The move seemed to have helped him. The daily night terrors had come roaring back after Mendelson’s attack, which was hardly shocking after what he’d been through. But they’d faded since they’d left the apartment. And his therapist had helped. Lily’s was helping too.
She walked down the short hallway toward Everett’s bedroom. He’d chosen the one next to hers, and she still felt a little teary-eyed about it. That even at thirteen, he’d chosen to stay close to her. When she reached his doorway, she stood quiet for a moment, hoping he was as happy as he seemed.
He and Josephine lounged on a giant beanbag that took up a whole corner of his room. Josephine had gotten him a set of wireless earbuds, which made it easier for them to each have one in their ear to listen to the same music. He already had a Bluetooth speaker, but apparently that wasn’t as much fun.
Shadow seemed to be ignoring her new cat condo to stretch out between the two kids on the warmth of the chair. The beanbag had been another birthday gift. Not from Lily. It had come from Cheyenne, Everett’s stepgrandmother.
Lily wasn’t quite sure how to take that. The strangest part was that Cheyenne still hadn’t met Everett. She’d had the chair delivered along with a note that read, Happy Birthday from Cheyenne and the boys!
“What a fucking weirdo,” Lily had muttered to Zoey. “Who does that?” But Everett had seemed quietly pleased, so that was something. Lily would reach out at some point, but she wasn’t quite ready for that minefield. Soon, maybe.
“Hey, kids!” she finally called. They looked up from Everett’s phone with matching smiles. “Cake in ten minutes. And Sharon says you promised her a water-gun fight.”
“Aw yeah!” Everett cried, and Josephine pumped her fist.
“Ten minutes!” Lily warned. He was addicted to his new phone, just as she’d feared, but Lily no longer gave one good goddamn about that. Such was the freedom of escaping imminent murder, she supposed.
Speaking of escaping . . . she slipped into her new bedroom without turning on the light. She could see well enough with the sun filtering in.
Not that much was new about the bedroom. She hadn’t replaced any of her own furniture or updated her awful mattress yet, but she had plans. The new furniture had gone to the family room and Everett’s room, and Lily’s new home office. But that felt right. This room could wait. She was doing her best not to hide from the world anymore, so she only used her bedroom for sleeping.
She crossed to her dresser and pulled out the center drawer, then the little jewelry drawer inside it to retrieve the two letters there. She stared at the top one.
It shouldn’t feel significant. Just another birthday card from Jones like the others. But it did. This one was thicker, and she suspected there was a real letter inside on real paper, not just a hastily scrawled message scribbled into a card.
She hadn’t been surprised by its arrival. He’d only vanished three months earlier, and Everett was fresh in his mind. But what would happen next year? Or the year after that?
Lily couldn’t know. And she couldn’t control it.
“Hey, there you are!”
She spun to see Zoey step into the room, then her friend hesitated until Lily tipped her head to gesture her closer.
“Cake’s ready,” Zoey said. “Thirteen relighting candles, and I handed out the sparklers to everyone.”
“Thanks, Zoey. The cake looks amazing.”
“I hope he likes it,” her friend said as she joined Lily at the dresser. She looked down at the card in her hands. “Ah. Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah.” She’d told Zoey everything once she’d finally recovered from the immediate effects of the ordeal. Well, not quite everything. No one knew Jones had been there. The police had assumed the stolen car had something to do with Mendelson’s scheme and the opened window had been Lily’s attempt to escape.
In the end, she’d taught her son to lie to the police, she supposed. But she didn’t feel bad about it. This time Jones had earned his head start. One day, when this was long behind them, she’d turn over the access codes from the notebook to the police, but not yet. She still didn’t trust them.
“Are you going to give that one to him?” Zoey asked.
She shrugged. “I’m sure he talks to him online anyway. I don’t ask.”
“Go with your gut.”
“I will.”
Zoey wrapped her arm around Lily’s waist and laid her head on her shoulder. “Have I told you how sorry I am?”
“Oh my God, stop it,” Lily said. “You don’t have to keep apologizing. None of this was your fault.”
Zoey turned to her, tears in her eyes. “I involved you in something dangerous. And you had no support out there, not like we have at the shelter. It was reckless and stupid.”
“If you’re responsible for putting me in danger, then I’m responsible for putting Everett in danger. Is that what you think? I mean, it’s what I think, but is that what you’re saying to me?” She gave her friend a shake and laughed at the way she groaned.
“You know that’s not what I mean!”
“Then stop blaming yourself.”
“Only if you stop blaming yourself,” Zoey countered.
“Jesus, we’re a mess.” When Zoey pulled her in for another hug, Lily held on tight for a long time before letting go.
She kissed Zoey’s cheek. “Tell the kids to head outside. I’ll be right there.”
“You got it.”
When Zoey left, Lily moved the other letter to the front. She’d barely looked at it since she’d first seen it, and goose bumps prickled her arms now.
She turned it to its side, opened the flap, and let the contents slide out to her palm.
I told the police I thought he’d stored things somewhere cuz when we first moved to Herriman, he took a bunch of bins from the garage and never brought them back. They didn’t believe me. Said nothing showed up in the banking. Said it was probably trash, like I’m stupid enough to think he’d move trash with us from Omaha to Kansas.
Lily, I don’t even think those cops are trying. They want this all to go away cuz it looks bad for them. And they’re his buddies. I don’t trust them at all. So when I was packing up the last of my things from that goddamn house and saw this at the bottom of a drawer . . . I decided to give it to you. You do whatever you want with it.
I’m sorry again.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she whispered to Amber as she closed her fingers around the jagged, unforgiving points of the key. The small silver key was stamped with a brand name she recognized. It was the exact kind that fit into the most common padlocks used to lock up units at storage centers.
It wasn’t from Lily’s place. She knew that. No one had paid so far in advance that she’d never met them, and the only clients of hers who paid with untraceable money orders were a Korean couple who traveled the US in their RV for three months every summer.
But of the six storage places in nearby towns, five of them were owned by Neighborhood Storage. And Lily was now in charge of inspecting every record and all the properties.
She squeezed the key until it hurt, imagining the hundreds of records and names she’d need to dig through, the dozens of units she’d need to visit, the countless locks she’d need to try.
But she would try. And eventually, she’d find Mendelson’s secrets, and she would expose every one of them to the world, and he’d never, ever be free of them again.
She tucked the key into Amber’s letter and closed it back up in the drawer. But Jones’s letter she carried with her, out into the hall and into Everett’s room, where she slid it under his pillow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the little boy he’d been. And then she took a deep breath and headed back into the sun to celebrate the incredible young man he was now.