“That’s pretty damn cute. I absolutely adored the library when I was a kid.”
“It was like a wonderland, right? I still remember when my library started carrying DVDs. My God, the thrill. Now it’s all online.” She winced. “Sorry, that must be a sore spot for a newspaper reporter.”
“It’s a bit like being a carriage driver when cars came along, I’m sure. But raging against automobiles didn’t make them go away. We adapt or we die. I’m figuring it out.”
“Gonna start a podcast?”
He barked out a laugh. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”
“You have a nice voice.”
His eyebrows disappeared beneath his hair again. “Thanks. So do you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You sounded cute that night you were telling me to get the hell off the property.”
They smiled at each other until the server dropped off the bill; then they both reached for it. “Let me get this,” he said, but she shook her head.
“We’ll split it.”
He protested for a few more moments before finally laying down cash for his half. “And I’ve got the tip,” he insisted.
She agreed, and they walked slowly out to the street before starting their goodbyes.
“Can I talk you into another meal sometime? I’m really tired of my own company.”
She hesitated, meaning to say no, and somehow saying, “I don’t have much free time,” instead.
“I’ll check back, then, if that’s all right.”
Was it? Maybe. Maybe it was, but only because he was passing through Herriman and not staying. And it gave her something fun to think about. She gave him her number, and he texted her so she’d have his.
When they paused next to her car, Lily wasn’t sure if she should offer a hug, but Alex reached to shake her hand; then he pressed his other hand over the top of hers. “Thank you very much, Lily. I had a wonderful time.”
She felt like melting into a stupid puddle at that and could only give a strange little wave before she spun and fumbled with her car door like a flustered teenager.
She pulled away from the curb before she let herself sigh at the delicious sparks of excitement floating inside her chest.
It hadn’t been a real date. It was more like a tiny crush on a stranger, really. Still, she just felt . . . light. A pure anticipation she hadn’t felt since she was young. Frankly, she hadn’t thought she had anything that fun and fizzy inside her anymore, and the sensation soon faded into a strange sadness. Something like nostalgia, maybe. Or perhaps it was just that she was driving back toward her home and all the worries that waited there.
She turned on her ancient stereo and shoved in a Fiona Apple CD as she hit the highway out of town. As always, she’d barely managed to push her shitty car from thirty-five to sixty when it was time to exit and take a left to the underpass that flooded every spring. There was new graffiti again, ACAB spelled out in big red letters. Maybe that was what had Mendelson so pissed off.
She spotted the lurking car as soon as she cleared the threatening shadow of the highway. The same spot she’d seen a car sitting before, on the road that led to the tidy row of houses, but not close enough to be parked in the neighborhood. This time when she drove past, the car pulled out and followed her.
“What the hell?” she whispered, staring into the rearview mirror as she drove. It wasn’t dark, but the sun was setting, and she knew the business park would be deserted at this time on a Saturday.
She could keep driving, though. She could pull a U-turn and head back to town, drop into the library like she’d wanted to. She could even pull into the storage center and close the gate behind her, although it didn’t move that quickly.
She jerked her eyes back to the road before they found their way to the mirror again. The fading sunlight glowed from behind her, so whoever was driving was just a silhouette, a shadow of a threat.
It could be anyone, but she had a terrible feeling it was Mendelson. Still, what if it was a stranger? Jesus, it could even be Jones.
She was supposed to trust her instincts, they all were, but her instincts had failed her disastrously in life, hadn’t they? Or had she just shoved them down because she hadn’t wanted the truth?
Shaking her head, she decided her instincts didn’t deserve her trust. It could be the cop or it could be a madman. She had absolutely nothing to lose by turning around and fleeing, and far too much to lose if she didn’t.
Lily hit the gas for the last fifty yards of road, then pulled quickly into her driveway, pulling the steering wheel as hard as she could. The wheels squealed at the tight circle, and then lights flashed, and she slammed on the brakes in panic, trapped between the road and the gate.
The car that had been following her was now stopped at an angle, blocking her path, and the front had lit up in flashing blue and red lights. Her eyes locked with the driver’s.
Detective Mendelson.
The surge of relief that washed over her was kind of funny in the face of the police lights, but he couldn’t be there to arrest her. She hadn’t done anything illegal, not for a long time, anyway.
He opened his car door and approached. Lily stared at him until he’d reached her window, and then she patted her door, looking for the control.
When she finally got the window open, she first heard the sound of his engine, then the scrape of his shoe as he stepped back and bent down.
“Mrs. Arthur,” he said solemnly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
This again. This Mrs. Arthur bullshit, the ghost she’d left behind, stirred back to life by whatever stick was up this guy’s backside.
“What do you want?” she ground out.
“I told you I’d be by to talk, ma’am. Maybe you could pull on in?”
She desperately wanted to bite out, Talk to my lawyer, but there were two problems with that. One, she didn’t have a lawyer, and two, she did not want to piss off this man any more than she had to. So she snapped, “Park here,” then eased her car backward and curved around to the gate to enter the code.
The gate closed behind her after she pulled in. For a moment, she thought about simply heading inside and locking her door, but she knew Barbara would be dropping off Everett soon. It wouldn’t be fair to him to present his friend and her mom with a spectacle like that, so she took a deep breath and unlocked the pedestrian gate to let herself through.
“I have no idea where Jones is, if that’s what you’re after. I’d direct you anywhere but here. Try Costa Rica. Try Guatemala. Try Greenland. Wherever he is, I haven’t seen him in six years. If you do find him, tell him to send money for the son he abandoned. Cool?”
“Well, ma’am . . . I wasn’t looking for him the first time I came out, but as I said, your behavior caught my attention. If you’re not hiding Jones Arthur out here, you’re hiding something else.”
Her heart pumped a flush to her face almost immediately, so Lily shoved her hands in her pockets and paced away. “What were you looking for, Detective? You’ve never said.”
A heartbeat ticked by in silence before he spoke. “A woman was reported missing by her husband. Amber’s last reported location was nearby, though I can’t reveal more than that.”
The hot blood in her face was quickly overtaken by a flood of icy fear. Amber? This was about Amber?
Her abusive husband had reported her missing, which shouldn’t have surprised Lily. Of course he would go to the police if his wife didn’t come home, even if he was a violent bastard.
But Amber wasn’t missing. She’d left. Lily couldn’t be guilty of covering up a crime if there had been no crime.
“Her husband says there may have been drug use involved and that her friends were an . . . unsavory sort. I spoke to every business owner in the park and knocked on every front door. As I said, you’re the only one who reacted like you had something to hide.”
Yes, she had. Lily took a shallow breath, then another, trying to disguise that she was composing herself before she turned back to him. “So what does this have to do with my ex?”