Hidden Pictures

Adrian texts that he has good news. His mother found a book of Annie’s paintings. He told his parents that Mallory is interested in the history because she found some of Annie’s drawings. At his parents’ home, five people at a dinner party toast her as a Penn State runner. Sofia takes her outside and gives her a small, 30-page booklet of Anne C. Barrett’s collected works. Annie’s cousin—George Barrett—self-published it. George Barrett left a note inside the front. It is critical of Annie’s behavior, her morals, and her lack of interest in being part of a family. George’s disdain for her is obvious as he writes that she was abducted on December 9, 1948. The volume is meant to serve as a memorial.

To Mallory’s disappointment, the paintings are all abstract, yielding no clues. Sofia says that Jean—George’s wife—left $50,000 to a niece named Dolores Jean Campbell in her will. However, the intro says George and Jean don’t have siblings, so Dolores can’t be a niece. Sofia wonders if Dolores could be the child of a cousin, a consequence of what George called Annie’s “immoral behavior” (204). Mallory wonders why Jean would have felt obligated to Dolores, who could still be alive if she was born in 1948.