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I turn to my final target, hands shaking. Nightstand. Simple wooden unit. I already know both drawers are empty, but now I want to examine the pieces themselves. I pull the top one all the way out, which involves a bit of jiggling given the furniture is swollen with the humidity. I turn it around in my hands, inspecting every side. No taped notes or scrawled messages. I set it on the bed, grab the lower module, and repeat the process. Still nothing.
I allow the second drawer to rest on the twin bed next to its mate, feeling deflated. Was I being too paranoid, seeing riddles and danger where none existed? Maybe Lea really was perfectly happy living a life of luxury as MacManus’s ward. Maybe she sent a note to her sister because her serial killer sibling was about to be executed, so, you know, some kind of final communication seemed like a good idea. Is there proper etiquette for handling a homicidal family member being put to death? Does Hallmark make a card for such a thing?
I sigh heavily, realizing I’ve stressed myself out and destroyed the room for nothing. But now is not the time for regrets; now is the time to quickly reassemble and get the hell out of here.
I grab the lower drawer and get down on my knees, preparing for the arduous task of shimmying it back in. And there it is. In my haste, I’d forgotten one of the more basic hiding spots—taped to the back wall of the unit. Sure enough, a ripped scrap of paper gleams white against the dark interior. I reach a hand in and carefully work the corners till I release it.
I draw it out, holding my breath. It looks similar to the note Twanow had shared with me: handwritten in a childish scrawl, simple in tone.
My sister is Kaylee Pierson of Texas. Please tell her I’m sorry and I love her. Leilani Pierson
That’s it.
I sit back on my heels, churning the words through my mind. Not a message begging for help. Nothing that obvious. But a statement haunting in its fatalism. Tell her I’m sorry and I love her.
I’d assumed Lea had written to Keahi because of her sister’s looming execution date. But maybe I had that wrong. Tell her I’m sorry and I love her is the kind of message one delivers when they fear the worst. It’s their own time that’s up.
Lea, who is growing older and older. Who, in a matter of months, will be considered of legal age.
A terrible kind of aging out in an even more terrible system.
I’m just folding up the note as my mind races through various possibilities, each worse than the last, when all of a sudden…
There’s a noise behind me. A sudden exhale of breath.
I don’t have to turn around to know I’ve been caught.
A male voice booms out: “Crikey, what the hell are you doing?”
I KNOW IT’S Charlie before I turn around, given the Aussie accent. My heart is pounding, my palms sweating. I can’t figure out how to slip Lea’s message in my pocket without drawing attention to it, so I tuck it under my hip, then cover the motion by picking up the drawer and slowly twisting around.
No point in denying I’ve dismantled the nightstand, so how to excuse my behavior? Charlie is an engineer. What might grab his attention?
It comes to me immediately. “I think I broke it.”
“What?” He strides into the room, movements impatient. He’s shed the blue raincoat he’d been wearing earlier as well as his shoes. But his shaggy salt-and-pepper hair is still wet, and his worn white T-shirt and ripped cargo shorts are soaked through in blotches. There’s no way to stay dry in this kind of weather.
“The nightstand.” I hold up the empty drawer awkwardly. “I noticed the drawers had crumbs inside. I removed them so I could dump them out. But now… I can’t get the drawers back in.”
Charlie squats down beside me, taking the lower drawer from my hands and turning it around in his. He smells of wind and rain, with a top note of WD-40. He’s clearly been busy with a million projects before coming to fetch me, his fingernails grease stained and bits of grass stuck to his hairy legs.
He scowls while studying the drawer. Then, his face just inches from my own, he turns and scowls harder at me.
“There’s feathers in your hair, Frankie girl.”
“There’s sand in your beard, Charlie dude.”
That distracts him long enough to run one hand through the scraggly gray strands. Sure enough, fine particles rain down.
“Hey, I just cleaned this room! Including under the bed. Do you know all the dust and cobwebs and, and, feathers that had accumulated under there? I don’t know who’s been cleaning this place, but it wasn’t Mary Poppins.”
Charlie’s gray eyes widen; he’s taken aback by my tirade. I send up a silent prayer that it wasn’t Trudy or Ann I just threw under the bus. That’s the problem with lying—you don’t have time to think it through.
“Just saying, you’re molting around the edges. No need to have a whinge.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He shakes his head, more sand and water scattering. I bare my teeth at him, ready to go on the offensive on behalf of the room I hardly cleaned but am now fully committed to protecting.
