Page 21 of No More Words

“Liv.” He says her name with an air of impatience. He cups the back of her neck and brings her forehead to his lips. He kisses her and she wrenches from his grasp. “Hope you’re happy.”

“I am happy,” she snarls. Emotions seethe. Forget it. She doesn’t need his help with Josh. She just wants Blaze to leave so she doesn’t feel worse than she already does. Get this over with already.

He just laughs. “See you around town.” He pulls himself up into his truck and drives off.

“I’m not a bad person,” she screams after his truck, flipping him off. He might be looking in his rearview mirror. “I am happy,” she mutters when he turns the corner. She has a beautiful home with a resort-like backyard. She was incredibly successful in her career. She’s pursuing her artistic aspirations as a graphic novelist and she’s been quite successful with that, too. Her first book was a bestseller. With Blaze gone, she can get back to her life without the risk of someone screwing her over.

But dammit, she’s on her own again with Josh. She rubs her cheeks.Smooth, Liv.She just keeps flying off the handle and landing in shit stew. Blaze’s proposal blindsided her and she freaked out. Now she needs to resolve what to do with her nephew. By herself. She also wants a smoke. But she checks on the kid first.

Despite the late hour, light spills from under Josh’s door. She lightly knocks, and when he doesn’t answer she cracks the door to find him fast asleep. She tiptoes across the room to turn off the lamp and glances at his bare head. “What the—?”

He lies on his side, knees bent, and sheet pulled up to his waist. He snores gently and a frown mars his forehead as he dreams. The Padres cap rests on the pillow beside him, his hair flopped to the side revealing a crescent-shape surgical scar, the staple indentations visible.

She lurches upright and back. Whatever happened, Josh had hit his head hard enough to require surgery. Did he have a brain bleed? A hematoma? Given how pink the skin is, the procedure was more recent than what Josh described as “long before ... here.”

What happened to him?

CHAPTER 7

Day 2

Lucas arrives exactly at noon. Right on time.

“You look like death warmed over,” he tells Olivia when she greets him at the door.

“Iwasgoing to offer lunch.” She covers a yawn as she tightens the sash to the silk robe she wears over a hot-pink camisole and navy silk pajama bottoms. She was up late searching for Lily, who hasn’t been reported as missing. Same with Josh. And neither one of them has any social media accounts. They’re ghosts on the internet. Discouraged, Olivia closed the numerous open windows and spent the rest of the night finalizing her latest panel of illustrations, which she emailed to her editor at 4:30 a.m. She then slept through her 8:00 a.m. alarm only to be startled awake three hours later. Josh broke a dish. She spent the next hour pacing in front of the window, wondering when Lily would pull up. Would she just get here already?

“Where is he?” Lucas wipes his boots on the doormat.

She tilts her head toward the kitchen. “He’s eating lunch.” Opening the door wider, she lets her brother inside. She called him in a panic after she saw Josh’s scar. She gave him the rundown on their nephew: his unannounced arrival, his strange communication quirks, the surgical incision on his head, and her opinion about the situation. Josh either ran away from Lily or something happened to their sister. Could she be in trouble? Should Olivia wake up Josh and take him to the ER?Lucas didn’t think so. Their nephew was walking and talking and Lily was bound to show. Lucas promised to swing by during his lunch hour when Olivia begged for his help.

“How much time do you have?”

He glances at his Fitbit. “I’m due back on the jobsite in forty-five.”

“Do you want something to eat? I made grilled cheese and tomato soup.” Not from scratch. She isn’t that good in the kitchen. She poured the soup from a can and had to scrape a bit of mold off the cheese. Later, if she remembers, she’ll put in a grocery delivery order.

“Gonna feed me after all? Nah, I’m good. Grabbed a sandwich on the way over.” He shrugs off his paint-stained hoodie, drops the sweatshirt over the back of the living room couch, and pockets his keys. Blue paint speckles the backs of his hands, discolors the fingernails he’s clipped to the quick. She resists insisting he scrub his hands before he touches anything. Dry, brittle cuticles hug the nail beds, an arid desert at the end of a plateau of tanned skin. Lucas makes his living as a commercial painter, a job far off course from the architect career he once wanted and neglected to pursue.

“Has he said anything more this morning?” he asks.

“Not really. He doesn’t talk much.” It doesn’t come easy for him from what she’s seen. He gets frustrated and clams up. “He spent the morning drawing. He’s good, borderline gifted.”

“Like Lily.” He glances toward the kitchen. “She used to do that, remember?”

She nods. Lily would while away hours filling up the pages of her sketchbooks.

“What do you make of what I said last night?” she asks.

“About?”

“Lily. Do you really think she’ll show?” she asks, feeling a sour twinge flip in her stomach like a fried egg in a pan. She’s losing hope by the minute. Wouldn’t her sister have been here by now? “She hasn’t been reported as missing. I looked. I need to decide what to do with Josh.”

Lucas lifts his hands and shrugs.

“You’ve got nothing?” Her spine bows on a sigh of frustration. Sometimes she wants to knock the indifference out of Lucas with his kayak paddle. “What if we can’t find Lily? What if she doesn’t show up or we never find her? What am I supposed to do with Josh? Put him in school? Do I call Ethan and tell him to come get his son? What if he doesn’t want anything to do with Josh?”

Lucas puts up his hands. “Take a breath, Liv. Let me meet the kid and I’ll give you my opinion.”

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