At the Quiet Edge(59)

She shook her head in weary exasperation. He wasn’t here looking for that missing girl. “Did anyone really see my ex-husband in town? Honestly?”

“All I said was someone called in a prowler. You’re the one confirming it was Jones.”

“I’m not confirming anything. I don’t know anything. Have you . . . ?” God, she didn’t want to ask him for even one thing, but she needed to know. “Have you heard more about Jones? Do you really think he was here?”

His eyes narrowed. He stared at her for a long moment. “Seems unwise to fill you in, doesn’t it?”

Lily wanted to scream. She needed to know if Jones was back in Kansas.

But she couldn’t trust this man. He thought she was running a human smuggling ring or something, so he could be making the whole thing up just to put pressure on her, have an excuse to hassle her and spy on her at night.

“I’m going inside,” she said tiredly.

“Good night, Mrs. Arthur. I’ll see you again soon.”

She moved back to her dark corner, then turned to watch Mendelson leave. He walked across the road to the parking area in front of the plumbing shop. His spotlight blazed for another two minutes before he finally switched it off, revealing the dark silhouette of his sedan.

When he pulled away, she let her head fall back against the rough brick, closing her eyes and trying to pull the peaceful night back around her. It didn’t work. A girl had gone missing, perhaps really missing this time, and now Lily felt eyes on her in the dark.

Shivering, she pushed off the wall and headed back into the high walls and shuddering metal of the buildings to close everything up. She refused to give in to the paranoia that crawled over her skin and look behind her for shadows in the night. The fence rattled somewhere. Something scurried up ahead. But she was so tired of being a coward, so Lily walked on.

She pulled the door down with a clatter that echoed like thunder through the empty complex. Feeling vulnerable with her back to all the lurking shadows, she quickly snapped on the lock. Despite her nerves, she felt grateful. Grateful that Connie had gotten free, and grateful that her last promise to Zoey was fulfilled.

Zoey was amazing, but she made Lily feel too small in comparison. She’d tell her tomorrow that she couldn’t help anymore. The idea made her sad, because Lily knew that without this thing connecting them, it would be too easy for her to withdraw and hide out here, keep invisible at the edge of town.

She bent to grab her darkened lantern, and that was when she heard it. The worst sound she could imagine: the terrifying, wavering scream of her son.

“Mom!” he shrieked, his scraping, straining voice barely reaching her past the metal and cement of the buildings.

She dropped the lantern and leaned into a sprint. “Everett!” she cried out.

“Mom!” he yelled again. “Mom!”

“I’m coming!” she cried, the syllables bursting from her like blows as her feet hit the ground. “Everett! I’m coming!”

If he screamed again, she couldn’t hear it over her pounding feet and galloping heart, but she made it past the corner faster than she could’ve imagined and bent a wide arc toward his voice. She thought of the missing girl. Of Jones. Of Connie’s cruel husband. Even of Detective Mendelson.

A sob wrenched from her when she saw him standing on the wet cement of their front walk, barefoot and shivering.

He cried out one more time when he saw her, and then she was barreling into him, snatching him up into her arms to squeeze him to her.

“Everett, what’s wrong? What happened?” He clung hard as she twisted in a circle, looking for threats, covering his head with one hand as if to ward off blows.

“I thought he took you!” he rasped.

“What? Who?”

“I thought you were in the office, and I couldn’t find you. I thought he took you, and I’d never see you again.”

“Oh, honey,” she gasped. “Oh, baby, I’m fine. I was just checking on something. Everything’s okay. I’m right here.”

He quieted then, only his gasping, tortured breath breaking the silence of the night. She pressed her chin to the top of his head as she hugged him closer, breathing in the scent of the new shampoo he’d recently started buying, infused with manly smells like sandalwood and cedar instead of the softer scent of strawberry.

“It was only that police officer again,” she whispered. “That’s all.”

He grew heavy in her arms as her terror wore off, but she shifted her weight, trying to balance her strength so she wouldn’t have to let him go, until he took one more shuddering breath and straightened his body to slide free of her.

“Why was he here?” he whispered. “Is he here for Dad?”

Fucking Mendelson. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go in before you catch cold.”

She ushered him inside to the couch and tucked the throw tight around his pale skin. “You want some milk?” When he nodded, she went to pour milk into a mug, then warmed it in the microwave before adding a little sugar and vanilla. His hands were still shaking when she delivered the treat, but his cheeks grew pinker when he caught the scent. “Thanks, Mom.”

All of this bullshit with Mendelson and Jones seemed to have tapped into the same overwhelming fears he’d felt as a little boy. She scooted in next to him on the couch and snuggled close. “Your dad isn’t coming to take me away, Everett. No one is.”