Page 16 of Where Daisies Breathe (Star Meadows #2)
AVA
E llis and I stare out at the house in the distance. At first, he doesn’t say anything. And I wonder what he’s thinking. But then he finally breaks the silence.
“Do you know who owns it?” he asks as he shields his eyes with his hand.
My thoughts wander back to that moment when I was up here with my parents, as well as my aunt and uncle.
They were talking about the house, but did they own it? It kind of sounded like it, but I’m not sure.
“Maybe my family, but I don’t know for sure.” I brush strands of my hair out of my face.
As vertigo sets in again, I inch away from the cliff’s ledge.
“We can look it up online,” Ellis tells me as he starts to scope out the area, inspecting the ground as if the answers are hidden in the grass with his fingers wrapped around the handle of his backpack.
“I don’t want to push you, so you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but why do you think something awful happened at that house? ”
“It’s a gut feeling.” I turn away from the ledge. “But honestly, most of my gut feelings stem from suppressed memories, so…”
“It’s okay that you don’t have all the answers, Aves,” Ellis reassures me as he faces me. “We’ll figure this out. We can finish looking around here and then go back and look up the records of the deed owner online. That’s not a complicated task.”
Nodding, I lift my gaze to him. “What about that person who wants to meet me tomorrow at the bar? What is the plan for that?”
A hesitant look crosses his face. “We need to be careful if you decide to go. I want to be there with you, but I’ll need to be discreet about it. But, you don’t have to go either. I need you to know that. If you’re hesitant at all, you shouldn’t.”
“I want to.” Well, want is a stretch. It’s more like I feel like I have to.
“What’re we looking for exactly?” I ask as Ellis circles the flat spot of grass in front of us.
The forest line is a ways behind it, and I fully plan on keeping my distance from it.
Tree branches scratch my flesh…
Clawing at me…
Trying to peel me away until nothing is left…
“I’m not even sure.” He walks toward the ledge, the grass crunching underneath his boots. He suddenly pauses, then crouches down, staring at something in the dirt.
I make my way over to him, noting a metallic object on the ground. “Is that a bullet shell?”
He nods, then swings his bag around in front of him. He unzips it, takes out some gloves, and slips them on before plucking out what looks like a large pair of tweezers. He uses the device to pluck the bullet shell off the ground.
“This is an odd place for a bullet shell to be,” he mumbles as he inspects it. “And I can tell it hasn’t been here long.”
“Yeah, but… My father wasn’t shot, so why are you interested in it?”
“Because I don’t believe the autopsy report.”
“You think my father’s report was altered like Clover’s?”
“It’s possible.” He examines the bullet shell. “I think this is worth looking into.” He glances at me. “There’s a plastic bag in my backpack. Would you mind getting it out?”
I hurry over, dig out the bag, and hold it open for him. He carefully puts the bullet shell in it, then slips off the gloves, takes the bag from me, and seals it shut. Once he’s done, he stands up and glances at the darkening sky.
“We should get back before it gets dark,” he mumbles while slipping his bag back on.
“Yes, please.” I don’t even care how frightened I sound.
The last thing I want is to be out in the woods when nothing exists but the shadows and everything hiding behind them creeps out to dance in the night.
But right as we’re about to begin the journey back, I spot something in the dirt.
A corner of a piece of paper. Maybe it’s just trash, but I carefully drag the tip of my shoe across it to kick the dirt out of the way and check.
Good thing I did because it’s not trash, but a photo.
When I crouch down to look at it, I’m so perplexed that for a moment I wonder if I’m hallucinating.
But when I blink, the photo remains the same.
It's of my aunt, uncle, and their children when they were much younger. But there’s an extra child in the photo.
It’s a girl who has the same eyes as my aunt.
She’s way older than Trystan, maybe sixteen to seventeen, give or take a year.
I don’t know who she is, although there is a vague familiarity to her.
She looks sad, a frown on her face as she stands tensely.
Who is she? And why is the photo up here?
It doesn’t look like it’s been here long, since the image is bright and has been warped from the sun.
For a faltering moment, I hesitate, unsure if I should tell Ellis I found this. It’s an old, horrible habit of mine to say nothing if it might make my family look bad. But I want to snap that habit into pieces and blow it away with the wind.
“Ellis?” I call out.
He turns to me. “Yeah?”
I point at the ground. “There’s a photo in the dirt, and I’m pretty sure it belongs to someone in my family.”
With his forehead creased, he hurries over to me. When he spots the photo, he gets out his tweezers again and picks it up. He lifts it to what little sunlight is left, and the frown on his face becomes more prominent.
“This is your aunt and uncle, right?” he asks, glancing at me.
I nod. “And their kids, except for that older girl. I’m not certain who she is.”
He examines the photo. “I’m wondering why it’s up here. It doesn’t look like it’s been here for very long.”
“Yeah, I thought that too.”
He mulls this over. “I need to find out who this girl in the photo is and see what her connection to your family is. She does look like your aunt.”
“I know,” I agree, wondering if perhaps I have met her and just don’t remember it.
“Does your aunt have a younger sister?” he asks.
“I have no idea,” I tell him. “I could ask my mom.”
“Let’s wait on that. I want to try to find an alternative approach first. That can be our last resort,” he tells me. “Can you get me another plastic bag for this?”
I nod, do as he instructs, and watch as he puts the photo in the bag.
The first real piece of evidence.
But what the hell does it mean?
Who is that girl in the photo?
And why was the photo up here right next to where my father died?