where would he go? I have to find him. I need to know he’s okay. I was already worried about him. Even before last night, he was acting strange, like he had a secret.” Dread crawls up my spine. “You don’t think he’s with another woman, do you?”
He vehemently shakes his head. “No fucking way.”
“Then where could he be?”
He takes me to Liam’s room. “I get what you’re saying about him having a secret—I mean more than the regular shit he keeps from everyone. He’s gotten a lot of mail lately. Maybe we can find something that will give us a clue.” We stand in Liam’s room. “You check over there, I’ll start here.”
I hesitate before opening his nightstand. “This feels like such a violation.”
“He’s missing, Ella. After a traumatic experience, no less. If I’d known he wasn’t with you, I’d have done this last night.”
I open the top drawer. There’s about a hundred guitar picks in it, along with two unopened packages of condoms and several pages of sheet music in various stages of completion. My heart stops when I see the title on one page: “Ella’s Song.”
“Anything?” I ask Crew as he riffles through the dresser.
“No.”
In the bottom drawer are a few envelopes. I open one and pull out the papers. They are legal documents. It’s a final settlement statement from a title corporation. Next to the property address, it lists Liam Campbell as the buyer. It’s dated last week. I show it to Crew. “I think he might have bought a house or something.”
He races around the bed, takes it from me, reads it, and sighs.
“What is it?” I ask.
“He bought a house, all right. It’s his childhood home. The one where he lived before he moved in with Dirk.”
“The one where …?” I sit on his bed. “Why would he do that?”
Crew sits next to me. “He once told me he wanted to burn it to the ground.”
I look at him, terrified. “Do you think he would?”
“Honestly? Yes.”
I hop up. “I have to go there.”
“I’ll drive you. I know where it is. I lived a few doors down from him.”
Along the way, I keep trying to call Liam, but he must have turned off his phone. “What if we’re too late?”
“Let’s hope we’re not.”
“Do you think he knows he can get arrested for burning it down, even if he owns it?”
“At this point, he might not care.”
“Was last night the first time he’s seen Don since Luke died?”
“Yes.”
I swallow tears. “What that must have done to Liam, seeing him after all this time.”
“I’m sorry I held you back last night, but Liam needed to do that. It was the only time he had the upper hand with that man.”
“But it wasn’t enough. He’d have come home if it was.”
Crew glances at me. I’ve never seen him look so scared.
An hour later, we pull into a neighborhood, and I look at the sky. “Well, there’s no smoke. That has to be a good sign.”
He turns down a street. I immediately see the old Nissan parked in front of a brown house. Crew parks behind it. He starts to get out, but I stop him.
“Crew, will you do something for me?”
“You don’t want me to go inside with you? What if he—”
My heart gets stuck in my throat thinking of the implication, then I see movement on the front porch. Jean-clad legs stick out from behind a trellis. I recognize the shoes. “Look.” I point.
Crew lets out a relieved breath.
“He’s alive, and the house isn’t burning. I have an idea. Can you make a trip to the store?”
“What do you need?”
I tell him and exit the car, then go slowly up the walk. When I get closer, I see a can of gas sitting next to his legs. I climb the steps and round the corner. Liam’s perched against the wall, sleeping, an empty bottle of whiskey on the floor a foot away.
I touch his shoulder. “Liam?”
He jerks awake. “El?”
I sit on the porch next to him, not caring how much dirt will get on my clothes. “I told you I’d always find you.” I carefully touch his split lip. “You’re injured.”
His eyes close. “It’s not the worst thing he’s ever done to me.”
My throat becomes thick with tears, but I swallow them, not wanting him to think I feel sorry for him.
“It was him last night.”
“I know.”
“How did you know where I was?”
“When you didn’t come home, we got worried. We found the closing documents in your