At the Quiet Edge(28)

“Oh.” But she had already craned her neck around to look behind them, and of course, Cheyenne glanced toward their table at exactly that moment.

Lily forced herself to hold still until Cheyenne was the one who turned away, her mouth twisting a little in distaste. She couldn’t bear to look at Lily for very long.

They’d never had a heart-to-heart, so Lily couldn’t be sure, but she’d put together bits and pieces over the years. Apparently Cheyenne hadn’t known that Lily’s father was married when they’d first met. Lily suspected she didn’t like the blatant reminder of her transgressions. Because at some point she’d known and hadn’t cared, and she’d somehow failed to ever mention to her own children that they had a half sister somewhere.

Lily had assumed her stepmother’s cold shoulder at the funeral had been the result of grief. She’d been wrong. The cold shoulder was a permanent accessory.

“Sorry,” Zoey whispered from her newly scrunched position in her seat. “Is she still looking?”

Lily waved a dismissive hand as Cheyenne and the woman she was having lunch with gathered up their shopping bags and stood to leave. “It’s fine. Let her be uncomfortable. I didn’t do anything to her.”

She hadn’t wanted to ask Cheyenne for help. When the bank had repossessed their home, Lily and Everett had even stayed at Zoey’s shelter for one night. After that, they’d stayed at Zoey’s own house for a week until Lily had swallowed her pride and finally contacted her stepmother for help.

Cheyenne had helped. A little. She’d given Lily the site manager job, after all.

Her stepmother didn’t give the impression of being a cruel woman. When she interacted with other people, her face opened with friendliness, and her bob cheerfully bounced with her happy gestures. But it was different with Lily, almost as if she was jealous, and definitely as if she was resentful. Maybe she’d come to Herriman for the perfect life too, and Lily’s existence had ruined it.

“Is she gone?” Lily asked, reluctant to turn toward the parking lot behind her.

“Yeah.”

“You know she only gave me that job because it saved her money?”

“What do you mean?”

“When corporate bought back her location, my pay got bumped up fifteen thousand dollars. And that was only the starting pay for other site managers. So she got me out of sight of the rest of the town and she saved herself over thirty thousand in those first two years.”

“Wow. That’s . . .”

“Yeah. I guess it was her way of shuffling me aside. She tried to get me to apply for a different location after the first year. I should have, but Everett had started second grade, and things had finally settled down for him. I should have just done it. Gotten the hell out of here.” Lily shook her head. “Maybe I had something to prove. To her. To everyone. To my dead father. Jesus, the dysfunction of it all.”

“Well, you proved it, I guess. Literally no one else cares now. Look around. You’re not the town pariah anymore.” She held up her iced tea in a toast. “Congratulations!”

Lily laughed. “I’m living the dream.” Their food arrived, and Lily moved her pickle to Zoey’s plate. She meant to drop the topic. She really did. But doubt gnawed at her. “I didn’t know where else to go, you know? Everett was so traumatized when the bank kicked us out of our house; he said Dad wouldn’t be able to find us when he came back. I thought . . . Well, I was scared to drag Everett out of Herriman just because I wanted to run away.”

Like his dad did, she left off.

“Hey.” Zoey ignored her food to reach out to Lily. She squeezed her hand in a gentle grip. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good.” Lily nodded. “Seriously,” she said when Zoey raised a doubtful brow. She finally eased her hand away to pick up her sandwich. “Just didn’t expect to see her.”

“Well, you seem stressed. And you sounded scared the night you called me. Is everything all right?”

Lily made her voice cheerful. “That was nothing. The woman was terrified, and obviously the circumstances were dire if you sent her to me, and I think I let her fear get to me. That’s all. It sort of oozed out of her pores. Poor thing.”

Zoey nodded. “You know I can’t say anything, but I wouldn’t have asked if . . .”

“I know that.”

“I won’t call again, not for that. Okay?”

Lily bit into her sandwich to avoid having to answer.

A year before, she’d been making her normal tour of the facility when she’d heard a metal door lowering somewhere around the corner. A totally normal occurrence, but she’d rounded the building and seen nothing. No one leaving, no one locking up, and no car pulling away. She’d walked up and down the lane several times before giving up. But it had nagged at her brain until she’d decided to review the security footage. She’d discovered a woman leaving through the front gate in the afternoon and then returning an hour later, not long before Lily had made her rounds.

No matter how closely she watched, Lily couldn’t find any evidence of the woman leaving the grounds again. It seemed as if she was still there.

Lily had tiptoed outside at dusk, and sure enough, she’d spied light coming through a crack beneath one of the rolling doors.