At the Quiet Edge(43)

“Maybe I can send you a new one.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Do you have a special girlfriend?”

He frowned hard at that. “No.” An engine started somewhere outside, and he jerked in shock before racing to the living room to look out the window. He heard voices somewhere around the corner. “I think my mom’s coming back,” he said, nearly panting the words.

“Okay, all right, it’s fine. Just give me your cellphone number, and I’ll call again.”

“I don’t have one.” Now he really was crying, afraid this was their last chance and they’d only talked about the dumbest stuff like school and sports and girls, of all things. “But I want to talk to you, Dad! Can you use Discord? It’s an app. We can text there. We can even do calls on it. I can—”

“I can get Discord,” his dad said quickly. “Absolutely.”

Everett gave him his username, then repeated it, just in case. “You promise?” he asked. “You’ll find me there?”

“Absolutely, little man. I won’t let you down.”

When he heard his mom’s voice outside the window, talking to someone just before the gate squeaked open, Everett couldn’t catch his breath. “She’s here,” he whispered.

“Okay, we’ll talk soon. Bye, Son.”

“Goodbye,” he stammered. “Bye, Dad.” He didn’t want to put the phone down, and he held it to his ear even as he heard the office door open. He held it there until it made a strange sound before going quiet. Then he finally sprinted to his mom’s room to put the phone back on its charger.

After tumbling back out to the living room to close all his windows and wipe his search history, Everett retreated to his bedroom, closing the door tight behind him.

His stomach ached. His throat burned. Because now he had more secrets. Bigger ones. And he couldn’t tell anyone, not even Josephine.

He changed his mind at the last moment and jumped from his bedroom to the bathroom just as he heard the knob on the apartment door turning.

Everett turned on the shower, sat down on the toilet, and cried. But they were happy tears. Mostly.





CHAPTER 15


Lily scowled at the missed call from Detective Mendelson. It was Saturday, her busiest day of the week, and she could not deal with his bullshit right now. Every time a car approached, her head jerked up to see if he was back. The audit was enough for her to worry about. One damn crisis at a time.

Not that the audit had gone badly. It had gone fine. She and Gretchen had even clicked a little, she thought. Or maybe Gretchen was extra nice to people who might be losing their job.

At least Everett had finally had a peaceful night, though Lily hadn’t. This time, she’d woken up at 2:00 a.m., sure she’d heard a sound outside her window. It had probably only been the cat. Or possibly the family of raccoons she’d spotted just that morning on camera.

But she’d been too busy to be tired today. There’d been four new renters and almost that many moving out. Summer season had arrived early this year.

She glanced at the clock. “Five thirty!” she called out to Everett. “Are you ready? Barbara will be here to pick you up any minute.”

“I know! Josephine messaged me on Discord.”

Lily rolled her eyes, realizing she’d lost that battle by declining to fight it. Oh well. At least Everett had been in a great mood today. His hormones were surging in the right direction for once.

“She’s here!” Everett called as he hurried out of the apartment and raced for the outer door. “See you later!”

Lily’s hormones were not surging in the right direction. Once Everett left to get burgers and shakes with Josephine and her mom, she felt strangely unmoored, wandering around the apartment, touching a book, straightening a lampshade. She was wound tight and aching with tension, and she was still obsessing about that damn audit.

Gretchen had assured her it was routine, but they’d never audited her before. If she was in trouble, if they’d noticed the discrepancies in her security feed . . .

But they weren’t tech wizards or hackers, and Gretchen hadn’t even checked any video files. Why would she? Nothing was missing and her books were in order. Beautifully in order. Facing even one tiny financial error felt like risking a scarlet letter in this town, so Lily triple-checked her numbers every month.

Still, this all felt too coincidental, and she was half-convinced Detective Mendelson had alerted the company to Lily’s past, the part that wasn’t included in the credit file, like the extent of her ex’s theft and all the terrible things they suspected of her.

“Stop it,” she muttered to herself as she refolded the moss-green throw blanket and arranged it more neatly on the couch. She was used to being alone here during the day, but it felt odd in the evening as chatter and noise from the business park tapered into silence.

Lily glanced at the clock. It was six now. She was free. Barbara had told her to enjoy her night off, and Lily had played along, as if she might do something fun. Now she felt pitiful because she had no idea what to do with a night off. If she stayed home and sat at her table alone with a tuna sandwich, she wouldn’t even be able to deny to herself that she’d turned into a hermit.

Mouth set in a grim line, Lily grabbed her car keys and decided to run a couple of errands to fill the time. Still, setting off toward town didn’t feel relaxing. That wordless encounter with Cheyenne at the café replayed in her mind as she drove toward Main, watching for any familiar, unfriendly faces.