“Oh, come on, Lily. You act as if you want Jeb to be losing his mind. That old bastard is as sharp as he ever was.”
Old bastard. It was how Paul and her dad addressed each other nowadays. The two had been friends for almost thirty years. That was how Lily had first known Paul, as her dad’s friend, the one who’d bring her gifts on occasion, once a stuffed bunny when she was thirteen. And when he’d realized she was too old for toys, he’d brought her jewelry, opal earrings, a necklace with a dainty gold horseshoe pendant. Neither man, her dad nor Paul, could be considered young anymore. Not that she would ever say that to Paul, and while she was well aware of the talk, the twenty-three-year difference in their ages was something that was never discussed, either. It was the elephant in the living room of their marriage. “I’ve got to go,” Lily repeated. She checked the flow of traffic in her rearview mirror.
“You know what I thought when AJ didn’t show up this morning?”
Lily waited.
“I figured he was ducking out,” Paul said.
“Of the wedding, you mean?” Lily dropped her glance.
“Yeah. Until I went into his apartment, I thought maybe he got cold feet.”
No, Lily thought. As much as she and Paul might deplore the union, as much as they might have hoped for more for their son than a degree from culinary school and marriage to the pierced and tattooed daughter of a single mom who ran a catering business out of her kitchen, she knew AJ’s heart had found its home. Lily had seen the way AJ would draw Shea’s hand through the loop of his elbow when they walked together. And when Shea spoke, he tipped his head toward her as if he couldn’t bear to miss a single word. Shea made him laugh; they made each other laugh. At the restaurant, where AJ had made that awful scene, it was Shea’s touch, her soothing voice, that had brought AJ back to himself. Lily couldn’t imagine he would ever leave Shea, not willingly, not by choice. But she said none of this to Paul. Instead, she asked about AJ’s passport. “Have the police found it?”
“I don’t know,” Paul answered. “But he could find ways to get into Mexico without a passport.”
Other countries. Lily was thinking AJ could as easily find his way to other, more distant countries. It wasn’t as if he was unfamiliar with overseas travel, not since his stint with the marines, the one Paul had insisted AJ undertake once he’d gotten clear of the charge of murder six years ago. Paul had said military training would straighten him out, make a man out of him. Lily had felt he was wrong in her bones, but nothing she said made any difference. AJ went, as if even he felt it was his only option.
“I’ll call you from the ranch,” she said.
She was back on the interstate, flipping through radio stations, looking for a distraction, when she heard Becca Westin’s name. Her heart stalled. She wanted to turn it off—the radio, the car, the terrible looming future. Instead, she made herself listen while the commentator ran through facts she already knew, the how, what, when, and where. It was the mention of AJ’s name—the who—that jolted her. Suppose her dad was tuned in, listening to this same station? Suppose he had a stroke or a heart attack and no one was there? Lily drove faster, weaving in and out of traffic. Reckless, thoughtless now, and when she reached the ranch, she let herself through the arched iron gate using the keypad.
It clanged shut behind her with the finality of a cell door, and she stopped, keeping her hands gripped to the wheel. If there was any way not to do it, not to tell her dad that his beloved grandson . . . but there wasn’t. She set her foot back on the accelerator and went up the three-quarter-mile drive to the house, slowly. Her great-grandfather, who had founded the cattle ranch and created the brand, xL, after the family’s surname, Axel, had built the road more than one hundred years ago, clearing an avenue through the live oaks wide enough for horse-drawn wagons or carriages to pass. In those days, the road’s surface had been layered in crushed granite and caliche. Since then, asphalt had been added to the mix, and the trees had grown, becoming thicker trunked and more twisted. They bent over the macadam, old men grasping one another’s shoulders, wheezing in the freshened breeze. Sunlight through their tangled canopies dimpled the uneven pavement. Native grasses spiked with new green and patches of white-and-yellow daisies and bluebonnets past their prime verged on the crumbling edges. Every so often, there were clearings that gave sun-drenched views of juniper-clad limestone outcroppings. The cattle pens, a couple of barns, and the workshop were farther on.
AJ could be in one of those buildings, Lily thought, or inside any of a number of other outbuildings that dotted the acreage. She crossed the one-lane bridge that arched over Copper Creek, and thought, He could be hiding underneath it. There was more than enough room to conceal a man.
When the white two-story clapboard farmhouse appeared in her view, the knot in her stomach tightened. The deep L-shaped front porch was empty, the six black-trimmed windows across the front blank. She drove around back, fearful of seeing AJ’s truck, but it wasn’t there. Only the tailgate of her dad’s pickup and the back of the old Jeep he kept for use on the property were visible through the open garage door. Even Winona’s Subaru SUV was absent from its usual spot, and the hope that Lily had been harboring since leaving Dallas—of finding her here—fell to pieces on the floor of her stomach.
Leaving her car, she went quickly up the steps onto the covered back porch, careful not to slam the screen door behind her, relaxing slightly on registering the scent of cinnamon. Long sticks of the spice, uncut and raw, that Win had relatives ship to her from her native Oaxaca hung from an exposed porch rafter. She used it in everything from hot chocolate to enchilada sauce. Even though Win’s car was missing, Lily half expected to find her in the kitchen, but it was dark and empty, without a whiff of what might have been served at breakfast or lunch. Mystified, pulse tapping, Lily crossed the room, trailing her fingertips along the edge of the marble-topped island as she passed it, briefly aware of the stickiness there and under her shoes. The huge, old porcelain sink was full of dirty dishes; the kitchen towel hanging askew over the oven door handle was grimy. None of this was right.
The television was on low volume in the living room, tuned to an afternoon game show. But her father’s big leather recliner was as empty as the kitchen. The messy stack of newspapers beside it was topped with his coffee mug and an ashtray that held a half-smoked cigar.