“So your mom makes a movie and pockets five million bucks. The name Grace Walker commands at least that much.”

“Yeah.” I had no idea why, but I was overcome with the need to tell Lily the truth. To let go and stop hiding. “But that doesn’t help us much right now. My mom is in a coma.”

She drew a sharp breath.

“No one in the media knows. Not that I think you’d say anything, but … we’ve kept it under wraps. People probably just think she’s somewhere tropical, drinking piña coladas and having a full body lift.” I closed my eyes and waited for the anger to go away—the anger at the situation and the anger at myself for telling Lily anything.

“How long?” she asked.

I opened my eyes to search her face. I didn’t feel pity from her, or hear it in her voice. There was only empathy. I was usually the one providing that.

“Almost eight months.”

She took my arm and pulled me toward one of the benches that lined Main Street. “Sit. You don’t have to tell me anything. But … sit.”

We both sat. Now that I’d opened up to her, it was like I couldn’t stop. I just kept talking, no matter how much I wanted to shut up. “It happened right after Dad died. It wasn’t an accident or anything like that. We don’t know what’s wrong with her. Exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘exactly’?”

“She didn’t come downstairs one morning, so I went to her room to find her. She was in her bathroom. On the floor. There were … pills. They were all around her.” I blew out a sigh, trying not to see her now. Trying not to relive the fear and the pain. “My mom doesn’t even drink.”

Lily didn’t say anything. It was the perfect reaction.

We sat in silence for a few moments as I tried to figure out how to explain things, and how much I wanted her to know. “Jack told Emerson he took Mom’s memories of everything that was keeping her alive. Her memories of Dad.”

“And you.”

I wanted to believe that. The doubt had only grown in the past months, that somehow Mom hadn’t loved me enough to stick around. I knew deep down it wasn’t true, but the lie showed up at the most inopportune times. Like when a bottle, or a girl, was handy.

“When Jack took Emerson’s memories, he replaced them,” I explained. “But Mom is just … empty, I guess. Jack claimed that made her suicidal.”

Traffic passed by on Main Street, and I listened to the comforting, familiar sounds of a small town closing out the day. Keys jangling in store locks, car doors opening and shutting, faint snatches of conversations about dinner plans.

“Em told me about Michael,” she said, “when he was dead. Your dad was, too. That’s so strange.”

I didn’t mention that Em had been dead pretty recently as well.

“But Michael and your dad are both alive and well now.” Her hand moved toward my arm, but then she changed her mind and quickly pulled it back into her lap. “You have to hold out hope that one day your mom will be okay.”

Not only did she believe what she was saying, she wanted me to believe it. The honesty in her voice was wrapped with a warmth I wanted to lean on. “Thank you.”

“You’re really only fifty percent jerk, you know. Maybe forty-nine. But that other fifty or fifty-one? That’s solid. And I bet it’s because of your mom.”

I couldn’t respond. I gave in to instinct, taking her hand and squeezing it gently before letting go.

After a full minute of silence, Lily cleared her throat. “I’m glad we had a touching moment and all, but you should be aware of the fact that I still don’t like you.”

“Not even the fifty percent that’s solid?” I fought the desire to laugh.

She kept her focus on the street, but I could see her lips twitching from the corner of my eye. “Don’t push it.”

“Fine, then.” I kept my focus on the street as well. “I don’t like you, either.”

“Good,” she said, sounding authoritative. “You think we can work on this ‘finding crap’ thing for a few minutes before dark? My calculus homework isn’t going to do itself.”

I gave in to my smile. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 18

Three days.

That’s how long it took Lily to find an object that didn’t belong to her.

“I did it, uh-huh, I did it.” She danced around in my laundry room, swinging her hips from side to side, holding up the shirt I’d worn the night at Em’s house when I’d discovered Lily’s ability.

It took great effort, but I kept my focus off her hips and on the situation at hand. While I was happy about the latest development, I had to fight to ignore the twinge in my gut telling me that we weren’t moving fast enough. “Okay, think. What did it feel like? How did you know where it was?”

“Kind of a hook in my belly button.” She rubbed her hand across her stomach. “But I could see the shirt, too, like a photograph. Right there under your Batman boxer briefs.”

“Those were a gag gift. And my last pair of clean underwear.”

“I don’t know which of those statements I find more disturbing.”

“Try again,” I said. “Find my sword.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Lame.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Tiger.” I didn’t sound half as frustrated as I meant to. “I meant the one from the masquerade.”

“There’s no room in the gutter. You’re taking up all the space.” We stepped out of the laundry room into the hall. “I simply meant that finding the sword should be a piece of cake.”

“Sure you did.”

We’d reached some sort of working truce after the conversation about my mom. I didn’t want to blow it by pushing Lily harder, but I needed more from her. We all did.

She’d just closed her eyes to concentrate, when my back door flew open.

Dune had a folder full of papers, and a big smile.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“The jackpot. I searched the public school systems around Memphis.” Dune dropped the folder on the kitchen table. “Oh. Hey, Lily.”

“Hi, Dune.”

They spent more time smiling at each other than was really necessary.

“I didn’t realize you two had met,” I said, a spark of jealousy popping up out of nowhere. Why did I care who Lily smiled at?

“Yeah,” Dune said. “Em introduced us after you told me about Lily’s search ideas.”

When Dune noticed I was staring at him, he stopped smiling. “Okay, then. I did some editing on a photo of Jack and ran a face recognition program. It only took twelve hours to get a hit.”

“Who are you? Bill Gates’s younger brother?” I picked up the folder.

“Don’t insult me.” Dune flipped a chair around and straddled it. It creaked under his weight. “My gene pool is way more impressive than his.”

Lily laughed. It was sort of husky and really sexy. I’d never heard that laugh from her before.

Dune started smiling again and slid a picture out of the folder. “Here’s the one I created.”

“Nice editing work,” Lily commented, putting her hand on his shoulder to lean over and look at the photograph. “Is that version 9.5 or 9.7?”