Page 28 of Meet Cute the Virgin

I pull up Lily’s medical records instead. Her tonsils were removed when she was thirteen, a routine pre-op. Blood type: O positive. I scroll back further. Childhood vaccinations, the broken arm at seven, and the allergy to blueberries presenting at four.

Every record lists her as Victor Swann’s daughter. Emergency contact, insurance, and birth certificate—his name is there, but the mother’s name is unknown. Biology doesn’t give a flying care about paperwork.

I search for her earliest medical file. The first hospital visit. Three months old, with a respiratory infection, treated at Walter Reed.

Blood type listed: O positive.

I sit back. Three months old. That’s the first solid record that I know of that isn’t fake, like the birth certificate.

I pull up Victor’s mission records from decades ago. The Eastern European deployment, the classified operation. The date is fitting pretty much on par because there aren’t any other missions close enough that would line up. Most of the details are redacted, buried under layers of security I’ll have to get through.

I tab over to search the area where the operation had taken place to see if I can find any local news. I pause when I come to an article about a local family. All dead, the mom, the dad, and their new baby girl.

I pull the family name. It might not go anywhere, the house a cover for something else. What the “something else” is, is what I need to find out.

Lily:Sorry. Heavy for a weekday.

She has no fucking idea.

Lily:Let’s lighten it. I’m new to this dating app thing. How about you?

Me:You’re my first. Be gentle.

I tease, but it’s no lie. My whole life has been school and work. I tend to zero in on a project and lose track of everything else until I come up for air.

Lily:Lies, it’s my first time!

Me:It is, I swear it.

Me:The job keeps me busy.

Lily:The fake one? - She sends a devil emoji with it.

Me:That’s the one. Are you sure you’re not the one lying? You’re gorgeous, and the bangs.

I try out an emoji myself for the first time and put a fire one.

Lily:I trimmed them up today.

Me:Pic

I wait, and then she sends me one. I wasn’t sure she would. She shouldn’t; I could be a psycho. Okay, a psycho that wants her dead. I very much want her alive and under me.

Fuck, I miss her. I know she hated living with me, but I loved having her there. She was the only reason I ever wanted to go home. Lily made me feel grounded. Even when she was glaring through me, she brought life to our home, to me.

Me: Like I said, gorgeous.

Lily:You’re sweet.I should go. Teddy wants to go to town for dinner.

Me:The town with the bookstore?

Lily:You remembered.

I remember everything. The bookstore, the coffee shop, and the antique place she lingers at but never enters. I remember the security footage from every trip, the patterns, the gaps where someone watching might hide.

Me:I did.

Lily:Oh, right, the app puts you near people, right? So you could meet up.