Startled at the sound of her voice, I turned to face her. She walked closer.
“Yes?”
She swallowed. She was about to say something; then, it seemed like she regretted it.
Come on, lady, say something. Here I am, working my behind off to take care of your grandchild. At least tell me you appreciate what I’m doing. Tell me you’re sorry. Something. Anything!
Her lips parted, and a sound left her mouth. “I…I…”
Yes?
Then she lowered her eyes again. “Let me know if you need anything. Like financially.”
I glared at her, unable to speak a word. She was offering me money? She thought money was what her grandson needed?
Were these people for real?
I answered with a scoff, then turned away and pushed my cart to the end of the aisle. As I joined the line for the cash register, I shook my head. Owen started to wail inside the cart, and I took him in my arms while whispering in his ear that I would never let those people anywhere near him. It suddenly made a lot of sense to me that Amy had run away. She had learned from the best how to avoid responsibility.
“They don’t deserve you,” I whispered. “No, they don’t.”
Chapter 34
Lily looked in the rearview mirror at the cars behind her. She was going sixty over the bridges toward the islands after spending the day at The Avenues in Viera, shopping. As she glanced in the rearview mirror, she again got that strange feeling that someone was following her.
“You’re being paranoid,” she sang into the car, repeating her boyfriend Peter’s words. He had been mad at her for going up to that guy at Coconuts on the Beach. Well, not mad exactly, more like surprised, he said. Why she would get in that man’s face like that, he didn’t understand; he said on their way home in his car.
That had made her even angrier. Was she just supposed to accept that this guy was following her? He had been everywhere lately. The café, the gym, and she was almost certain she had seen him outside of her house too, but she wasn’t completely sure of that.
“Cocoa Beach is such a small town,” Peter had argued. “I see the same people in many places. That doesn’t mean they’re following me.”
“I am not paranoid,” she had said, then slammed the car door shut without kissing him goodbye. She didn’t want to have to deal with him at that moment. Didn’t he understand that all she wanted was his support? Lily hadn’t talked to him since and decided she was getting tired of him anyway. He was sloppy, smoked way too much pot, and didn’t even have a job. Giving drum lessons to a couple of elementary school kids once a week wasn’t exactly a real job. He still lived with his parents, for crying out loud. Meanwhile, Lily was going places with her music career and had landed a record deal recently. They weren’t exactly compatible.
Her agent had told her that there would have to be sacrifices made, and Peter would probably be the first one. Lily wasn’t too sad about that. She cared for him, but she didn’t love him.
“Time for a change,” she said to herself in the rearview mirror, smiling. She could already see her stage name in neon lights.
LIL.Y
She had put the period in between the L and the Y to give it a double meaning. It was quite clever, she believed. The thought of her bright future ahead made her turn up the radio and start to sing. She sang along to Billie Eilish's song, dreaming of becoming as big as her when the car engine suddenly went out. It didn’t even sputter or make a noise; it simply died from one second to the other. The music stopped, and so did the engine. The car was still rolling as she was going down the bridge.
“What the…?”
Lily shrieked and steered the car onto the side of the road, then hit the brakes. The car came to a full stop, and she panted agitatedly while the other vehicles were rushing past her, going so fast it shook her vehicle.
She tried to start it again, but nothing happened. It was completely dead.
“Oh, no,” she complained. “Not again. Please, start. I have to be at work in a few minutes, please?”
But the car remained lifeless. Lily groaned and leaned back in the seat, placing two hands in front of her face, screaming into them. It was the third time this month she’d be late for her job at the café, and they’d most certainly fire her. She couldn’t catch a break, could she?
“Argh!” she moaned into the car when suddenly another car drove up behind her and stopped. Lily peeked at it in the rearview mirror, surprised at this. Had someone actually stopped to help her? Could she be that lucky? If this person had jumper cables, they might be able to revive her battery, and she would only be a little late for work. Maybe her boss, Shana, could forgive her for being a bit late if Lily told her what happened.
She opened the door and got out. She felt so uplifted and hopeful that she couldn’t stop smiling. Not until a second later, at least, when she looked into the eyes of the person that had stopped.
Then, everything inside her froze to ice.
Chapter 35
THEN:
“There are some men here to talk to you.”
Lynn looked up from her papers when her secretary peeked into her office. Lynn took off her glasses as two men came up behind the secretary. It was Monday, and Lynn didn’t see patients on Mondays. This was the day for paperwork, and she was lagging terribly behind.
“What is it regarding?”
“It’s the…police,” her secretary said, whispering the last word. “Detectives.”
The two men came inside, and Lynn looked at them as they sat down. They presented themselves as Detective Fraser and Detective Harder.
“How can I help you, Detectives?” Lynn asked, puzzled.
“You have a patient that we have taken some interest in,” Detective Harder said.
Lynn wrinkled her nose. This was unusual. “Okay?”
“A Jeffrey Johnson.”
“I can’t disclose whether or not he is a patient here. You know that.”
They exchanged a look briefly before Detective Fraser continued. “We know that. But we are a little desperate here.”
“Can you tell me what this is regarding?”
“His girlfriend—or rather ex-girlfriend—has been missing for quite some time now,” Harder said and showed Lynn a picture of Joanna Harry, the woman Jeff had been with when he came to Lynn in the first place when they came in for couple’s therapy.
“Do you know her?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Of course not. But, as I said, she has been missing for six months now, and we are frankly a little desperate to get her back.”
“And how do you figure I can help?”
They exchanged another look, then Fraser said, “We know it’s a little unorthodox, but we fear he might have hurt her, and well, we thought that maybe you could get him to talk about her.”
“Why don’t you ask him yourselves?”
“We did, but he refuses to say anything about her whereabouts. We think he’s lying, naturally.”
“I think if someone tells you he didn’t harm her, then chances are, he didn’t,” Lynn said. “Innocent till proven otherwise.”