Julian chimed in as he pulled into the driveway of the Greer mansion. “For God’s sake, what for? I’m sure she’s fine.”
Beth stared at the back of his head. There was something about the confident tone of his voice—for a second, she was certain that Julian knew where Lily was, even if Mariana didn’t. Lily was Julian’s enemy, and Julian was far from stupid. He wouldn’t let Lily drop out of his sight.
Even so, he didn’t get it. Julian had thought Lily would ask for money or something. But no one knew how David the groundskeeper had gone over the edge or what had happened to the foster family that gave her bruises. Lily was an adult now, wandering somewhere alone. She looked like a pretty blond eighteen-year-old, but she was actually a loaded gun. No one understood that except Beth.
Everyone assumed Lily was just another girl who would disappear into obscurity.
Why don’t you ever hear of a woman in a clock tower?
No one would ever think it was possible. Beth herself hadn’t thought it possible—she hadn’t wanted to. But really she knew.
She’d send a letter. She didn’t need her parents for that. Late that night, when they were asleep, Beth went into her father’s study and rifled through his desk. She found a piece of paper in his handwriting with Lily’s address on it, a house in Portland that was likely a boardinghouse, because her hunch had been right—Julian did know where Lily was.
Beth wrote Lily a letter in her neat, well-schooled handwriting, a letter that was full of panicked pleas:
I wanted you here this Christmas. It wasn’t my idea not to invite you. They made me go to a party and meet a man named Gray, because everything you said is true. Help me. Write me and I’ll find a way to give you money. I’ll do anything. Just please write me, and come visit, and don’t do anything stupid. Please, please.
She mailed the letter and waited. She never got a reply. But she never got the letter back, either, so she knew it had been delivered.
Maybe Lily didn’t write because she was angry. Maybe she wasn’t talking to Beth anymore. Maybe she was finished with the Greers and starting a new life.
Or maybe everything Beth wrote in her letter, Lily already knew.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
October 2017
SHEA
“Stop,” I said. “Stop.”
Beth stopped talking, and silence fell. We were in the living room of the Greer mansion, surrounded by its musty vintage furniture. Outside the curtains, darkness had fallen. The dinner hour was long over, but neither of us had eaten. Beth had been talking for hours.
The house was still, as if the entire place was listening to Beth. There was no movement past the curtains on the lawn outside. The ceramic mermaid and shepherdess sat unseeing on the shelf behind the sofa, their glassy eyes blank. On the coffee table next to Beth’s elbow was a glass ashtray the size of a baby’s head. I hadn’t noticed it before. It likely hadn’t been used in decades, and yet it was still there, gleaming in the dim light.
“Yes, Shea?” Beth said. “Did you get all of that?”
I grabbed my phone, which was still recording, and jabbed it with my thumb. Then I picked up my papers, though I knew all of the dates by heart. “You’re talking about Christmas 1970,” I said. “Your father died in March 1973.”
Beth’s face was still, pale and beautiful. “Yes,” she said softly.
“What happened in those two years? Where was Lily?”
“Seattle for a while,” Beth said. “Salt Lake City. There were a few months in San Francisco, then Arizona. Those are the places I know of because those are the places I sent money when she eventually wrote me and asked.”
“You sent her money?”