Page 42 of Blade
She takes my coat and hangs it on a hook while I stomp the snow from my boots. I follow her down a narrow hallway into a kitchen that faces the back of the property. Through the window I can see vast, open space all the way to the base of the mountain.
She’s made a pot of coffee, and she pours cups for both of us.
“When Jo called to tell me you were coming, andwhyyou were coming, I couldn’t believe it—any of it,” she says. “I heard things on the news, but I had no idea they even had a suspect, let alone Grace Montgomery. Did you know Jo had sent her daughter there? To The Palace?”
“No,” I tell her. “I had no idea.”
There’s a small rectangular table against the far wall, and I sit in one of the chairs across from my old friend. I try to be here in this room and in this moment, but my mind has traveled back in time. Stunned by the power of the past.
When Kayla left, I was certain she would be destroyed. I realize that, just now, as I look at the grown woman before me. That’s what’s thrown me. This expectation I’ve formed.
But here she is, Kayla—not destroyed, but with kindness in her eyes and a home she’s created. An entire life she’s built after leaving Echo.
She lifts her coffee cup to her mouth. Her hands are delicate. Her movements, gentle. Her eyes stay glued to mine.
“So you came here to help her daughter?” she asks, hanging her head and giving it a slight shake. A mannerism I don’t remember, another piece out of place.
“Yes,” I answer. “This is what I do now.” I explain that I’m a lawyer who specializes in juvenile criminal defense. And how Grace’s lawyer, Artis Frauhn, was in my eighth-grade science class and found me on Facebook years ago when we both went to law school. Now he helps skaters get out of scrapes with the law, among other things.
“I don’t remember you ever speaking of him,” Kayla says. “But there’s a lot about that time that I’ve wanted to forget.”
She looks at me with round brown eyes that are so different without the makeup she once used to hide them.
“I know,” I tell her. “It was the same for me. I left two years after you did, and I never looked back.”
“Well,” she says with a shrug. “In some ways, it saved me. The family who took me in became my parents.” Kayla inhales deeply and straightens her back. “They still live in town—the family they cobbled together—me, two of their own children, another foster kid. My mother is a therapist, and she knew what kind of help I needed. It saved my life—I’m a counselor now. At the high school.”
“I’m so happy you found your way out of there.”
“Yeah,” she whispers. Then I see her thoughts shift. “I heard about what happened with Indy. Were you still there at the time?”
“I was,” I say. “And for another year after that.”
“Oh.” I’ve surprised her. “I had no idea. You had so much promise. So did Indy. The two of you.” Now she smiles, remembering something. “IndyAna.”
My hands reach down and grip my thighs, digging in until it hurts.
“I’ve felt so much guilt over that night in the field—bringing you with us. You had no business being there.”
“None of us should have been there,” I tell her. “But you couldn’t have kept me away. You and Jolene and Indy—you were all I had.”
Kayla nods sadly. “You also had Dawn, though, didn’t you?”
I feel a jolt inside me. What does she mean by this? I wonder if she knows about the dinners, how Dawn would meet with me at her house to go over the programs. Maybe it wasn’t such a secret after all.
“That’s part of the reason I came to see you,” I say. “In the middle of this crazy storm and with not much time before they have to decide whether to charge Grace with Emile’s murder. Did Jolene tell you about the evidence they have?”
“Yes,” she says. “It’s so strange. She said Grace would have had to kill Emile in the field, then clean her skates, put them back in her locker, and get home to Avery as if nothing happened.”
“Right,” I agree. “Not many girls could do something like that.”
“And motive?” she asks. “Why would this girl want to kill him?”
I tell her about Shannon, and what she revealed about Emile’s plan to leave Dawn, pulling out some of her best skaters.
“Grace wasn’t one of them, apparently.”
Kayla echoes the same doubts I have about this as a motive. So then I tell her about the video and pull it up on my phone. As it plays, I watch her expression change as she sees the transformation on Grace’s face.