Miranda looked up at him with compassion. ‘Have you told Julius and Jake about your sister yet?’
‘I emailed them a couple of days ago.’
‘Did that help? Explaining it to them?’
‘A bit, I guess,’ he said. ‘They were good about it. Supportive.’
A little silence passed.
‘What about us?’ she said. ‘Did you tell them we were...?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Have you?’
Miranda shook her head. ‘It’s not that I’m ashamed or anything... I just don’t feel comfortable discussing my sex life with my older brothers.’
‘Fair enough.’
She waited another beat or two before asking, ‘Will you take me to the place where Rosie went missing?’
His frown carved a deep trench in his forehead. ‘Why?’
‘Because it might help you get some closure.’
He turned his gaze back to the view outside the window but his arm was still around her. She felt it tighten momentarily, as if he had come to a decision inside his head. ‘Yes...’
* * *
Leandro could feel his heart banging against his chest wall like a church bell struck by a madman. A cold sweat was icing down between his shoulder blades and his stomach was pitching as he walked to the place where Rosie and he had been sitting. The beach wasn’t crowded like that fateful day in summer but the memories came flooding back. He could hear the sound of children playing—the sound of splashing and happy shrieking—the sound of the water lapping against the shore and the cracking sound of the beach stones shifting under people’s feet.
Miranda slipped her arm through his, moving close to his body. ‘Here?’ she said.
‘Here.’ Leandro waited for the closure she’d spoken of but all he felt was the ache. The ache of loss, the noose of guilt that choked him so he could barely breathe. He could see his mother’s face. The horror. The fear. The dread. He could see the ice-creams dropping from her hands to the sun-warmed stones on the shore. Funny how he always remembered that moment in such incredible detail, as if a camera lens inside his head had zoomed in at close range. One of the cones had landed upside down, the other had landed sideways, and the scoop of chocolate ice-cream had slid down the surface of a dark blue stone.
He could still see it melting there.
He could hear the shouts and cries. He could feel the confusion and the panic. It roared in his ears like he was hearing everything through a distorting vacuum. He could hear the shrieking sirens. He could see the flashes as police cars and an ambulance came screaming down the esplanade.
If only the ocean could talk. If only it could tell what it had witnessed all those years ago. What secrets were hidden below that deep blue vault?
‘Are you okay?’ Miranda’s soft voice brought him back to the present.
Leandro put his arm around her shoulders and brought her close to his side as they stood looking at the vastness of the ocean. ‘My father used to come down here every day,’ he said after a moment or two of silence. ‘He would walk the length of the beach calling out for her. Every morning and every afternoon and every night. Sometimes I would go with him when I wasn’t at school. I don’t know if he kept doing it after Mum and I left. Probably.’
She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned her head against his upper arm, as she couldn’t quite reach his shoulder. She didn’t say anything but he felt her emotional support. It was a new feeling for him, having someone close enough to understand the heartbreak of his past.
‘I left a part of myself here that day and I can’t get it back,’ he said after another little silence.
Miranda turned to look up at him with tears shining in her eyes. ‘You will get it back. You just have to stop blaming yourself.’
Easier said than done, Leandro thought as they walked back the way they had come.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A COUPLE OF days later, Miranda had finished packing up the last of the paintings ready for the shipping people to collect when she got a phone call from Jaz. Miranda gave her a quick rundown on Leandro’s tragic background.
‘Gosh, that’s so sad,’ Jaz said. ‘I thought he was a bit distant because of his dad being a drunk. I didn’t realise there was more to it than that.’
‘Yes, I did too, but I think it’s good he’s finally talking about it,’ Miranda said. ‘He even took me to the place on the beach where his sister went missing. I was hoping it would give him some closure but I know he still blames himself. Maybe he always will.’
‘Understandable, really,’ Jaz said. ‘So how are you two getting along?’