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Besides, did she really want to put her father in prison? What was her plan?
Rina returned home to pick up Steve, who’d showered and changed into jeans and a V-neck T-shirt. He was already tanned from his two days in California and spoke at length about a podcast he’d listened to while doing sit-ups—something about modernized auto shops. Rina half listened, her mind still on her mother.
The brunch place in Venice was packed to the gills. Rina and Steve waited outside for fifteen minutes, studying the menu and watching Venice locals along the boardwalk.
“It looks like everyone is here to show off,” Steve said under his breath.
Rina knew what he meant. Roller skaters breezed past in sparkly outfits, showing too much skin, dancers performed together in troupes, and men walked shirtless with surfboards, their washboard abs glistening.
“It’s a different world,” Steve finished. “None of these people have even seen the East Coast before.”
“I imagine you’re right.”
The server showed them to an outdoor table, where Steve ordered eggs Benedict and coffee, and Rina ordered a stack of pancakes with berries and a cappuccino. She was famished.
“How did it go today?” Steve asked, sounding nervous.
Rina raised her shoulders. “Mom’s healing okay. Her memory seems to be slowly coming back. And she’s fixated on a soap opera, which is keeping her brain active, at least.”
“It’s terrible to see a parent in the hospital like that,” Steve said.
“Right,” Rina remembered. “Your father had that horrible accident a few years back.”
“It was awful. Then again, I’ll always remember that it brought my little brother, Andy, back to the island.”
“After so many years away,” Rina said. She felt as though she could write a biography of Steve’s life.
Yet he’d hardly scratched the surface of hers.
“How did your mom fall?” Steve asked.
Rina’s shoulders fell forward. “That’s a complicated question.”
“What do you mean?”
Rina explained what she’d learned about the accident. That her mother’s bruises and broken bones didn’t align with her father’s story. That her father carried her as far as he could before the ambulance came.
“But my father, for all his faults, was never abusive,” Rina went on. “Avoidant? Yes. Hardly home? Yes. But I’ve never seen him raise a hand to anyone.”
“I’m so sorry you’re going through this.” Steve shook his head. “Is there anything I can do?”
Rina wanted to laugh. “Can you build a time machine and take me back?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Rina’s face fell with shame. She knew that mentioning the past was a difficult thing with Steve. He would have taken himself back to when Laura was alive, and Rina and Steve didn’t even know one another’s names.
Rina’s phone dinged with a message from her contact, one of the guys she’d put on the case to dig through Gail’s messages. He’d sent her the files of messages from social media accounts and her phone number.
“Hey, Rina! Here are the files you asked for. At first glance, Ms. Gail seems like a typical teenager—gossiping with friends, sending memes, and flirting with boys. The whole gamut. You’ll see numerous text messages between her and a guy named Nathan Rodgers, who seems to have been a love interest since October. As we both know, nine times out of ten, these missing young folks run away with a romantic partner. I would start there.”
Rina turned the phone so Steve could read. Light returned to his eyes.
“Nathan Rodgers,” he read aloud. “He already sounds slimy!”
“We can’t assume anything right now,” Rina said. She’d followed too many leads that had gone nowhere to allow herself even a slice of hope.
Rina downloaded the enormous file and hurried to read the most recent messages from Gail, hoping there were a few from after her January 6 disappearance. Maybe she’d assumed nobody would be able to access her files. Maybe she’d given herself away.
