What We'll Burn Last

by Heather Chavez

Genres: Domestic Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Before She Finds Me comes a sharp and surprising thriller about two entangled families in a California neighborhood who must race to find answers about a missing teenage girl as a wildfire crackles to life nearby . . .

Three women.

When she was twelve, Leyna Clarke watched her older sister, Grace, walk away from their Sierra Nevada foothills home with her boyfriend, Adam Duran. Neither was ever seen again. Sixteen years later, a stranger who looks like Grace shows up at the restaurant where Leyna works—and vanishes soon after. When it comes out that Leyna was one of the last people to have talked with the young woman, Leyna’s childhood crush Dominic, who is also Adam’s brother, pleads with her to do the last thing she wants to do: come home.

Three secrets.

But Leyna isn’t the only one who hasn’t been able to leave that fateful night behind. Her mother, Meredith, still lives in the family’s old home—even if she claims to believe the police’s theory that Grace and Adam were willing runaways. Down the street, Adam and Dominic’s mother Olivia has also stayed, determined to be there when her son finally returns. . . and to prove that Meredith and Leyna have been hiding something all these years. But the past isn’t the only threat to the two families, or the missing girl. As a wildfire sparks, tempers flare and intentions turn deadly. Because someone in the neighborhood knows what really happened that night—and just how good the forest is at keeping its secrets.

Who will you trust?

 

Release date: July 23, 2024

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 336

Sample

Ten days earlier

In profile, the young woman seated in Leyna Clarke’s section looked so much like her sister that she nearly dropped a plate of chorizo and eggs. Then the young woman shifted in her chair, and her nose was a little too long, her mouth a little too wide.

Not Grace.

It will never be Grace.

After sixteen years, Leyna understood that. Most days, anyway. Still, it didn’t stop her from looking for her sister in every woman who was the right height or had the right shade of strawberry-blond hair or from wanting the stranger to be Grace so intensely that the scar on her forearm began to itch. Hands full, she couldn’t scratch, and the itch flared, hot and insistent.

The past hated to be ignored.

Apparently, so did the two men at table thirty-four. One of them cleared his throat loudly enough that Leyna at first worried he might be choking. She pulled her attention away from the strawberry blonde to focus on the man with the phlegmy throat, but she felt the other woman’s presence like a pulse beneath her scar.

The man, shaved head a deep coral with the heat, cleared his throat again and waved aggressively at the plate she carried. “Think we can get that while it’s still warm?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

She set the plate between the bald man and his companion, forcing a wide smile. Although it was early in her shift, her cheeks already throbbed, but she really needed the tips to make rent. Leyna had worked at the café since moving to Reno at eighteen, and with the run of triple-digit temperatures, it was the deadest she’d ever seen it in the ten years since. Especially her section on the patio. Despite the spray misters, overlapping umbrellas, and tiny fans they handed out to the customers, the outdoor seating remained mostly empty. Even the potted trees that lined the stamped concrete looked like they were headed for the door, leaves drooping slightly as if flagging for the check.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, casting a sideways glance toward the back of the patio. Why had the young woman been seated there? With a choice of two- and four-tops, the host should’ve put her inside, or at least closer to the other tables.

The bald man shook his head as he shoveled eggs onto the toast plate, the spicy scent of the chorizo heavy on the feeble breeze. One breakfast special to share, along with the two waters she’d delivered earlier.

Definitely won’t make rent off table thirty-four.

Excusing herself, Leyna wiped her palms on her jeans. Her former manager had let the servers wear Bermuda shorts when the weather grew unbearable, but Stefan was far more rigid. Black or dark blue jeans only, no rips. White collared shirts, no more than one button undone. When Leyna pointed out that he managed a café and not the French Laundry, Stefan had scheduled her for Tuesday-afternoon shifts on the patio. Even now, she caught him glaring at her from inside the restaurant. Waiting for her to make another mistake.

Ignoring Stefan, Leyna hurried toward the back of the patio where the strawberry blonde waited, gaze fixed on her phone. As Leyna drew closer, she saw the woman was even younger than she’d thought. Eighteen or nineteen, she guessed. Only a couple of years older than Grace had been when she’d disappeared. In her classic plaid skirt and green cap-sleeved blouse, she dressed a lot like Grace had too.

Fingertips brushing the smooth skin of her scar, Leyna made note of the two sets of silverware on the table. “Are you waiting on someone?”

“A friend.”

The young woman seemed nervous as she stared at her phone, an older model with a cheap plastic case, and her nose wrinkled at whatever she saw on the screen. Her nails were short, the manicure fresh enough that lavender polish filled the grooves on both of her pinkies. On her wrist she wore a hinged, open gold cuff with a scarlet rose capping each end. The bits of red glass in the petals glinted in the harsh sunlight.

Finally, the girl set her phone on the table and looked up, and Leyna’s breath caught mid-exhale. Though not the icy blue of Grace’s eyes, the color was close enough that she felt a stirring in her chest. The young woman squinted, and Leyna took a step to the side, throwing the table in partial shade. Deprived of the sun, the stranger’s hair darkened, no longer the golden-streaked red of Grace’s. At her part, a quarter inch of roots grew a dark brown.

Leyna fought a surge of vertigo. This isn’t Grace, she reminded herself. The version of Grace she reminds me of no longer exists.

Her sister would’ve been about to turn thirty-three. If she’d been alive, she might’ve started to develop faint lines at her mouth or eyes. Grace had laughed often—loudly and open-mouthed, more dare than invitation. At least until those last few weeks. The Grace who would’ve existed now might’ve cut her hair or even shaved her head. She’d talked once about doing that. She might’ve traded pastels for black or bold colors, both of which would’ve suited her better than the faded hues of delicate flowers easily crushed. Grace might’ve married, had kids, moved to Kyoto, started a band, been a banker. Leyna would never know which version of Grace she would’ve become, because she had been reduced to a cautionary tale. Be careful who you love.

When the young woman frowned slightly, Leyna realized she’d been staring. She tried to soften her gaze but she could feel the intensity in it. In reaction, the girl’s eyes flashed too—worry? Surely not fear—before her expression faded again to bland sweetness. The kind of girl born to wear pastels.

Pull it together, Leyna. Stefan would fire her if he had to comp another meal.

Leyna used her shoulder to wipe sweat from her neck. “I’m sorry, it’s just—you remind me a little of my sister.”

The young woman offered a tentative smile—finally, a reason her server was behaving so oddly. “Are you close?”

We were, for a while. “You know sisters.”

“I wish. I only have a younger brother, so it’s not like I can even borrow his clothes. You from here?”

“Plumas County originally, but I’ve lived here since I graduated high school.” Leyna shifted her weight on the balls of her feet, abruptly uncomfortable. “Would you like to get started with something to drink?”

“No, thank you. I’ll wait.”

The girl picked up her napkin and blotted her temples. The cheekbones that had looked as sharp as Grace’s from across the patio now seemed more a trick of liberally applied contour, lightly smeared by the quick swipe of cotton.

“Sure you don’t want me to move you inside where it’s cooler?” She’d lose the tip, but the girl looked to be on the verge of heatstroke.

On the table, the young woman’s phone buzzed once. Probably a text. She picked it up again, folded her fingers around it like it was a talisman. “My friend doesn’t like crowds.” She brought the phone to her chest, a gesture of protection—whatever message had flashed on its screen, she wanted to keep it private.

Leyna glanced at the makeup-smudged napkin. “There really aren’t many people inside. I think there’s even a spot open in the corner.”

“I’m fine here.” She tapped her phone with the pads of her fingers. “I’m Ellie, by the way. Actually, Elisa, but no one calls me that.”

Leyna pointed to her name tag. “Leyna.” She glanced at the guys on the other side of the patio, her only other table at the moment. Their water glasses were full, and they were lingering over their shared meal. She turned back to Ellie. “So who’s the friend you’re out here melting for?”

Though Leyna’s tone was light, the young woman winced, then covered by sitting straighter in her chair.

“No one special,” she said with a small smile that suggested the opposite. “How long have you worked here?”

“A while.” Leyna was evasive too, but after what happened to Grace, she’d always been slower to trust. What was Ellie’s reason?

With forced cheer, Ellie said, “Actually, I’ll take you up on that drink.”

“Sure. What’ll you have?”

Ellie fidgeted, breaking eye contact. Tentative. In that way, she wasn’t like Grace at all.

“I would love a mimosa,” she said, gaze still averted.

Nice try. “Can I take a quick look at your ID?”

The young woman’s cheeks flushed beneath her heavy makeup, and she made a show of checking her small purse. After a few seconds of fumbling, she looked up. “I must’ve forgotten it in the car.”

Or several years in the future. “Would you like me to wait while you get it, or do you want something else for now? Maybe a lemonade or a soda?”

Hands clutching her small purse on her lap, Ellie nodded once. “A lemonade would be great.”

“Coming up.” She glanced toward the restaurant. “Let me know if you change your mind about sitting inside. The air-conditioning is mostly working today.”

Ellie shook her head and twisted her hair in a knot. “That’s okay. My friend’s really private.”

The flag that popped up in Leyna’s brain wasn’t just red, it was an electric flashing red. Though her friend might really be an introvert, he might also be married—or maybe he didn’t want to be seen with a girl too young to order a mimosa.

Just how old was Ellie?

Ellie raised her napkin to her face again. The cotton came away smudged with more makeup. Her lips parted as if she were about to say more before curving into a slight smile.

“Can I please get that lemonade?”

“Of course.”

Leyna hesitated, but the silence grew quickly awkward. Leyna moved away, slowly at first, stealing glimpses of Ellie as she made her way across the patio. The young woman bowed her head, fingers dancing across the screen of her phone. Texting her creepy and possibly married boyfriend? With her hair knotted at her nape, there was an awkward vulnerability to her. How many times had Leyna seen Grace in the same pose, bent over a textbook or curating the Polaroids she strung along her bedroom wall?

She blinked hard. Stop it, Leyna.

When she could no longer see the young woman, Leyna moved with renewed purpose to the bar; she grabbed a glass from the closest shelf, filled it first with ice and then with lemonade from a jug in the minifridge. The woman wasn’t Grace, and the urge to be back in her company wasn’t reasonable—but it was compelling. On her way back to the table, Leyna walked quickly, in such a hurry that the toe of her sneaker caught a dog bowl, sloshing water onto the concrete.

Leyna estimated she was gone about ninety seconds—no longer than two minutes, certainly—yet when she caught sight of Ellie again, the young woman was standing, gathering her purse. When Leyna got within a few feet of the table, Ellie’s eyebrows quirked upward in apology.

“Um, sorry, but my friend’s been held up.” Her voice hitched. As her finger brushed the phone’s screen, it illuminated, and Leyna caught a glimpse of it.

Adam.

Leyna set the lemonade down on the table before it could slip from her hands.

The name wasn’t uncommon. Likely thousands of men named Adam lived in Reno alone.

Still, the only Adam she’d known well had a type—strawberry blondes with blue eyes. Girls who looked like Grace.

Ellie misread the silence, pulled a wallet from her purse. “I can pay you for the lemonade.”

Leyna shook her head and forced the words off a sandpaper tongue: “Your friend’s name is Adam?”

There was a shuttering of Ellie’s eyes as she moved to leave. Leyna blocked her path. It was an aggressive gesture, but she didn’t care, even when she sensed Stefan approaching from behind.

She pinned Ellie with her gaze. She heard someone calling her name—Stefan? The bald man at table thirty-four?—the voice warped by the blood roaring in her ears.

“What’s Adam’s last name?”

She took a step forward, and Ellie tried to retreat, but the table was at her back. There was nowhere for her to go. When Leyna grabbed her wrist, the girl flinched. The sharp edges of the roses on the girl’s bracelet cut into Leyna’s palm.

Ellie shook her head too hard to be convincing. “I don’t know anyone named Adam.”

Her eyes were bright. Curious, but maybe also afraid? She pulled away, leaving Leyna holding the bracelet. She held it out, an offering, but the young woman looked at it suspiciously, as if it were a snare waiting to be sprung. Her gaze drifted from Leyna to a spot over Leyna’s shoulder. A spot now occupied by Stefan, who spoke Leyna’s name, his voice firm but not so sharp as to offend the customer. “You’re doing it again.”

When Stefan put a warning hand on her arm, Leyna shook it off, focused only on the stranger who looked like her missing sister.

Leyna said, more forcefully, “I know it’s Adam. I saw it on your phone. Is his last name Duran?”

Ellie’s eyes widened, and Leyna knew she was right.

Ellie looked away quickly, gaze darting along the tree-lined path that Leyna blocked as if looking for a weakness in Leyna’s barricade. The air seemed thicker than it had a moment before. Leyna’s heart flailed in her chest like a trapped animal. She was suddenly sure that the friend Ellie had intended to meet was Adam Duran.

Then Ellie held up her phone. She covered the text with her hand, but the contact showed clearly:

Amaya.

For a moment, Leyna froze, stunned, which gave Ellie an opening. The other woman grabbed her bracelet and brushed past.

No. Don’t go. I’m sorry.

But Leyna knew this girl wasn’t the one she really wanted here or the one who deserved her apology. Or not her alone.

Leyna managed only a single step before Stefan grabbed her arm again, more tightly but still not as hard as she had grabbed Ellie’s, and it took several seconds for her to wriggle free. By then, the girl who looked vaguely like Grace was gone. At least this time, it was only a lemonade Stefan would need to comp.

Scar tingling, Leyna bit her tongue so she wouldn’t be sick.

Friday, 6:25 p.m.

Ten days after meeting her sister’s lookalike and losing her job, Leyna had established a new routine.

She would wake at six a.m. and check her phone, DMs, and email. Log onto her laptop. Pretend to look for a job before being distracted by Google News and the message boards.

These searches had always been as much about proving Adam’s guilt as about finding Grace. For too many years, Leyna had alternated between those two competing beliefs in her head: Grace was alive; Adam had killed her. Most days, she believed—needed to believe—that her sister was out there, and Leyna just had to execute the perfect Google search to bring her home. But meeting that girl had started a familiar spiral. The darker theory insisted.

She would interrupt these daily searches with frequent snacks. Ramen, toast, bananas, black tea brewed in the fridge. Off-brand peanut-butter-cup ice cream she’d found on sale. Didn’t matter what she ate. It all tasted like dust anyway.

Midday, she’d shower and change into her cleanest sweats. Or not. Then she’d update the poster-size sheets of white paper that covered her apartment walls as if she were a private investigator in some universally panned limited series. It was always like this when she was reminded of her sister in some major way. For weeks, she would replay her memories of that long-ago day, picking at the scabs to see if she could raise fresh blood.

Sometimes, if a new detail needed clarifying, she would place phone calls, or she’d submit a couple of job applications to maintain the illusion she might still make rent. Then it was back to the computer until sometime after midnight, brain and laptop battery exhausted, when she’d fall asleep with the lights on in a series of long blinks, staring at that day’s updates scribbled in purple and brown ink on white paper, looking for connections that didn’t exist and following clues that led nowhere. Her sister remained as much a ghost as she had been in the sixteen years since she’d disappeared.

That Friday, Leyna was standing inches from one of the sheets trying to determine if a late-night scrawl read after or alter when her cell phone vibrated on the coffee table. A prospective employer calling to schedule an interview? A friend asking if she wanted to hang out?

She walked to the table and leaned over to check the screen.

Private caller.

If it was a hiring manager calling about her application, the person would leave a message.

She returned her attention to the flip-chart sheets on the walls where she tracked Grace’s case and other cases like hers. In spots, she’d taped photos printed on cheap copy paper. The only thing missing from her reconstruction were the four Polaroids Grace had removed from her bedroom wall the week she’d disappeared. Back then, Grace and her instant camera had been inseparable. Her sister had strung lengths of twine on the wall to clip her favorite photos to. When one string filled, she’d start another. String number six had been half empty the night Grace went missing. A twelve-year-old Leyna had pointed to that half-finished string as proof that Grace planned to come back. A twenty-eight-year-old Leyna wasn’t as optimistic.

Before she left home for good, Leyna had spent hours in front of the photos in Grace’s room. Leyna could still picture those four blank spots on the wall as clearly as she could the Polaroids that had surrounded them. So many times over the past decade, she’d considered going back for the remaining photos. Staring at her own wall now, she regretted not taking them when she left. But she’d been understandably distracted.

Her phone buzzed on the table. Again, she ignored it.

As she studied the photos of her sister and other women who’d gone missing in the ensuing years, Leyna sucked in a lungful of thick air. The apartment had grown stale and too warm, but she couldn’t risk cracking a window in the living room and alerting others she was home. Her unit faced the courtyard, and she’d skipped her last couple of showers. She wasn’t exactly visitor-ready.

She briefly considered breaking her routine and grabbing a quick shower now. Maybe doing some laundry and a light cleaning of the kitchen. That would at least improve the air quality in the apartment. Instead, she picked up her laptop, sank onto the couch, and started typing.

The search for Grace and Adam yielded frustratingly familiar results: Random names and details about people who were not her sister. Who cared if a Grace Clarke in Iowa had been awarded her real estate license or a Grace Clarke in Michigan had posted photos on social media of her new puppy? Leyna jumped down each rabbit hole anyway.

The terms Plumas County and missing girl were only slightly more fruitful. Two Quincy teens are believed to have run away together, the first news story read. Then a few days later: Missing teens found in Portola area.

The next hit was for a sixteen-year-old girl who’d been reported missing after attending a party. A day later, the post had been updated with the news she’d been found. Another runaway.

In Chester, a fifteen-year-old boy had been missing since spring. On this page, there was no bold update header. Sometimes, families never got closure.

Next, she typed Adam Duran. That got twenty-five million results. Adam Duran Plumas County—two hundred fifty thousand. Adam Duran dating profile—four million. She checked birth and wedding announcements too and cross-referenced his name with hobbies he might still enjoy. Adam Duran archery. Adam Duran physics. Adam Duran killer. She even did an image search using an old photo.

Leyna knew there was little chance of her searches bearing fruit. The photo was too ancient to be useful, and killers in hiding tended to change their names.

Finally, for the second time that day, Leyna clicked on one of the many pages she’d bookmarked and scrolled through a bare-bones website that maintained information on missing persons in the area. She studied the columns of grainy photos provided by family or pulled from social media and read descriptions she’d long ago memorized before she stopped on the only one that mattered.

Grace Clarke. Missing age: 16. Current age: 32. Last seen: North Fork River Campground, Plumas County.

Bullshit.

She stabbed the Back arrow. She’d done it so often, the key had started to stick.

After taking a breath, Leyna moved on to neighboring counties: Lassen. Shasta. Tehama. Yuba. Butte.

She usually searched as far east as Washoe and as far south as Placer, though sometimes she went farther. At one point or another, she’d searched all the counties between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

That day, she got only as far as Sierra County.

Missing Sacramento teen’s car found near Truckee.

Leyna guessed she’d clicked more than a hundred links that day, thousands that month, and her tap on the mousepad was muscle memory, her eyes half glazed when the page loaded.

A search is underway for a missing Sacramento teen who vanished Thursday night after texting a friend she was on her way home. The car she was driving was found abandoned this evening at a campground in Sierraville, about twelve miles north of Truckee.

Leyna skimmed the opening paragraph, trying to remember if she’d used the last of her eye drops, nearly dismissing the article as irrelevant. That was the problem with routine: sometimes it muted instinct. Her finger hovered over the mousepad, a moment away from clicking to the next link—Teen disappears from electronics store in Carson City—when every muscle in her body contracted, her lungs freezing mid-breath.

Campground. The last lead on Grace had also ended at a campground.

But that wasn’t what made Leyna abruptly dizzy. It was the photo.

For an instant, eyes bleary, Leyna hadn’t recognized the girl. Her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. She wore a purple-and-white soccer shirt. No makeup. In the photo, she didn’t look at all like Grace.

The name underneath the photo was Elisa Byrd.

She was sixteen. The same age Grace had been when she’d disappeared. Not a woman at all.

Leyna read the rest of the article quickly.

The blue Honda Fit, borrowed from a friend, was discovered earlier today at the Upper Little Truckee Campground by a Sierra County sheriff’s deputy.

At 3:15 p.m. Thursday, Elisa, who goes by Ellie, texted a friend that she was stopping to use the restroom and might head into Truckee for dinner. She said she expected to be back in Sacramento by 10 p.m. She has not been seen or heard from since, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. Elisa was reported missing late Thursday night by her parents, Paul and Sarah Byrd.

The car was found unlocked. The keys and Elisa’s phone have not been located.

Anyone who might have seen Elisa or knows of her whereabouts is asked to call…

Leyna heard the girl’s voice in her head: I’m Ellie, by the way. Actually, Elisa, but no one calls me that.

Ellie’s visit to the restaurant had been the excuse Leyna needed to jump back down the rabbit hole. Without a job, Leyna certainly had time for obsession. But though the girl was the catalyst, she wasn’t the reason Leyna had spent most of the past ten days staring at a screen. The reason would always be Grace. Ellie had merely given Leyna new data to populate the search field. But reading about the missing girl now, Leyna felt an unexpected pressure in her chest. What had happened to Ellie Byrd? Had she fallen or had an accident? Car trouble? What if the person who’d stopped under the pretense of offering help had exploited the isolation and darkness to shove Ellie in his trunk, intending to bring her somewhere even more remote? In the forest, it was easy to disappear. Even easier if someone meant you harm.

And then the question that always clawed its way into Leyna’s consciousness: How might this be connected to Grace?

After reading the story about Ellie several more times, Leyna navigated to the message boards on her favorite true-crime site. She’d bookmarked dozens of websites—some dedicated to cold cases or missing persons, others to photography or Grace’s favorite bands—but she logged the most hours on the true-crime boards. With its use of Comic Sans and its antiquated layout, this site had a retro aesthetic that offered comfort. Leyna imagined it looked the same as it had the last night she’d seen Grace.

Leyna scanned the boards for mention of Ellie, but the conversation was focused on a murder trial in Los Angeles. After two decades buried in a Los Angeles backyard, a woman’s remains had been unearthed—bones and scraps of the polyester dress the woman was wearing when she disappeared. The dead woman’s ex-boyfriend, a former tenant, had been arrested.

Leyna typed: What is everyone hearing about Ellie Byrd?

She didn’t need to add details—the people on that particular forum would be familiar with the case; if not, they’d immediately start googling the name.

She didn’t have to wait long. A frequent visitor who went by Boston Betty chimed in: Just what they’re saying on the news. Texted her friend . . .