into the slot. He ducks into his room as the woman in the room across leaves hers. Talk about shitty timing. She smiles at Lucas. He averts his face and keeps walking, right past Dwight’s room and straight to the stairwell. The metal door bangs open and slams shut behind him. He got what he needed, for now. Dwight’s room number. He’ll come back tonight. Might as well let the old man enjoy one more evening at the bar because he won’t want to show his face at home when Lucas is done with him.
CHAPTER 28
Day 6
Olivia’s phone vibrates on her nightstand, drawing her from the cold, windy shore of her nightmare. The surf still rages in her ears. She wipes her damp hair off her forehead and reaches for the phone.
“Hello?” she croaks, her head foggy. Her dream still lingers in the recesses of her mind like a reluctant child who won’t leave the room.
“Got your call.”
“Lucas?” She glances at the clock, miffed she slept through her alarm again. It’s just after nine. She’d wanted to be on the road by now. Swinging her legs off the bed, she sits up. “Where are you?” Her irritation works its way into her tone. She’s still upset he bailed on shopping the other day. He hasn’t returned her calls either.
“On a job,” Lucas says after a beat. His voice lacks inflection. She can’t tell if he’s tired, down on himself, or flat-out doesn’t care, as if calling her is an inconvenience. Knowing Lucas, it’s the latter.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He doesn’t sound certain to her. “Oceanside, eh?”
Last night, Josh couldn’t sleep and found her in the kitchen. She’d asked if he lived in Oceanside. Bleary-eyed, he’d nodded. But he doesn’t believe Lily would have returned home. When Olivia asked why, he tried to explain, only to get flustered when he spoke gibberish. But the one thing she did understand was that he and Lily didn’t have a choice. They had to leave home.
She still asked him to draw what happened so she’d have a clearer picture. Josh took her to the studio and showed her one of the panels, five rectangles stacked like books. A series of illustrations depicting a lone woman on a barren highway except for one oncoming car. In one rectangle the car clips the woman. In the last rectangle, Josh drew the car’s taillights. The woman, though, is gone.
“Is this your mom?” she asked, horrified. He nodded. “Was she hit by a car?” She could be seriously injured.
“Don’t know.”
“Did you see her get hit?”
He shook his head and touched his ear. “Heard,” he said after a brief struggle to get out the word.
“You heard it happen?”
He nodded.
“Josh, my god.” She grabbed his arm. “Where did she go?”
His lower lip quivered. “Gone.”
“Did the driver take her away?” An even more horrifying thought than Lily being hit.
“Don’t know.”
“Did you look for her?”
He nodded. “Gone.”
“Josh.” Her features softened, and she touched his shoulder, her heart breaking for him. That’s what he meant the day he arrived. He didn’t know where she went, or if she was alive. She was just gone when he went back to the scene. Where’d he been? What had he been doing? That wasn’t clear in his drawings. But it was apparent someone was after them. They were being followed.
Lily could have been abducted, or the driver could have taken her to the hospital. Dazed, Lily could have returned to her car and driven away without Josh. Any number of scenarios could have occurred.
She took a deep breath. Okay, they’d figure this out. She leveled with him. “We’re going to find her.”
Which is why they’re driving to Oceanside. Puzzles aren’t easy to solve, even harder when the pieces are missing. But Olivia doesn’t believe like Josh does that Lily wouldn’t have returned home after she and Josh separated, assuming she was physically capable of getting back. But someone, a neighbor perhaps, is bound to have seen Lily before they left. Someone has to know where they were going. If they can get into the house, there might be clues. And the more information she can bring back to the police, the more details she can add to Lily’s missing persons report. They’ll find Lily that much sooner.
“I want to talk to her neighbors,” she says to Lucas. “Josh might be able to get us into the house.” There isn’t a house key in his backpack, not that she saw the other night. She goes