Quiet in Her Bones by Singh, Nalini (mobi reader .txt) 📕

hand, while Beau was turned toward me, his mouth caught open midspeech. Another chatty kid who’d turned into a secretive teen.

My face looked thinner than usual, but bore no bruises or scrapes. Neither did my hands. But a month was a lot of time when it came to healing superficial injuries.

I needed more photos.

In my determination to unearth the truth, I scrolled back too ­far … and there she was: my mother, resplendent in a dress of vivid aquamarine, sunglasses on top of her head and champagne flute lifted in a toast to the photographer. It had been taken in the sunshine, at a table set with gleaming cutlery and dressed with a single orchid bloom.

The caption said: Birthday brunch with my glamourpuss of a friend, Nina. DD we missed you!

DD? A touch more scrolling and I found a photo of Alice, Diana, and my mother. The caption read: Shopping with Nina and DD.

I’d never heard Alice call Diana by that nickname, but their friendship hadn’t really survived my mother’s disappearance. My mother had been the glue.

I kept on scrolling down, rubbing salt into the wound. Another solo image of my mother in a sparkling black dress, her head thrown back in laughter: Nina at my first cocktail party.

Later on was a shot of my mother seated beside a laughing Calvin, playing cards in hand, while Diana looked on with an amused smile. Alice had captioned it: Extreme Go Fish!

Cora’s hand appeared normal in an image from the same night. Also in one of the shots was Lily, caught in motion in the background in the black uniform of the serving staff. Another party at which she’d been the hired help. How many homes in the Cul-­de-­Sac had she entered, how many trays had she carried, how many spills had she cleaned up?

There was Diana, in a little black dress that didn’t show too much cleavage and was accented with discreet jewelry. She was beaming up at Calvin as he talked to another man, whose face wasn’t visible. Next to them stood Paul and Margaret, the rockers chatting with my father. For once, my mother was beside him, her hand tucked into his elbow.

Both of them playing their expected roles.

I couldn’t stop looking at the images. Maybe there was a clue in the past, if I could only find it. It was too bad that Diana didn’t have a personal online profile as she’d no doubt have lots more interesting photos. But she just had a little business page on which she posted beautiful shots of her sweets, or reposted images sent in by her devoted customer base.

Maybe I should snap a shot of her fudge with my books, I thought with a grin, give her a boost. But my smile faded as I carried on through Alice’s feed, my mother aging backward with each scroll. Then the images of her came to a halt without warning and I couldn’t understand ­it … until I realized that Alice had moved into the Cul-­de-­Sac when I was thirteen. She hadn’t known Nina Rai before that date.

My head was stuffy, my eyes gritty from staring at the screen, and I had nothing except confirmation of a broken leg.

Getting up, I saw that darkness was falling. A pile of fudge wrappers sat beside my computer. Once again, I’d lost hours of time, but at least this loss was explicable. I’d become lost in the life of the boy I’d once been and the beautiful, broken woman who’d been my mother.

Hemi pulled into his drive, his headlights cutting through the falling gloom.

I couldn’t stop thinking of the rage that had twisted up his face when he spoke of my mother. Hemi Henare, model citizen and devoted husband, was fully capable of murder. And if my mother had been intoxicated and ­injured—­because I wasn’t sure I believed my father when he said it had been a flesh ­wound—­then she’d have been an easy target.

Just nudge her into the passenger seat, get in the driver’s seat, and go.

Another movement. Adrian, coming out of the Dixons’ home with a container of something in hand. He was grinning as he spoke to Paul, who stood in the doorway. The ex-­rocker loved baking and had probably given Adrian cookies. I wondered if the fitness fanatic would eat them, or if he’d pawn them off. With everything else, I’d almost forgotten about him.

I still didn’t know how he’d afforded his gym.

I could’ve asked my father to use his contacts to find out, but I had no desire to be indebted to Ishaan Rai in any way, shape, or form.

Adrian moved with the fluid athleticism of a man who’d always been fit. He’d have had no trouble running back to retrieve his vehicle if he was the one who’d murdered my ­mother—­and even had the gates been shut, I was guessing Adrian had a remote; the man had too many connections in the Cul-­de-­Sac not to have managed to finagle that. Today, his sporty SUV passed Isaac’s car on the way out.

My brain skittered again, reminding me that I still hadn’t seen Phil.

Where was Isaac’s father? Had he seen something that night? Was that why Isaac was keeping him prisoner?

A knock on the open door of my room. “Aarav? You’ll come down for dinner?”

I went to say yes to Shanti when I felt a throb at the back of my head, along with the sudden taste of metal in my mouth. “I might lie down for a while. Headache.”

Teeth sinking into her lower lip, she rubbed her hands together. “Should I call the doctor?”

“No. I’ll be fine after a nap.”

The pain pressed down on the back of my head as the world shimmered. I barely heard Shanti say something in her gentle voice before she pulled the door shut. Stumbling to my bed, I lay ­down … and the lights went out.

55

I woke to an aching shoulder and the awareness of discomfort.

Groaning, I opened my eyes. My mouth felt fuzzy