Page 58 of Dead Man's Hollow
“Would you mind looking now?”
Without waiting for an answer, Maisy pulls up the website on her laptop and turns the device around for the Tremblays to see the photo gallery. Rich is muttering under his breath and thumbing out a text like he’s angry at his phone. Maisy pettily hopes he has to pay international messaging rates. The atmosphere shifts and the Tremblays look startled. No, frightened.
“What is it?” Maisy asks.
Chloe speaks slowly. “I don’t understand. Why do you have photographs of our Emilie?”
Maisy blinks at them. “Who’s Emilie?”
“Our daughter.” Bastian tells her. “She’s fourteen. This is her.” He points with a trembling finger to the photos of Heather that Diana had given Jordana to scan.
“No, this is Heather Ryan,” Maisy says gently.
Bastian is shaking his head. He pulls up his photo gallery on his phone and hands the device across the table to Maisy. Her breath catches in her throat. The girl in the photographs could be Heather Ryan. The hair and the clothes aren’t dated like the ones on the website, but otherwise, she’s the spitting image of the missing Ryan girl.
“This is your daughter?” Maisy asks, seeking clarification as her heart pounds in her chest.
“Yes.” Chloe says, “I don’t understand.”
Maisy’s eyes flick across the table and meet Bastian’s. He does.
Beside her, Rich finally rouses himself to glance up from his phone when he sees the pictures of the girl on Bastian Tremblay’s cell phone. His face goes white.
Maisy hands the device back to Bastian and focuses her attention on Chloe.
“Chloe, I think youareHeather Ryan.”
ChapterThirty-One
Amy’sonly a third of the way through the shed when Jordana calls. She turns off her music, wipes the sweat from her brow, and picks up the call on speaker.
“Hi, Jordana.”
“Hi. I just saw your text. I was at the pool, swimming laps. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner.”
“No worries. I wanted to let you know Michelle and Lynn were waiting for me at my house this morning when I got back from dropping Rich off at the airport.”
“They came to you? Nice.”
“Yeah.”
Jordana must notice the shift in Amy’s tone. “What did they say?” she asks somberly.
“They said Rich was sleeping with Heather.” There’s no reason to sugarcoat it.
The younger woman is at a loss for words. Amy knows the feeling.
She goes on, “According to them, he was cheating on his then-girlfriend, Julia, with my sister, and had been for a while. I didn’t know, obviously. But their boyfriends did, and so did they, apparently.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” She needs to get this out before she starts to cry. “Michelle and Lynn said the reason Rich was adamant that everyone keep quiet about the kids from Allderdice was that he ran into Andre while he was looking for Heather.”
“Were they together?”
“Rich said Heather wasn’t with him. But he asked Andre if he’d seen her and Andre’s answer pissed him off. I guess he said something crude. And Rich went after him. That’s what started the fight.”
“Did Lynn and Michelle know any details?”
