wondered what Crystal would think of her ex-brother-in-law, in her home, listening to her messages. “Well, I don’t know where she is. Sorry.”
“All right. Just thought I’d ask. I have a night job, and I figured—never mind. I’ll call in and let them know I can’t make it.”
“Mr. Maguire—” Lily broke off when she realized he’d hung up. “Nice,” she muttered, setting down the phone. She paced back and forth, trying to decide what to do. A few minutes ago, this was her living room, her refuge, a cozy place filled with books and one shelf of framed photographs. A favorite shot of her and Crystal, laughing on the beach in front of Haystack Rock, caught her eye. Something was the matter, Lily knew it in her heart.
As she grabbed her purse and rummaged for her keys, she glanced in the hall tree mirror. “Nice,” she said again with an even more sarcastic inflection.
She was dressed for DVD night in heather-gray yoga pants and an oversize hockey jersey, which was the only thing of value left behind by Trent Atkins of the Portland Trailblazers. He hadn’t been a serious boyfriend, just someone she’d gone out with a few times. She couldn’t remember why a basketball player was in possession of a hockey jersey and decided she didn’t care.
She wore no makeup and her brown hair was caught back in a scrunchy. So what? she thought, pushing her feet into a pair of red rubber gardening clogs and donning a rain hat, thus completing the look. “Early frump” might be a good term for it.
Like that mattered, she thought, grabbing her raincoat and dashing out the door.
chapter 8
Friday
7:40 p.m.
Sean Maguire wasn’t pretty anymore, Lily observed the moment she opened the door. He was utterly, undeservedly, unjustly devastating. He was what the girls at school liked to call the whole package, in perfectly faded jeans that hugged his body, a golf shirt with the Echo Ridge logo, a lock of hair falling negligently over his brow and contrasting with the piercing blue of his eyes, a five o’clock shadow outlining the strong lines of his facial structure. He had a mouth that made her think about Kevin Costner’s Bull Durham speech, but at the moment, Maguire wasn’t smiling.
“I was hoping you’d be Crystal,” he said, holding open the door.
How gracious of him.
“Lily Robinson,” she said in her most prim tone. She always sounded insufferably prim when she felt defensive, and she always felt defensive around devastating men. She definitely felt that way now, as she stood dripping on the doormat. Her Totes rain hat was functional though hardly attractive, with its deep brim currently serving as a rain gutter. A steady drip trickled down, right between her eyes, splashing on the mat.
She took off the hat and hung it on a hook behind the door, admonishing herself not to feel self-conscious as she surrendered her coat. He towered over her, even taller than his older brother. Against her will, Lily felt a brief, subtle spasm of reaction to his nearness. He was just a guy, she reminded herself. If not for the kids, they’d have nothing to do with each other.
“Where are the kids?” she asked, removing her fogged-up glasses.
“Upstairs. I told them there’s probably some mix-up in the plans. The girls are watching a video and Cameron’s watching them.”
Or more likely, thought Lily, he was watching instant messages on the Internet. Clearly this man knew nothing about children.
“Any word from Crystal or Derek?” She finished polishing her glasses and put them back on.
“None.” He shot a glance at the stairs. “Let’s go in the kitchen.”
That was all. No “thanks for coming.” He was worried, she conceded. So was she.
As Lily followed him, she couldn’t help but notice the absolute perfection of his butt. Crystal had mentioned his golf career was on the skids. With that butt, he could always turn into a Levi’s model.
A moment later, she realized he’d turned around and caught her staring. Mortified, she shifted her gaze to a stack of three pizza boxes on the cluttered table.
“Want some?” he asked.
For a moment she felt disoriented and a bit flustered. “No, no thanks.”
“So here’s a rundown,” he said, hooking his thumbs into his rear pockets and pacing. “Derek’s fiancée, Jane, has no idea where he is.”
“She’s his fiancée?” Lily felt her stomach lurch. Crystal didn’t know that. If she did, Lily would have been the first to hear of it. Actually, the whole town probably would have heard the screams.
“I guess. As of last weekend, they made it official.”
“When was he planning to tell Crystal?” Lily sat down on a stool at the breakfast bar. She eyed the pizza boxes again, but felt too nervous to eat. Especially pizza. She hadn’t eaten pizza in ages. It was a nutritional nightmare, and stuffing herself with carbs and fats wouldn’t help anything.
Over the years, she’d spent countless hours in this kitchen, sipping herbal tea with organic honey and a slice of orange, savoring the company of her best friend. It felt weird being here with a stranger, speculating.
“Oh, God,” she said. “I bet he told her today. Maybe that’s why they didn’t come home.”
“Why would they disappear with their cell phones turned off?”
“They probably drove somewhere out of range.”
He turned and looked at her, one eyebrow lowered in skepticism. How did he do that with just one? she wondered.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
He wouldn’t.
“Think about it. If Derek remarries, these kids’ lives are going to change drastically. Crystal and Derek have got a lot to talk about.” She didn’t elaborate. Maybe Maguire knew more about the situation, maybe he didn’t. Lily didn’t see it as her place to enlighten him.
“I can’t believe they’d just take off without checking in with the kids,” he said quietly, as though talking to himself.
She drummed her fingers on the counter. An unexplained disappearance wasn’t impossible. In the final years of their marriage, Derek and Crystal had been known as the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of the PGA, with a reputation for partying, passion and public rows. They had a way of focusing on each other with total absorption, letting the world fall away as they went at each other. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine them so caught up that they temporarily forgot the kids.
Love did strange things to people, Lily reflected, then shivered with the next thought. Had they harmed each other?
She forced herself to ask the hardest question of the night. “Have you called the police?”
He winced. “Yes. I told them the make and model of both cars. There hasn’t been any report of an accident from the highway patrol.”
A small measure of
