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He nodded along. “You’re right. I would never interrupt her sleep, especially right now. Girl is tired. She won’t be there.” He shifted his weight between his feet, seeming a bit agitated, which set off alarms.
“Liem.” It came out sharper than I’d intended, so I softened my tone and asked, “Come in and explain what’s going on.” I stepped back as he nodded and stepped inside out of the rain. “What happened?”
He dragged his shoes over the welcome mat. “I’m not really sure, but definitely some good stuff—and maybe a little bad too. I think.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Dezi called me.”
“Your friend from school?”
His head bounced between his shoulders in a semblance of a “kind of” gesture. “Yes. Cody Desmond… Bree’s BFF.”
Maybe I would’ve been able to connect Liem’s dots if he put them in the same place, but it was like he was handing me pieces of puzzles and a tin full of dominoes. Also, was it literally impossible for anyone to go by their actual names here?
My brother spotted my growing agitation and wisely boxed up all those disjointed pieces and put them away. “Okay, that doesn’t matter right now. But yes, my friend from online school is also Bree’s Cody. He’s from here.” He smiled warmly as if this was the best thing to happen since he discovered the motion theater pods at Willows, the honky-tonk-themed casino down the road.
“I was at Willows”—called it—“when he called and said he needed me to go to Bree’s and get her wallet. I don’t know what happened, but they’re on the way to the hospital, and—oh!” He brushed by me and plodded through my open bedroom door to head straight for my chest of drawers in the corner, where he started pulling out clothes. “They both need a change of clothes too.”
“Liem.” My tone was sharp by design this time. “Did you just say that Bree’s going to the hospital? Is she hurt?” I pulled on some jeans and a rain jacket while he stuffed the clothes he’d gathered into a backpack I’d never seen before.
“I don’t think it’s anything too serious, but they’d gotten to the ER and needed to go inside before I could ask more. They need their stuff ASAP.” He threw the mystery backpack over his shoulder. “Can we go now?”
I grabbed my key ring, slipped on my boots, and ushered us both out the door. “Can you text him for an update on the way to Bree’s? It’s the house we dropped her at before, right?”
We began the short walk to my car, hoods up to shield us from the persistent rain. I glanced over when Liem didn’t answer straight away and saw him doing that infuriating ping-ponging head shake again. He met my gaze, an apology in his eyes as he grimaced.
What now?
“I’ll text Dezi and then explain that on the way.” He tucked his lips inward as if imploring me to not pry the information out of him and then released them to give me the bare minimum answer. “Yeah, same address.”
I pushed my questions and anxiety aside. These new Scrabble pieces would have to go into the closet with the puzzles and dominoes for future piecing together.
I was looking, but I wasn’t seeing. Not really.
The main house had seemed much the same as it had before. White siding, light-colored shutters, elevated off the ground like most houses on the Coast, a wrap-around porch on the first level and a balcony along the front on the top level. Stately and dark. Because once again, I was here at night and could only take in the barest of details from the streetlamp’s paltry illumination.
The back had been a different story. I’d wordlessly followed Liem through the yard to the back of the property, guided by the back porch’s floodlight, shoes squelching in the inches-deep water that’d pooled in the yard. If it hadn’t been for the rain casting everything in a haze, it would’ve been easy to make out every detail of the back yard. Even so, that floodlight had been enough for us to spot the structure that stood several yards past the back porch.
A dilapidated trailer.
One that Liem had walked straight up to, produced a key from under the plastic crate that doubled as a step-up, and opened the flimsy door.
I understood these facts but wasn’t yet willing to make sense of them.
But I knew enough to decide to stay outside when Liem entered, only peering inside briefly when he flicked the lights on and began rummaging around. He was inside for less than a minute before turning the trailer’s lights off and stepping back onto the crate to lock up.
Enough time for the first important question to form. Why did it seem like Bree had deliberately misled us about where exactly she lived when we’d dropped her off?
She’s at the hospital.
That fact was more important than my questions, which could be set aside. For now.
If my drawer of loose threads and unknowns got any fuller, I wouldn’t be able to shut it. I would be forced to make it a priority to sort those out.
After I laid eyes on her.
We made it to the Gulf Memorial Emergency Department without incident, though the only thing that kept me from seeing if the Rav could break the sound barrier on the way were the texts Cody had sent Liem along the way that assured us that Bree was getting an X-ray, but it was likely just a sprained ankle.
