Page 99 of Second Chance

With Lily behind them, blinking in the overhead light, confused and probably still high, Tony figures he’ll have to do some damage control. He hands his key over to Gianna, and she and heads for Daniel’s apartment with Lily in tow. Tony watches them go, wondering if he can really leave Gianna alone with Lily before facing Colette.

“Someone would have had to call the cops if we didn’t make it back,” Tony tells her before she can start. “And you were—”

“You should have woken me up anyway,” Colette insists.

“Why? So you could stay up and worry?”

Meredith peers out onto the landing. She wears pajamas and glasses, looking barely awake herself. “She was doing that anyway.”

In the next instant, Meredith catches sight of Daniel and barrels out to hug him.

“Meredith.” Daniel braces against the banister so the impact doesn’t knock him down the stairs. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? You wentmissing. You’re lucky Mom and Dad aren’t here too.”

“Oh, shit, wasn’t Dad’s surgery—”

“Yes, and it went fine, and that isnotthe point.”

“As heartwarming as this all is,” Colette interrupts, “can we maybe take it inside so you can all explain yourselves?”

Tony exhales in silent relief. Five minutes is too long to leave Lily alone with Gianna. They pile into Daniel’s living room again, reminiscent of yesterday’s full house. Exhaustion has replaced the nervous tension they were all carrying then, but it’s like staring at a spot-the-difference painting and finding nothing but the change in lighting.

Gianna and Lily must be in the bathroom; the shower is running. Tony roots through Daniel’s dresser for a change of clothes for Lily and sets them out in front of the bathroom door.

Colette makes coffee. Tony’s starting to get sick of the stuff.

“Is there a reason you haven’t called the police?” Meredith asks when Daniel’s told her everything.

Tony glares at Daniel. Maybe if everyone says it, he’ll reconsider.

Daniel sighs. “We’re trying to get Lily to a place where she can actually…tell us what happened. I’m still not clear on some of it, and she’s not yet able to advocate for herself. We need to get her a lawyer. If the police had found us and come in, guns blazing, and she hid or, worse, shot back…”

Tony frowns. Daniel said she had a rifle, but there was no sign of it in the theater.

“She did it though,” Meredith says. “If she stabbed that professor, she should—”

“She’s a traumatized twenty-one-year-old, and she’s been taking drugs,” Blake interrupts. “She needs to be sober at the very least.”

Colette snorts. “I need to not be sober.”

“Yeah,” Blake says. “You’re not wrong. This is a mess.” He has a bag full of supplies, including bandages and an IV drip poking out the top.

When he catches Tony staring, Blake says, “Look, I bought the drip myself, okay? It’s not stolen. Stop judging me.”

Tony holds his hands up in surrender. That wasn’t what he was thinking; he was wondering if Blake knows how to lay an IV, given he’s a social worker and not a nurse, albeit an in-house social worker at a hospital. Discretion appears to be the better part of valor in this case though.

When Lily gets out of the shower, trailing behind Gianna in a sweatshirt three sizes too big for her, Blake takes over easily, making her comfortable in Daniel’s bedroom.

Blake shuts the door behind Lily and Gianna, nothing to be heard from them but the murmur of indistinct voices.

“So what’s our angle?” Colette asks. “How do we proceed?”

“Can we at least tell the police Daniel’s safe?” Meredith suggests. “They’re still out there looking for him.”

Daniel makes a weighing motion with his hands. “How do we do that without incriminating Lily?”

Colette’s mouth twists. “She killed someone, Daniel. That will incriminate her. Because it’s a crime.”

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