Chapter 3: What Lily Saw
"She gave Mom something to drink," Lily whispered.
"And then Mom fell down.
And Grandma called someone on the phone.
And she was crying but not sad crying.
She was scared crying."
I stood up.
My mother had the phone pressed to her ear.
She had turned half away from me, one hand braced against the door frame.
"Put the phone down," I said.
She didn't.
"Mom." My voice came out low and flat in a way I didn't recognize.
"Put it down.
Now."
She lowered it slowly.
Her thumb moved across the screen before she turned back to face me.
"I was calling your uncle," she said.
"He was going to come help look for Sarah."
"You just told me Sarah left on her own."
She blinked.
"I meant — in case she needed someone to talk to."
"Which uncle?"
A pause that lasted one second too long.
"Raymond."
I hadn't spoken to Raymond in four years.
Neither had she.
I took a step toward her.
"What did you give Sarah?"
"I didn't give her anything.
I made her tea.
She wasn't feeling well this morning."
"What was in the tea?"
"Nothing.
Tea.
I'm not going to stand here and be interrogated by my own son."
She moved to go inside.
I put my hand flat against the door.
"You're not going anywhere until you tell me where she is."
Her eyes went to Lily again.
That same look — not anger, not guilt.
Calculation.
"Lily is cold," she said.
"She needs to come inside."
"Lily is fine where she is." I turned to my daughter.
"Sweetheart, go sit in the car.
The keys are in my coat pocket.
Turn the heat on."
Lily looked at my mother once.
Then she slipped past us both and ran around the side of the house without a word.
My mother watched her go.
"She's going to say all kinds of things," she said quietly.
"Children that age, they misinterpret.
They get frightened and they fill in the gaps with whatever their imagination—"
"Sarah's phone."
She stopped.
"I'm going to call Sarah's phone right now," I said.
"If she packed a bag and walked out, she'll answer."
I pulled out my own phone.
Dialed.
Put it on speaker.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Then a sound from inside the house.
Faint.
Muffled.
The specific vibration pattern of Sarah's ringtone — the one she'd set herself, the one I'd teased her about for two years.
Coming from somewhere inside.
My mother's face didn't move.
"Her phone is in the house," I said.
"She must have forgotten it."
"Sarah doesn't forget her phone."
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"People do things they don't normally do when they're upset."
I pushed the door open and walked past her.
