The elevator doors slide open, people pile in, and Lucas keeps his head ducked. He’s the last one to step inside. He turns his back to the elevator interior, faces the lobby, and waits with everyone for the doors to slide closed. The bell dings.
“Four, please,” someone behind him asks. Lucas pushes the button.
“Fifteen,” says another.
“Ten,” says Dwight, and Lucas slowly smiles. He obligingly pushes the button.
CHAPTER 25
Josh is in her studio, hunched over his panels, when Olivia arrives home. Only a few blank templates remain, he filled up most of them. His attention to detail is exquisite. It reminds her of his mom. Olivia would come home late from her dates with Ethan to find Lily awake, doodling with her colored pens. She was always creating a new comic. Furry little animals with big eyes and cute tails that made her and Lucas laugh. Cats, squirrels, raccoons. You name it, she drew it. Olivia would linger in Lily’s doorway. Deep in the zone, Lily never knew she was there, how Olivia debated asking why they weren’t as close as they used to be. Had Olivia done something to drive a wedge between them? She wishes she’d asked, but was too afraid she’d realize the fault was her own.
Olivia flips the corners of Josh’s panels like pages in a book. Her thumbnail snags on a panel. She slides it from the stack. It’s a profile of a woman with bright red hair and a young boy in a car. Huddled off to the side is a group of women. They watch the woman and boy. “Is this you and your mom?”
Josh lifts his head from his work. He wiggles a pencil between his fingers. “Yes.”
Olivia studies Lily’s profile. It’s only a drawing, but strange nonetheless to see a more current rendering of her sister. She’s beautiful in Josh’s eyes. But she’s also angry. Her brows dip low. There’s a crease between them. Josh stares out the window, scowling like the teenager he is.
“Where are you here? What’s happening?”
Josh points at the building he drew. It looks like a gymnasium. He gestures at his desk. “Like this.”
Olivia tilts her head. Gym. Desk. “Is this your school?” She takes a guess and he nods. “Is your mom dropping you off?” He nods again. “Why’s she angry?”
He thumbs his chest. “At me.” His gaze drops to the desk. “Forgot stuff. Didn’t hear . . . listen. Started.” He waves his arm around the room.
“Are you saying this is when everything started?”
He shakes his head. “I . . . started it.”
“Josh. Hey.” She crouches beside him. “Look at me. This isn’t your fault.”
He shrugs listlessly.
She touches his arm, wishing she could come up with a stronger argument so he didn’t blame himself. But she doesn’t know how he and Lily separated and why it happened in the first place.
“Everything will work out. You’ll see.”
Josh shrugs again and goes back to his drawing.
Olivia pushes to her feet. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
Amber’s at the table dipping carrots in hummus. A book is open on her lap. She drags her feet off the chair she was using as a footrest and sits up when Olivia enters the kitchen. “How’d it go?”
Olivia digs out her prize and plunks the Rolodex on the table. “I stole it from my dad’s office.”
Amber snorts. “That was productive.” She flicks through the cards. “Man, I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
“My mom came back. I didn’t have a chance to get anything I wanted.” She thinks of the empty thumb drive in the side pocket of her purse.
“I can’t believe you’ve gone all Charlie’s Angel on your dad.” Amber frowns. Olivia told her earlier what she was after at her parents’ house. “I don’t see Lily in the Cs or Ls.”
Olivia isn’t surprised. She grabs a flavored S. Pellegrino from the fridge and pops the top. “I think she changed her name,” she says, sitting beside Amber. She sips the spring water. “Josh has tried to tell me, but so far, no luck.”
“You’ve got a lot of calls ahead of you if you plan on reaching out to everyone in here.”
“Just the women in the San Diego area, if there are any.” She rotates the Rolodex. Most cards are female. Olivia recognizes many as Dwight’s clients or people he met campaigning, names Olivia has heard over the years.
Amber leans back and nibbles a carrot. “What does Daddio want with Lily?”
“Ding-ding-ding. That’s the question of the day.” Charlotte never really told her.
“Maybe he wanted to let her know she’s welcome back home.”
“Then why is Josh afraid of him?” Before she left for Charlotte’s she told Amber about yesterday’s visit with her mom and why she needed to go back.
“Good question.” Amber drags a carrot through the hummus. “What are you going to do if you can’t find Lily?”
“I will find her,” Olivia says, adamant. The other possibility is too disastrous to consider.
“But if you don’t. What if she’s dead?”
“She’s not dead.” She slaps a hand on the table. Lily is not allowed to die before Olivia has the chance to make up for being a sad excuse of a big sister. If it’s the last thing she does, she will reunite Josh and Lily. She owes her sister after turning her back on her before. She catches Amber’s wide-eyed expression. “Sorry.”
Olivia leans on the table and presses the cool can to her cheek. She thinks of the power of attorney document on her desk and her mood turns somber.
“What is it?” Amber asks quietly and her mouth turns downward, reading Olivia’s conflicting emotions. “You’re afraid.”
Olivia rolls her lips over her teeth and nods.
“What are you more afraid of, not finding Lily or getting attached to Josh?”
She scoffs. Amber cocks her head. Olivia sighs. “Both.” Josh will think she betrayed him if she can’t follow through on her promise. And if she can’t find Lily? It will be like losing her all over again. Only this time she cares, and it’ll hurt that much more.
Olivia puts the Rolodex back in her purse and notices an old iPhone at the other end of the table. “Whose is that?”
“Mine, an old one. Mike ran into his speech pathologist friend at the hospital and got some app recommendations. I downloaded them.”
“Great.” She perks up with interest. She’d been waiting for Mike to text her the pathologist’s number. Now Josh can work on his speech. If he makes some immediate progress, he can explain more about what happened to Lily. She picks up the phone and the screen awakens with a photo of Josh smirking. Amber took the picture in Olivia’s backyard. She can see the pergola Blaze built behind him. His expression is corny and she chuckles.
“It doesn’t have cell service. I tapped into your Wi-Fi.”
Olivia returns the phone and searches the kitchen, unsure if she’s hungry, or even motivated to fix a sandwich. A bouquet of peonies she didn’t notice before brightens her kitchen island.
“Did you bring those?”
“Blaze. He scared the shit out of us. We were out back and I couldn’t tell it was him in the kitchen.”