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dad went to prison.”
    “That has to be tough on your friend.”
    “I suppose so. But his mother took him and left town, and no one ever heard from them again. Nobody knows where they went,” she said. “I always thought I would hear from him, you know, like a postcard or a phone call or something, but I never have.”
    She looked over at Leah. Her eyes were bright blue like cornflowers. “You must wonder about your sister all the time.”
    “Yeah,” Leah said, though that wasn’t exactly true.
    Most of the time she tried hard not to think about Leslie. It was too painful. It was too upsetting to imagine what might have happened to her sister or what was happening to her even now. Those thoughts came to her often enough in dreams and nightmares.
    Sometimes she imagined the worst, that the man who had taken Leslie had done terrible things to her, then killed her and dumped her body someplace to rot. Sometimes she imagined her sister was living an exciting life in some exciting place, and that she had amnesia, and that was why they hadn’t heard from her in all these years.
    People got amnesia all the time on the soap operas.
    It probably didn’t happen in real life, though. In fact, her mother had told her in no uncertain terms that it didn’t happen, and that it hadn’t happened to Leslie.
    A horse whinnied in the distance and the horses the girls were riding picked their heads up higher and pricked their ears. The ranch was just below them, a quarter of a mile or so by the trail. Their ride was almost done.
    “Do you think a lot about finding the dead woman?” Leah asked. “Like, do you have nightmares and stuff?”
    “Sometimes. Do you?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “You should meet Anne,” Wendy said.
    “Who’s Anne?”
    “Anne Leone. She was my fifth-grade teacher, but now she does counseling and stuff. Anne’s cool. Tommy’s dad tried to kill her, but she got away. She knows what it’s like to go through sick stuff like that. And she really listens.
    “She’s picking me up today,” Wendy said. “I’ll introduce you.”
    “Why is she picking you up?”
    “I babysit for her. It’s date night for Anne and Vince. They’re the coolest couple.”
    They rode into the stable yard, greeted by half a dozen dogs of different sizes, shapes, and colors, a mixed family of Jack Russell terriers, Welsh corgis, and Australian cattle dogs, all happily wagging their tails and announcing the arrival of the riders.
    The Gracida ranch wasn’t fancy by any means. The stables were simple, clean, and open, two different U-shaped stucco buildings set around a courtyard with a fountain in the center. The horses’ stalls looked out on the courtyard. One of the barns housed Maria’s horses and the clients’ horses. The other housed Felix’s polo ponies.
    Wendy hopped down off Professor and handed his reins to one of the grooms, flashing him a sunny smile. Leah dismounted and led Jump Up to a grooming stall to see to the mare’s care herself.
    Leslie would have been the Lawton sister tossing the reins with a smile. She had always been in the spotlight. She was a dancer. She was a singer. She was an actress. Leslie had been the star of everything. She couldn’t just sing in the choir; she had to be the soloist. She couldn’t just try out for the school play; she had to be the leading lady. It wasn’t enough for Leslie to ride; she had to play polo like Daddy.
    Leah was happier caring for the horses and quietly studying dressage for the satisfaction of doing it well, not to ride in the show ring. She was content to sing in the chorus, to have a nonspeaking role in the class play. Life was calmer that way.
    She removed the mare’s tack and arranged it on the saddle rack to clean, then removed the protective boots from the horse’s legs and put them in the laundry basket to be washed. She took the mare back to her stall to have a pee and get a drink before going to the wash rack for a rinse off.
    The barn was getting