was unsettling how fast John thought of Lily. He lunged and grabbed the guy’s shirt. “What are you talking about?” Eyes wide, the guy jerked his thumb in the direction of Lily’s street. “We—we saw some cop cars in front of a house. A murder, it sounded like. The neighbors said the Cantrells lived there.”
John released him with a shove and started running. He ran as if his life was in danger. He ran faster than he’d ever run in his life.
Heart pumping, John’s legs wobbled every time his feet hit concrete. He pushed himself to go faster, ignoring the terror stiffening his muscles and hitching his breath.
She’s fine. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. She’s fine.
But when he turned the corner to her street, he knew Lily wasn’t fine. Three police cars were parked haphazardly in front of the house. An ambulance. A white van imprinted with the word Coroner in large, block letters. Yellow tape bordered the front walk, keeping out the crowd that had gathered there.
Guilt flooded through him. If he hadn’t messed with her feelings, she wouldn’t have run off. Had he put her in danger? Had she been hurt because of him? John stumbled, moving forward, pushing through the crowd and shouting Lily’s name.
A uniformed cop grabbed at his arm, but he jerked away and dodged around him.
Relief washed over him when he saw her. She was sitting on the front stoop, her eyes dull and vacant, her body painfully frail under an oversize long-sleeved shirt and sweats. “Lily!”
She didn’t look up at his call, but the cop standing next to her did. He rushed forward and planted himself on the sidewalk, blocking John’s view of Lily.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “but you need to leave.”
John craned his neck and caught sight of Lily’s father standing just inside the doorway. Their eyes locked and John instinctively flinched. Fear. Grief. Anguish. There were no words to describe the other man’s torment. Blood stained the foyer’s white walls.
“Lily!” He tried to push past the cop standing in his way only to be shoved back.
“Knock it off, or I’m going to have to take you in.”
Mindless with worry, John tried to dodge to the left, grunting when the cop got him in a choke hold. “Lily,” he gasped, needing to know. “Is she hurt?”
The cop shook John’s head like a maraca. “She’s not hurt. But she’s in shock. Now ease up, man. You are going to back off. Do we understand each other?”
John’s panic subsided just a hair. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Okay.”
Slowly, the cop loosened his grip. “What’s your name?”
“My name is John Tyler. We’re—we’re friends.”
Before the cop could respond, an EMT jostled by them and guided Lily to her feet. He led her down the walkway toward the ambulance, passing within two feet of John.
Lily walked slowly, almost robotically. She stared straight ahead. Didn’t acknowledge him in any way.
All John could think about was her declaration of love and the way he’d thrown it back at her earlier that evening. “Lily,” he murmured.
She stopped.
John held his breath, waiting for her to speak. Scream. Cry. Anything.
Tentatively, he reached out and touched her face, surprised when the cop didn’t stop him.
“Lily. It’s John. Are you okay?”
He saw a flare of recognition in her eyes just before she reached out and slapped him. Staggering back, John felt someone grab his arm to steady him.
Grief flashed in Lily’s eyes. And then there was nothing.
The EMT walked her to the ambulance and helped her in. Her father quickly followed. John watched the ambulance drive away, then collapsed to his knees. In his peripheral vision, he once more saw blood. Then he threw up.
“John!”
John’s head snapped back at the sound of Murdoch’s raised voice.
“Dude, you can’t just drop a bomb like that and not explain. You were there when Tina Cantrell was killed? And her daughter slapped you? Why?”
It was the last thing John wanted to talk about—hell, he’d just mentally relived it and his heart was aching—but Murdoch was working the investigation, too, and he had a right to know.
“Lily, Tina Cantrell’s daughter, and my sister, Carmen, were best friends growing up. The night of the murder was my last night in town. My ex-girlfriend planned a going-away party for me so I canceled dinner plans I’d made with Lily and Carmen weeks before. It hurt Lily. A lot.”
“And she slugged you.”
Yes, but not because of the canceled dinner. Because she’d defied her mother to come to him and he’d pushed her away.
And because she had blamed him.
Some part of her had blamed him for her mother’s death, just like she blamed herself.
“Did Thorn know—”
“He knows my family and Lily’s family were neighbors. That our parents were friends. As to the fact Lily slapped me that night …” John shrugged. “It was in the police report, which Thorn has. But I never told him myself.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it wasn’t relevant.” He’d thought about it a lot. It was a gray issue, but not a true conflict. Lily, after all, wasn’t a suspect in the case. “Chris Hardesty has already been convicted for Tina’s murder. To the extent he’s challenging that conviction, it’s just a last-ditch effort to stop the execution. I’m only looking into the case to eliminate the notion that someone else killed Tina and is now killing these girls.”
“But what if Hardesty’s exonerated? What if the investigation begins to focus on Lily’s father? Or Lily herself?”
Laughing, John shook his head. “You can’t be serious. The father, maybe. Even though he was a cop, he and Tina were estranged, so he’s still a P.O.I. in my opinion. Lily? Ridiculous. If you saw her, you’d see what I mean. And even if some evidence turns up to implicate her, we weren’t lovers. She was a kid who had a crush on me. Thorn would handle questioning her, not me.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” But Murdoch, his disapproval self-evident, still didn’t leave.
Scowling, John growled, “You got something to say to me, Murdoch?”
“It just seems like you’re working really hard to justify working on this case.”
“Justify? I’ve been working The Razor murders for almost a year. I’m not letting him get away from me now.”
“I
