She was about to remake the bed when she saw the corner of a sheet of paper sticking out from beneath the mattress. Carefully, she eased the paper out and saw that it was a sheet of the drawing paper the girls used. One side was blank. Odd. She turned the paper onto the opposite side and saw that something had been drawn on it.
She dropped down onto the bed to look at the picture more carefully. It was Poppy’s.
There were four sketches of people. After a closer look, Tessa saw that it was their family, but this particular drawing was in charcoal. She remembered when they’d learned to use charcoal in their weekly art classes. Poppy had been quite the artist. Tessa examined the drawing and was able to make out the faces.
One was clearly a picture of Tessa, and the resemblance was impressive. Poppy had drawn herself and Piper, depicting their long hair, which she knew was strawberry blond, and their bright blue eyes. They were identical, yet each had her own unique features. Poppy’s nose was slightly more upturned, Piper was over an inch taller. The drawing reflected these slight differences.
At first glance, the man’s features were hard to bring into focus as an X had been slashed across his face. She took the picture over to the window to get a clearer look since the sun’s rays were lighting up that half of the room.
She scrunched her eyes, as her farsightedness had gotten worse with age. The details were indisputable. The face in the picture definitely belonged to her husband, Joel.
She felt light-headed, and, fearing she might faint, she had to sit on the bed.
Dear God, what does this mean?
Chapter 13
Tessa tried to calm herself. She inhaled, then exhaled. Her hands shook like windblown palm fronds during a hurricane.
She stared at the drawing again, thinking that surely she was mistaken. Poppy would never do something like this. Joel was her father. She had loved him. She had looked up to him, as had Piper. While they weren’t Daddy’s girls, they’d always shared a good father-daughter relationship.
With shaking hands, she took the paper back over to the window, where the sunlight gave her a clearer view. The eyes were Joel’s, their unique almond shape apparent. The hair was different, slightly shorter than his. He’d always let it grow a bit longer, mostly because he was just too busy to schedule the time for a haircut. The nose and mouth could have belonged to any man. She used her fingernail to try and scrape the red away, thinking that perhaps it was a crayon, but when she scraped her nail across the page, the red remained solid. Most likely it was made by a Sharpie.
This could mean anything. Poppy liked to do what she had always called “shock drawing,” a concept she had made up about a year before.... It was still difficult to use the words, and even more so now that she was in her daughters’ rooms.
She would have to show this to Jill. It might mean nothing, but it was worth having it checked. Also, it was odd. Why would this be here so many years after the fact? Yes, the rooms were intact, mostly, but hadn’t the police searched their rooms? Were they not considered a part of the crime scene? She had been in such a state of shock afterward, she had never had an opportunity to revisit their rooms. She could ask Sam, or Lee, but she needed Jill to see this first.
Careful not to fold the drawing but at the same time not wanting Sam to see her find, she rolled it into a tube shape and tucked it beneath the gray sweatshirt she was wearing.
Downstairs, there was still no sign of Sam. Good. She did not want to see him now. He had an uncanny way of seeing right through her. Sure that Joel was never this much in tune with her, she didn’t know if she should be suspicious or flattered.
A knock on the door startled her.
Jill. She had entered around the back of the house to the pool area so that she could avoid entering in full view of the mass of reporters gathered at the entrance to the so-called private gated community.
Tessa hurried to open the sliding glass doors. Her face brightened just seeing her old friend there. “You haven’t changed one bit in the last ten years,” she said, embracing her friend. Jill’s dark brown hair sparkled, and her brown eyes were as kind as Tessa remembered. Wearing a pair of black slacks and a teal-colored blouse, with matching teal flats, Jill looked professional but not so much that it would intimidate. Casual professional, Tessa thought.
“And don’t say I haven’t because I know better,” Tessa instructed, her eyes filling with new tears.
“Given what you have been through for the past decade, you look better than I’d expected.” Jill hugged her back, and Tessa knew that calling her had been the right decision.
They looked at each other for a few seconds before Tessa spoke. “You want to have coffee in the kitchen? Sam got this newfangled coffeemaker—it’s a Keurig—pretty neat.”
“That sounds perfect. Tessa, everyone has a Keurig now.” Catching her mistake, she said, “Shit, I didn’t mean that. It’s like the Mr. Coffee of the nineties, remember?” She smiled.
“Don’t bother walking on eggshells. I’m tough. Prison does that to a person. It’s okay, I’m not made of glass.”
Tessa brewed two cups of coffee. “Cream, no sugar?”
“You remembered,” Jill said, taking the cup from her.
“I had a lot of time on my hands. I probably remember more than most,” Tessa explained.
Once they were settled at the bar in the kitchen, she made sure that Sam, as well as Harry’s forensic team, were still out of earshot. She took a deep breath and prepared to ask the question that just might blow her away.
“Jill, that day when you examined the girls, you have never repeated what
