“She has an aneurysm,” I said. I could lose my job for telling him, but I didn’t care anymore. “It’s dangerous, and it’s inoperable. If it bursts, she dies. She could die tomorrow, or she could live another decade. There’s no way to know.”
“My God. So that’s part of the reason she decided to talk now.”
“But not why she chose me.” I stared out the window of the bus as Claire Lake went by. “I still don’t know why she chose me. I’ll be fine, Michael. I’ll call you when I’m out of there.”
I didn’t give him a chance to answer. I hung up the phone, turned it off, and watched Claire Lake recede beneath me as the bus climbed to Arlen Heights.
CHAPTER FORTY
October 1977
BETH
She was looking for Lily.
It wasn’t the first time. Over the years, during the periods Lily had vanished, Beth had sometimes hired a private detective to look for her. She’d paid out of the money left to her after Julian died. But it was always fruitless, because when Lily wanted to vanish, she’d simply vanished.
Still, Beth had looked. When Lily vanished again after Mariana died, she’d looked. And when she felt that her sister was close—with the same dreamlike certainty she’d had years ago, looking at Lily’s footprints in the dewy grass—she’d even get in her car and drive around Claire Lake, wondering if she’d see Lily at the next stoplight, around the next corner.
Lily was close now. Beth could feel it, but that wasn’t why she was driving tonight. She was driving because Lily had killed a man.
He’d been left on the side of the road. Shot in the face, like Julian. But this man wasn’t someone Lily knew. She’d chosen someone random, and she’d left a note: Am I bitter or am I sweet? Ladies can be either.
Lily had gone into her clock tower at last.
Beth had gotten a phone call four months ago, after Lily had been gone for well over a year. I’m in a hospital, Lily had said, the line crackling. They don’t know my real name. I don’t have any identification. I want to get out of here, Beth. I need you to come and get me. Please. Please.
Was it the truth? There was always that question with Lily, but Beth hadn’t cared. She’d felt numb at the sound of Lily’s voice, followed by scathing relief that wherever Lily was, she might be locked up in a hospital. Thank God someone is looking after her so I don’t have to, Beth had thought. Someone is keeping her from hurting people.
It could have been a lie to get Beth’s sympathy and, more importantly, her money, but something in Lily’s voice told Beth it might not be. For the first time in Beth’s life, Lily actually sounded worried about something. In fact, by the end of the call, as she heard the hopelessness in Beth’s voice, she’d begged.
Get me out of here. Please, Beth. Please.
* * *
—
Beth drove downtown. Lily wouldn’t have much money, so she would have to find a cheap room to rent. Beth started with Claire Lake’s cheapest motels, then the YWCA. Have you seen this woman? She used one of the only photos she had of Lily, from their last Christmas together. It was ridiculously out-of-date, but Lily hated to have her picture taken, and Beth didn’t have anything more recent.
Lily Knowles? she asked at place after place. Veronica Jenshak? Amy McMaster? She tried the aliases she knew, but no one recognized them, or the photo.
So Beth got back into her father’s Buick and thought again. Lily was here; she was sure of it. She also knew that Lily expected Beth to be looking for her. The note left with that man’s body had been so clear. Lily wanted Beth to panic, to find her, to stop her. To Lily, it was a game.
Get me out of here. Please, Beth. Please, Lily had said in that phone call four months ago.