But no. She couldn’t afford these kinds of sparks. Not with him or anyone else. She needed to stay focused on the real world.
Christ, she hated the real world.
She hated Jones, and Mendelson, and her life. Her apartment, her bills, her schoolwork, and she even hated Zoey a little for goading Lily to do things she wasn’t brave enough to do. And Everett . . .
She didn’t hate Everett, but she hated this new worry she had, that her son was more troubled than she’d imagined. More like his dad.
Alex was still watching her, and there was a tension to him today, just beneath the surface, as if he were holding back some intensity she could feel but not see.
Frightened by the sharp response it brought to life deep in her belly, she forced herself to step toward the opening and away from him.
“I’d better get back,” she said, though she managed a smile.
“Oh.” He blinked like she’d surprised him. “Sure. Of course.”
When her phone vibrated, she reached quickly into her pocket. A new email from Gretchen. She’d be there at 3:00.
“Bad news?” Alex asked.
“Just a work thing,” she explained without spilling that there’d been an audit and now a supervisor was returning abruptly for an ominous kind of meeting that no one at corporate had ever requested before. “I need to respond to it. See you later?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
Lily hurried through the complex, managing a wave for a customer who drove by, though she couldn’t quite return the woman’s smile as she raced back to the office.
Everything in her paperwork was correct, legitimate, and clean. It was only guilt making her panic. She rushed into her office and immediately reviewed the tapes from the night before, though she didn’t have the guts to erase them.
What if Mendelson had decided to add a little more pressure by calling her boss about Connie’s late visit? What if Gretchen wanted to review that footage? Or all her footage?
Or what if . . . what if a client had seen Everett breaking into a locker and complained?
The recordings were stored for two full weeks, and with nine camera angles, she couldn’t possibly work all the way through them. But she knew where to look, at least.
Pulse fluttering, she called up the records for the camera closest to Alex’s unit, the one that currently showed his SUV parked there but didn’t quite reach to his doorway. She raced backward at the fastest speed, keeping an eye on the clock for the hours when Everett was home and awake.
Her tension began to ebb as she reversed through hours and then days and found no sign of her son even approaching the Bennick unit. Sunday, Saturday, Friday, and the only person she saw was Alex. And herself. She resisted the urge to slow down and watch those interactions.
But on Thursday, something moved, and she slammed the button to stop the feed. Then she backed up, slowed down, and watched. Everett was good, but he didn’t stay quite off camera. She caught the corner of his movements and saw him disappear from the feed right where Alex’s unit sat. Josephine followed him. They both reappeared minutes later, hurrying away.
Stomach twisting with the sickness of heartache, Lily backed up again and traced the hours into the past. There he was again, her son, by himself this time, glancing over his shoulder to see that he wasn’t being watched.
This time she knew what to expect. Everett disappeared, and even though it had happened days before and he was safely away from the property, Lily felt an urgent need to race outside and save him from his own actions. She eyed the timestamp until he reappeared, looking back over his shoulder. Five minutes. Five minutes of him disappearing right where Alex’s locker slipped off the screen. And this time he held something in his hand.
She shoved away from the desk, her chair flying into the metal cabinets behind her with a rattling explosion that ratcheted up her pulse again. She unlocked the apartment and ran to Everett’s room, a terrible anxiety burning up from her throat as if she might be able to breathe fire.
She dug through his dresser first, though that was pointless. She was the one who did his laundry, who folded it and put it away. She slammed the drawers closed, fabric now sticking wildly out of all of them, then pulled open his ancient nightstand, scarred by the stickers he’d applied at age six. There she found pens, notepads, dead batteries, and one pocketknife. A very nice pocketknife she hadn’t bought for him.
Still, maybe Mikey had given it to him. Lily would never have allowed it, and they would have known that. She cradled the heavy weight in her hand for a moment, then put it back.