Page 80 of Bad Blood
Sterling and Judd took seats of their own. Agent Starmans joined them several minutes later. It occurred to me, on some level, to wonder where Celine had gone, but when Ree saw me standing in front of the counter, I did what I could to keep myself in the moment.
To feel for her what I couldn’t feel for myself.
After filling cups with coffee for both Sterling and Judd, Ree turned to me. She wiped her hands on her apron and gave me an assessing once-over. “What can I do for you, Cassie?”
“I have something to tell you,” I said, my voice surprisingly solid, surprisingly even. “It’s about your daughter.”
“Sarah?” Ree arched her brows, her chin thrusting slightly outward. “What about her?”
“Can we sit down?” I asked Ree.
Once we were ensconced in a booth, I laid a folder on the table between us and removed the picture that Celine had drawn. “Is this Sarah?”
“Sure is,” Ree replied steadily. “She looks a bit like Melody there.”
I nodded. My mouth wasn’t dry. My eyes weren’t wet. But I felt those words, all the way to my core.
“Sarah didn’t leave Gaither,” I told Ree, taking her hand. “She didn’t leave her kids. She didn’t leave you.”
“Yes,” Ree replied tersely, “she did.”
I amended my previous statement. “She never left Serenity Ranch.” Knowing in my gut that Ree wouldn’t believe me without proof, I withdrew a photograph from the file—Sarah’s body.
Ree was smart. She connected the dots—and abruptly rejected the conclusion. “That could be anyone.”
“Facial reconstruction says it’s Sarah. We’ll do a DNA test as well, but a witness has verified that Sarah was killed ten years ago by a man named Darren Darby.”
“Darby.” That was all Ree said.
You never looked for her. You never knew.
“Melody is home now.” Ree stood abruptly. “I suppose I have you to thank for that.” She said nothing, not a single word, about her daughter. “I’ll get you some coffee.”
Watching as Ree busied herself with the task, I pulled a picture up on my phone, one I’d taken months before of a locket that Laurel had worn around her neck—and the photo inside. In it, my half sister sat on my mother’s lap.
How many times had I looked at this picture?
How many times had I wondered who—and what—my mother was now?
“Mind if I join you?” Celine slid into the booth across from me.
“Where have you been?” I asked, my gaze still on my mother’s picture.
“Here and there,” Celine replied. “Bodies don’t creep me out. Murders do. I decided pretty quickly that Creepy Serial Killer House probably fell closer to your expertise than mine.”
Ree returned with two cups of coffee, one for me and one for Celine. “Here you go.”
Ree didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want this—any of it—to be real. I could relate.
“Who’s that?” Celine asked, craning her head to get a better look at the photo on my phone.
“My mother,” I replied, feeling like that answer was only half true. “And my half sister.”
“I see the resemblance,” Celine replied. Then she paused. “Mind if I take a closer look?”
She took the phone without waiting for a reply. I closed my eyes and took a long drink of my coffee. Instead of thinking about my mother, about Kate, strung up like a scarecrow and burned alive, about Nonna and what this would do to her, I fell back on an old game, profiling everyone around me.
Behavior. Personality. Environment. Without looking, I knew that Dean was facing away from me.You want to come to me, but you won’t—not until you know that I want you to.