“Oh, I do. I just have trouble dredging up sympathy for a family who still has the man in the flesh. They couldn’t’ve cared less that my mother was gone.”
I could understand his resentment. “But why would Lily come here to write a book about what happened there?”
“Yeah, well, that’s a good question. I’m guessing they asked my mother for financial help and she refused.”
“Did you ever ask Elizabeth about it?”
“Hell, I didn’tknowabout it until after she disappeared. So,” he drawls and returns to his list of possible explanations for why Lily is in Bay Bluff, “maybe she suspects there was a connection and is here to do research. Maybe she doesn’t even need to do research because she already knows what really happened. Maybe she knows damn well how much she looks like my mother and wants everyone intown to know it, too. Maybe she’s here to haunt me. Maybe she’s here to haunt your father.”
I’m looking at him through the last of this, but only at the end does he realize it. Then he turns to me in quick dismay. “No?”
“No to which part? There are lots of them here.”
Eyes the color of slate search my face. “You pick.”
“Okay.” I consider the options. “She’s been here… how long?”
“Five weeks.”
“And she’s questioned how many people?”
“None.”
“So she’s not researching a book. That’d be way too much wasted time. Has she talked with you?”
“Oh yeah. I confronted her the first time I saw her.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me right off who she was, but she claims to know nothing about my mother.”
“What do your spies say?”
His mouth quirks. “That she went to Boise State because it was cheap, that she was engaged to be married before breaking it off, and that her mother doesn’t know she’s here.”
“She volunteers this?” I ask in surprise.
“So my spies say. She likes to talk.” He murmurs the last as a heads-up. Lily has seen us and is trotting over. His posture doesn’t change, though I sense that is deliberate. He is the image of nonchalance, which must run in the family, because when Guy raises his head, Lily doesn’t show an iota of a qualm. She may have experience with pit bulls. More likely, she’s met this one before.
“Hey, you all,” she says, and after giving the dog a head scratch with her left, offers her right hand to me. “I’m Lily. You must be Anne’s sister. I heard you were here.”
“So quickly?”
“Well, yeah, when I called Anne to say I’d be late, she said your daughter could help out ’til I got here. So here I am.”
We shake hands, though I’m not sure I manage an actual smile. Totally aside from the fact of wondering whether Lily Ackerman is in town to hurt my father, the girl is even more like Elizabeth up close. I can’t help but stare.
“Sorry,” I say when I realize what I’m doing.
Her smile is kind. “You’re not the first. Strong genes,” she remarks with a quick look at Jack. I’m thinking that she may be afraid of him, when she reaches back for the man in the baggy tee. “Nick White, Mallory Aldiss.” In lieu of introducing Jack, she tells me, “Jack and Nick met last week.” Softening, she says to Nick, “I’d better go in.” And off she goes.
Awkward in her wake, Nick nods to us and heads back toward the beach.
Once he’s out of earshot, I make a face. “That was weird.”
“What?”
“Is he a boyfriend?”
