Page 12 of To the Grave

Piers had been true to his word, allowing me to sit in on meetings with Davis Weiss, the firm Cantwell had hired to design the interior of the resort and the private villas surrounding it, but in some ways, that just made working at Cantwell more of a mindfuck.

Gray had tried to rape me during the after-work night out, but Piers — along with Diana, the office and hiring manager — had done all the right things, offering me an opportunity to file a formal complaint and even have Gray reassigned.

I’d declined (stupid) only to be faced with the reality of working with a bitter and still-dangerous Gray.

I liked working at Cantwell — sitting in on design team meetings had been the one bright spot during my long depression — and the money came in handy, but it was weird having to work with your would-be rapist.

As I rushed down the hall for the lobby, it felt like it had all been worth it. So far, I’d only seen the proposed designs in the digital renderings Olivia Davis unveiled at our meetings. I was excited to be on-site with the team now that construction was mostly done and Cantwell was moving fully into design implementation.

Gray was standing in the lobby with Olivia and two of the junior designers. I joined them and listened while they talked about a custom wallpaper that had been delayed in transit. It was supposed to be for the lobby of the main resort, and now they were weighing the merits of hoping it would arrive on time for the planned installation versus switching to something they could get right away.

It sounded small but that was something I’d learned from both the Cantwell project and the house my mom had left me in her will: one delay set off a chain of other delays. And delays meant money for Cantwell, because until the resort was up and running, the money was only flowing one way, and that was out.

Piers appeared in the lobby and started for the elevator without missing a beat. “Let’s take a drive.”

We followed him like the underlings we were — design team included — because that was another thing I’d learned at Cantwell: the person paying the bills was the ultimate authority.

And Piers was paying some monster bills.

Fifteen minutes later, we were winding our way up the mountain road to the site of Cantwell Ridge Resort and Spa, Piers in the front next to some guy who must have been his driver, Gray and I in the back.

The design team was in another car — a black Mercedes — following us up the mountain. I’d wanted to ride with them instead of sitting in the back seat with Gray, but they’d gone to the Mercedes as if by unspoken agreement, and it had seemed obvious I was meant to drive with Piers and Gray.

I wondered what Olivia and the junior designers were talking about during the drive. Did they like Piers? Did they think Gray was an eligible bachelor? Or did they think father and son were just another batch of rich assholes?

I positioned myself as far from Gray as possible in the back seat, my body pressed against the door. He was busy texting, and I relaxed and tried to enjoy the drive, tried not to let my mind wander to Jace.

Wolf and Otis were going to Aloha’s to pick up Blake’s phone, and I was eager to have it back in my hands. I didn’t know if I’d find out anything about who was behind the kidnapping of the girls, but it was worth a shot.

And there was something else I wanted to do, something that would be harder in more ways than one: I wanted to look through some of my mom’s old things.

After she’d died, my dad had allowed Blake, Ruth, and I to take anything we’d wanted. Blake hadn’t wanted anything, but I’d taken my mom’s favorite sweater and the gold necklaces she’d worn almost every day. Ruth had been little, so she’d chosen our mom’s favorite bracelet and an out-of-focus photograph that had been taken by Ruth.

My mom was laughing in the photograph, her face a little blurry. She’d had it framed after Ruth took it, had put it up in the bedroom she shared with my dad. Back then I’d thought it was strange, both the fact that my mom had framed an out-of-focus photograph and the fact that Ruth wanted it after she died, but over the years it had become one of my favorite pictures of my mom. I could look at it for hours and see something else every time: the tiny chip in one of her teeth, the way she seemed to be looking at something other than the camera, the flowers in the background.

Violets?

Maybe I liked the picture because it was like her, mysterious and hard to define.

Was that why she’d liked it too? Had it spoken to the way she’d felt about herself and her life at the time? To her secrets? Or had framing the picture been a motherly gesture, a way to show Ruth she loved the picture Ruth had taken?

I wished I could lay next to her grave and ask while looking up at the old trees in the family cemetery behind the house. Somehow I didn’t feel like my mom would talk to me at the pristine Blackwell Cemetery where she was buried. I never felt her there the way I felt Jace in the old graveyard at the house. The Blackwell Cemetery was just a place, like a mall for dead people, which was probably why I hardly visited her there.

I’d been a kid when she’d died, shell-shocked and traumatized by her sudden absence. Once I’d chosen my mom’s sweater and her necklaces, I hadn’t paid attention to what my dad did with the rest of her things. I’d assumed he’d donated the rest or thrown them out, but now I wondered if he’d chosen to keep some things too.

I’d ask Joan. Maybe she would know. It was probably a long shot, but ever since Wolf and Otis had told me about the pictures of my mom with Mac, I’d had a feeling their relationship was tied into the missing girls.

It was totally crazy, I know, which was why I’d never said anything about it to Wolf or Otis. But even if my mom and Mac’s relationship didn’t have anything to do with the girls, there were things I didn’t know about it, things I wanted to know.

I could ask Mac — and I might if it came to it — but I wanted to get a handle on my mom at the time they’d been together. Who she’d been, why she’d chosen to run to Mac and the Blades when she was unhappy with my dad.

I had a weird feeling, like my mom’s relationship with Mac was a loose thread on an old sweater.

Now I wanted to see what happened if I pulled.

Chapter 12

Wolf

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