Page 4 of No More Secrets

The cruiser blows past, and he exhales harshly at the near miss.

“Lucas? Lucas! Are you still there?”

He drags a hand down his face. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“Are you coming back?”

Pause.

“Yeah.”

“Thank goodness. You know I can’t manage without you.” Ivy’s voice shrinks, making him feel small real quick.

But Lucas never fully committed to Ivy. He didn’t sign any employment docs or a lease. They didn’t even shake hands. Skin onskin makes his skin crawl unless it’s on his terms. She pays him cash, which he puts right back in the register when he loads a bag of food, taking the goods and a twelve-pack of Coronas upstairs. What change is left in his pocket he deposits at the bar three ridiculously long blocks up from the Dusty.

He can’t blame Ivy for how she feels. He lives like he’ll pack up and take off any moment, and she worries he will. But he never anticipated remaining here for as long as he has. If he had, he wouldn’t have used his given name, and he would have abandoned his truck. But when he crawled to California City like a wounded animal intent on dying far away from his sisters so he wouldn’t hurt them further, Ivy visited him his first night here. He was four beers in. But she’d brought homemade lasagna, the best he’d eaten. Somehow she knew he was famished. Somehow she knew he shouldn’t be left alone.

He didn’t have the courage that night to follow through on his plan, or any night since. He hasn’t gathered the will to leave either, even with a bleak future.

“No, I haven’t left. I—” He stops. How to explain what he’s doing when he doesn’t understand it himself?

What if he found the girl? What did he expect to do with her if she didn’t want to go to a shelter? Feed her? Ha. Let her use his shower? No way. Turn her over to the cops for stealing?

He almost barks out a laugh. Lucas has always had a precarious relationship with the police. In simple terms, he doesn’t trust people in positions of authority, especially if they’re after him.

“I’m headed back,” he says.

“You had me worried there.” A relieved laugh. “I don’t think we’ve had any customers yet. But hurry.” As innobody has stolen anything yet.

Wait until he tells her about the sunshine girl, the kid with the filthy blonde hair and sticky fingers who visited that morning. Heimagines that under all those layers of dirt, her tresses are golden like the sun, her smile high wattage.

He’s been driving over an hour and hasn’t seen a dirty speck of her. She got away. And he shouldn’t give a damn that she did.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” he tells Ivy before tossing the phone on the seat beside him. Heading back in the direction he came, he tries not to spare Sunshine Girl another thought.

3

Fifteen-year-old Shiloh Bloom crouches inside a dumpster and watches the guy from the market drive away. She remains there, swatting flies, and waits. As soon as his truck disappears in a haze of heat, she climbs out and ducks behind the large bin, sitting cross-legged in the shadow. The metal is getting hot, the day even hotter. Sweat trickles down her back underneath the thick sweatshirt, but she doesn’t take it off. She won’t risk losing it if she must run, not with the stuff she swiped buried in the pocket. Food she needs to last for a few days.

She rubs her wrist where the guy had grabbed her.

That was close.

She’s been lifting merchandise, picking wallets, and slipping fingers into pockets since she was ten. Her mom didn’t give her a choice. What cash Harmony earned from clerking the third shift at The Fog—a vape and smoke shop around the corner—went to her fix, and Shiloh had to eat. She’d try to get her mom to do the same. On a good day she would. She’d devour the entire bowl of mac ’n’ cheese Shiloh prepared and have a burst of energy. They’d take the bus to the art museum at the university. It was free and open to the public. They’d walk to the park a block up from their apartment, sit on a bench, and watch kids swing on the same set her mom used to push Shiloh on. Shiloh would share with her mom what she’d learned in her high school design class, and her mom would add to her list of unfulfilled promises. She’d buy Shiloh a laptop of her own so that she didn’t have to use the school’s. They’d move to Hollywood or San Francisco, where Shiloh would becloser to the very people who created the animated shows and characters she adored. A dream Shiloh knew would never come to fruition. Her mom could barely make rent on their apartment, let alone afford to live in California.

Then things changed. Her mom started a relationship with her boss, the owner of The Fog. Ellis Radford became a permanent fixture on their couch. He didn’t do much other than visit his shop a few times a week and order supplies. But he watched a lot of television, and her mom liked having him around. He kept the fridge stocked with beer and paid the rent. Her mom cut back her hours and started taking more hits, injecting instead of smoking the heroin he supplied her. And when her mom would pass out, Ellis turned to Shiloh, more fascinated with what was developing under her shirt than the woman sleeping off her rush in the next room. Shiloh started avoiding going home after school. She would spend her afternoons at the library and evenings in cafés sipping black coffee that never cost her more than a buck.

Until the one evening the cafés closed early for the Easter holiday, and she had nowhere else to go but home.

Her mom was really out of it, and Ellis wasn’t doing anything about it. But he came into Shiloh’s room when he thought she was asleep, and after he smacked her around a bit when she gave him some lip and fought off his advances, she kneed him, grabbed her backpack, and ran.

Finn—a guy she’d been videochatting with on Interloper, an app that matched them over their common interests of animation and music—was in California. He was her ticket to Hollywood, and she was crushing hard on him.

She hitched from Rio Rancho, New Mexico, to get as far from Ellis as possible, but only made it as far as this desolate dump when Moonstar, the woman she hitchhiked with, got handsy. Moonstar felt her up when she stopped to fill the car with gas. Bracelets stacked up her forearm jangled like bells when she rubbed her palm across Shiloh’s chest, cupping her breast. Her silver-adorned fingers tweaked a nipple.Shiloh didn’t have any money, and Moonstar wanted payment for the lift. Shiloh smacked her hand. Moonstar kicked her out of the car, calling her a square bush for an eighteen-year-old.

Shiloh had lied about her age, so what. She bailed, gladly, but she’s been stuck here going on twelve days by her last count, too spooked to hitch again, bathing in public restrooms and stealing food when she can get away with it.

Before today, she’s never been caught. She’s been invisible, living under the radar, unnoticed. Frightened, starved, and alone. Vulnerable.

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