Izzy looked out at the water, at the white caps knifing over the surface. The clouds had swallowed up what was left of the sunset and the air felt like it was charged with electricity…or maybe that was just her nerves.
She couldn’t tell anymore.
“Sure,” she said, slipping the phone out of her pocket and setting it on the cushion beside her. Face up. On any other night, she might have enjoyed watching the storm. But she wished this particular storm could have held off for another hour or two. It was only making her more anxious.
“Are you expecting a call from someone?” Erin asked, noticing the way Izzy was still clutching the device when she walked into the room a few moments later.
“Yes. I’m expecting a call from…a friend. If it rings, I might have to answer it.”
“All right.” Erin placed both mugs on the coffee table and then settled into the chair across from her. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“No,” Izzy said quickly. “It’s nothing. I just…have to answer it if it rings.”
Erin opened her notebook, made a few notes, then looked up again. “How’s everything been going since the last time I saw you?”
“Good.”
“Good?” Erin asked, surprised.
Izzy nodded, seizing on the first positive thing she could think of. “Work’s been really good.”
Erin made another note in her book. “How so?”
“Ryan agreed to let me plan an event for him—a fundraiser for the environmental center.” Izzy let go of the phone and folded her hands in her lap. “It’s our first event at the farm, so it’s kind of a big deal.”
Erin smiled, obviously pleased. “That’s wonderful. When’s the event?”
“Next week,” Izzy said, and ate up at least ten minutes of the clock by explaining how she’d enlisted Della’s help, and some of the other veterans, too. She’d already spoken to Zach at dinner tonight, and he’d agreed to ask his boss about supplying the rockfish. Kade had volunteered to donate some flowers, with Gladys’ permission. And Megan had offered to help spread the word about the event to the islanders.
“Do you have any experience planning events?” Erin asked once Izzy had finished.
“I do,” Izzy said, nodding. “I helped plan tons of events when I worked for General Walters and his wife. It’s probably my next favorite thing after…”
Erin glanced up. “After what?”
After cooking.
The candle between them flickered, releasing a curl of smoke, the same color as the charcoal gray sky bearing down on them. Erin reached up to switch on the floor lamp, filling another small corner of the room with light, but not before Izzy caught sight of the wall of rain offshore.
Any minute now, they were going to get slammed.
A streak of lightning snaked down, electrifying the sky, and the clap of thunder that followed it, only a few seconds later, was loud enough to make her flinch. Izzy glanced down at her phone, checking to make sure she still had a signal. The connection was faint, but it was still there. Relieved, she looked back up.
Erin continued to watch her for several moments in silence. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about that call you’re expecting?”
Izzy nodded. “I’m sure.”
“You seem awfully distracted by it.”
“It’s nothing,” Izzy said as the first slap of rain smacked against the windows of the sunroom.
Leaning back in her chair, Erin set her mug on the table beside her. “Izzy?”
“Yes?”
“This is our fourth session together. We only have eight sessions left. And while I’d be happy to continue meeting with you after this program ends, I have a feeling I’m not going to be high on your list of people to call when you return to Baltimore.”
“That’s probably true,” Izzy said slowly.
“Then, given that, I think it’s time to stop dancing around the elephant in the room.”
Another streak of lightning. A crack of thunder.
Izzy looked away. No. She couldn’t do this. Not now. Not tonight. Not until she heard from Alicia.
“Izzy.” Erin’s voice was softer, now, gentler. “
I need to tell you something.”
No. Izzy shook her head. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it.
More rain slammed into the cottage, streaking down the glass. Somewhere, in the yard, a branch fell.
Erin waited until Izzy’s gaze lifted again, met hers. “I never spoke to Bradley Welker.”
Izzy blinked. “What?”
“I never spoke to him,” Erin repeated. “That would have been a huge breach of client confidentiality. The only reason I brought him up was to see if he was a trigger for you.”
A trigger? Izzy’s heart began to pound. “I don’t understand.”
Erin slowly closed her notebook and set it aside. “I looked you up before I came here. I looked all of you up. I wanted to find out as much as I could about each of your backgrounds, so we didn’t have to waste too much time getting to know each other. I knew that, with some of you, I’d only get three months to make a difference.”
She’d looked them up?
“You’re not the first female veteran I’ve worked with, Izzy. I’ve seen plenty of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, and only a small percentage of them are related to combat. When I heard that you’d left the Army less than a year ago, and found out that you hadn’t been deployed to a war-zone since 2009, it didn’t take me long to put two and two together.”
Izzy’s heart beat faster. What was she saying? That she knew? That she’d known all along?
“I understand why you don’t want to talk about it. I don’t blame you,” Erin said. “But you didn’t do anything wrong. You have nothing to be ashamed of. And the only one you’re hurting, now, by not speaking up, is you.”
The blood rushed in Izzy’s ears, drowning out the sound of the rain. Speak up? She wanted her to speak up?
As if saying the words out loud would make any difference.
She’d already tried that once, and it had been a mistake. Besides, what was the point in speaking up when she had no proof? No one would believe her anyway. Hadn’t Bradley said as much?