imagined the nice meal Daisy would have. Granny Edith’s delicious cooking. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw. Then I would bring Daisy home. That was as far as I got.
Vanessa spoiled all that.
Recalibrate. Reconsider. I need a new plan.
Maybe Granny Edith and Grandpa Frank are still watching out for me, wherever they are. Because there, in the hall, not far from Vanessa’s head, is a little table—exactly where the table was when my grandparents lived here. And on the table are car keys and the garage keys, just like they always were back then.
It’s a message from my grandparents. They’re taking care of me, still.
Thank you, Grandpa Frank!
I know where the garage is. I take the keys, grab Daisy’s hand, and go around back of the house.
One key unlocks the garage door. I almost expect to see Grandpa’s Caddy. But these new people have gotten rid of that along with the evidence of their crime.
They have a fancy but sensible family car, a Volvo SUV. A Volvo is way safer for Daisy than a vintage Caddy. I have their keys.
“Get in,” I tell Daisy. “Road trip.”
“Are we going home?” Her voice is shaky again. I wish she weren’t frightened, but given what she’s seen, I can’t really blame her.
“The long way home,” I tell her. “You’ll be home before bedtime. I promise.”
29
Rocco
Rocco’s head aches. Pain knuckles between his forehead and at the back of his neck, like two fists so strong they can hold him suspended in their grip.
He’s woken from a long dream to find himself in a room he knows and doesn’t know, as familiar and strange as a place in a dream. Ruth’s apartment looks different. Everything that used to seem charming or cool now seems sinister and mocking, like a nasty joke she’s playing on him even when she isn’t there. Especially when she isn’t there.
His niece is missing. Ruth took Daisy.
His sister’s eyes are scarlet and raw. And it’s all his fault.
What did he see in Ruth? Who would believe him, who would care, if he told them about the nights when he woke from troubling dreams—and Ruth, always a light sleeper, woke the same moment he did? Her dreams were just like his. He dreamed of a house; she dreamed of a house. He dreamed of a plane; so did she. Did she ever tell him her dreams first? How easy it must have been to lie about her dreams if she lied about everything else. He’d thought they were so connected that they communicated even in their sleep.
They shared the same dreams, had the same thoughts. Finished each other’s sentences. But he didn’t even know her name.
Naomi? Who is that? And who is Ruth? That person—Ruth—never existed.
He should have left her in Mexico. Maybe she wouldn’t have gotten back to New York in time to kidnap Daisy. But probably she’d be back by now, like the evil dead in zombie films.
There were so many signs. Not just whispers but shouts. The nonexistent start-up. The beggar children in Oaxaca. The missing passport. The pastry from downstairs! The job with the baroness! If someone told him about a guy who stayed with a woman after all that, he would think the guy was insane or very, very stupid. Of course Rocco always really knew the truth. And by the time they got back from Mexico, he most certainly knew.
Ruth assaulted Reyna. And now she has taken his niece.
When he realized that the pastry she’d brought Charlotte was from downstairs and not baked by her granny, that’s when he should have bailed. He was so embarrassed about that, he’d lied to Charlotte. Worse, he’d lied to himself. Is anyone not lying? Probably Daisy. Where is she? Now his niece is missing, because he is lazy and passive, and because he likes getting laid on a regular basis.
The first time he’d seen the pastry in the bakery window, he and Ruth were passing it together. Ruth gave his arm a squeeze. It was their fun little secret, their joke on Charlotte, whom Ruth had convinced that her granny baked it. In that conspiratorial moment, Rocco-and-Ruth-against-the-world went upstairs to Ruth’s bed and had amazing sex.
Granny Edith didn’t bake those sticky buns. Now it turns out that Ruth’s grandparents are dead. The truth is that they have been dead for years.
Where was she getting her money? Maybe he’ll never know, no more than he’ll know what happened to her passport.
Her stories were always so detailed. Who could invent lies like