Page 88 of Second Chance

“What?”

“Look, this has gotten…complicated.”

Tony lets his head thunk against the door. The adrenaline of finding Daniel, the relief he’s alive and reasonably unharmed, fades quickly. “Tell me why I’m not calling Detective Taylor out here right now.”

“It’s Lily.”

Great. Just as Tony suspected. “She did it? Amelia Lawrence?”

An ominously long pause follows.

“She showed up at my office yesterday looking as if she hadn’t slept in years. She was talking about the knife, Tony. I think she…I think she probably must have.”

“Of course she did! She taped the murder weapon to your door!”

“She was freaking out though. Totally off the wall. I couldn’t understand half of what she was saying. Next thing I know, she’s pulling out ahunting rifleshe could barely hold up on her own and pointing it at me and telling me I had to go with her.”

“Jesus.” Tony waits for Daniel to continue, but when no further information is forthcoming, he has to ask. “Seriously, though, why no police?”

He can hear the huff of Daniel’s sigh through the door. “I think she’s high.”

This still doesn’t sound like a reason to Tony, but he bites his tongue.

“And the boyfriend is helping her,” Daniel continues. “He took my phone, threw it out the window somewhere on the road. Brought us here. He had the pills they both took before.”

“She has a Xanax prescription. Shouldn’t that help—”

“Not those kind of pills.”

Ice creeps down Tony’s spine. Lily has been getting more and more unstable ever since the start of the school year. Tony saw, and he barely knows her. What did Gianna say? Lily was “flaky.” Not responding to messages. Moody.

“You think that’s why she did it?” Tony asks.

“Maybe. I mean, she’s barely responsive half the time and totally over the top the rest of it. And, well…”

“Hey.” Tony leans in so he’s as close to the door as he can be when Daniel trails off, seeming unwilling to say the rest. “You can tell me. It’sme, Daniel. I came out here alone because of atextyou sent to Paul’slandline.”

“I had no idea if that would work,” Daniel admits. “But, uh… Look, I don’t know enough about all this, but one or both of them is… After they took the pills, she got all…hyperactive. They, well, they…went into the bathroom. Together. And…I don’t want to say it.”

Tony swallows. “You thinkhe’staking advantage?” Of the two students, Tony has a pretty good idea who is trying to keep it together and who caused this mess. The drugs are a bad look, but they’restudents. Of course they’re doing drugs.

“I have no idea who is taking advantage of whom.” Daniel’s voice is clipped and angry. “But I do know she has been taken advantage of before, and she’s my student and my responsibility, and I can’t call the cops on her. You remember what happened to Andrew.”

That’s who Daniel’s angry at, then. Himself.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Tony tries to be as gentle about it as he can, but he already knows Daniel doesn’t want to hear it.

“I should have done better by him. And I should have done better by her, last year. I should have known.”

Frustration boils over. “Lilykidnapped youatgunpoint. She’s been threatening you for weeks. She’s dangerous. Daniel, you could have died.”

“She needs help.”

Tony wants to shake Daniel by the shoulders. Just because Lily needs help doesn’t mean it has to be from Daniel. Just because Daniel is carrying all this guilt for things out of his control doesn’t mean he should put himself in danger. It doesn’t mean he should put Tony through this.

Tony wishes he’d met Mario so he could have done more than shake him for starting all of this. If he’d known what consequences his actions would have, not only for Gianna but for Lily, for Daniel, for Colette, would he have acted differently? They’ll never know. “So how did you get the text message out?”

“Right.” Daniel clears his throat. “Lily left her phone out when they went to the bathroom. I used the quick release on the cuffs and texted the only number I know. Gotta hope she’s a real Gen Z kid and doesn’t check old-school SMS logs. I’m going to have to tell Paul he was right to make me memorize the damn thing.”

---