What We'll Burn Last by Heather Chavez

Author:Heather Chavez [CHAVEZ, HEATHER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2024-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

MEREDITH

Saturday, 12:08 p.m.

Meredith took the cordless phone into Grace’s bedroom. It was where she liked to go when she was angry. She despised being threatened. The words from the man claiming to be Adam Duran came back to her.

I want to hang the painting over the mantel so everyone who comes into my home can see what she’s done.

Meredith opened the closet that once held Grace’s clothes. Not long after Grace went missing, Meredith had packed up her daughter’s clothing and put the boxes in the garage. Despite everything, she still expected Grace to show up at the house demanding her things.

In the years that followed, she’d turned the closet into a different kind of shrine. This was where she stored her daughter’s portraits.

Most of the time, all the portraits but that year’s were wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam and sealed in boxes, but for the month of Grace’s birthday, Meredith would pick a few to display in Grace’s room. She should’ve packed them away a week ago, but she hadn’t. It seemed wrong to put them back in storage when she hadn’t yet finished the one that would mark Grace’s thirty-third birthday.

Meredith sat on the edge of the bed facing the closet and the wall where three portraits had been hung. Grace at eighteen, twenty-five, and twenty-eight. She put her notepad and pen on the bed next to her and called the courier service first. As expected, they had nothing to tell her.

After she hung up, she checked her phone contacts for a number she’d called only twice before. While Meredith had threatened her art broker’s Braque, Brian would sell his father’s fake leg when it came to high-value commissions. His sweet assistant Katie, however, would be much easier to persuade.

Let’s see if fake Adam’s identity stands up to the same scrutiny my replicas get.

With three pairs of Grace’s icy-blue eyes watching her, Meredith punched the number into the handset and offered a breezy greeting.

“Hi, Katie.” As if they were old friends, the kind of friend you did favors for. She’d met Brian’s assistant only in passing, but Katie had made an impression in her sunflower-yellow blouse, garish green eye shadow, and bright orange braids. Meredith figured she used color to compensate for falling just short of five feet, even in heels. It worked. People noticed her. Unfortunately for Katie, her personality wasn’t nearly as bold. Meredith found herself comparing the assistant to Grace, as she always did with women of that age. The comparison wasn’t favorable to Katie.

“I need some information about a client who approached Brian about a commission. Girl in White in the Woods. I heard you spoke with him today.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Clarke. Truly. But I’m not allowed to give out that information.”

“Brian’s already talked to me about it. It’s my commission. I just need to confirm the identity, since I must’ve written the name down wrong.”

The assistant paused, then lowered her voice. “What’s the name you have?”

“Adam Duran.”

Katie sighed in apparent relief. She really was a nervous young woman.

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