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I looked up at him, wanting to believe it. Willing, in that moment, to believe anything he said.
“Just…not since you’ve been here,” he said.
I snorted a laugh. “Thanks.”
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’d go back and have you not come here.” He shifted and laid his arm lightly across my shoulders. Suddenly I felt a few things acutely. The breeze brushing a lock of hair against my cheek. The warmth of his skin against mine. The grain of the wood planks beneath my fingertips.
“So you’re happy that I’m dead?” I joked, trying to lighten the moment.
He caught my hand. He wasn’t going to let me make a game of this. “Yeah,” he said. “I kind of am.”
My heart thumped as he leaned toward me. Alarm bells went off in my head and throughout my body. This was Joaquin. Tristan’s best friend. Darcy’s former crush. He wasn’t really going to—
And then he was. His lips touched mine, and he slipped his hand down my back, pulling me closer to him. I could do nothing but respond to his kiss. Suddenly I wanted to do nothing but respond to his kiss. And for minute upon blissful, endless minute, that’s exactly what I did.
Until finally, unfortunately, he pulled away.
Joaquin stared into my eyes. I searched his, trying to find a name for what I was feeling. Trying to understand what this was, what it meant. What the hell were we doing?
Then, ever so slowly, he smiled, and I realized I didn’t care. What mattered was that this felt right. It felt good to be with Joaquin, his arm now around my back, his comforting, musky scent enveloping me. I leaned contentedly into the crook of his shoulder.
“Look,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head. “You can even see your house from here.”
I tilted my head half an inch. Out on the ocean, three surfers in black rash guards bobbed on the choppy whitecaps. I wondered whether they were Liam, Lalani, and Nick, making good on their date with the waves.
“No. There.”
Joaquin gently turned my chin, and sure enough, there it was. Past the quaint, rain-slicked shops of downtown and the colorful trim of the Victorian houses on Freesia Lane stood the pretty little yellow house on Magnolia. It was so bright and cheerful against the miles of grayness it seemed as if nothing bad could ever happen under its roof. There were the upper eaves under which my wide bedroom sat, and there was Darcy’s window, and there was the house across the street where Tristan used to sit and keep watch for the girl whose heart he was planning to break. The girl he simply couldn’t stay away from.
My pulse stopped racing. I felt as if I’d just tripped and landed in one of the deeper puddles marring the park. The girl he couldn’t stay away from.
Suddenly I was on my feet. The journal. He’d said that it was too painful to be gone from my side for even a minute. And the other day, I’d thought I’d seen a light but brushed it off as a trick—as distant lightning in the sky. Could it be that simple?
“What?” Joaquin asked, staring up at me.
“When was the last time anyone searched Magnolia?” I asked.
He lifted his shoulders, the light dying from his eyes. He didn’t want to leave this place yet. He wanted to be with me. And he could tell I was about to run. “I don’t know. Last night? A couple of days ago? Why?”
“I have an idea,” I said, trying to ignore the pang in my heart. Trying to focus on the positive. “I think I know where Tristan is.”
“Park here,” I said as Joaquin turned Tristan’s Range Rover up Magnolia Street. We had borrowed it from the mayor’s house because we would need the backseat if we found Tristan and Nadia, and Joaquin’s pickup had only the cab. I didn’t know whether it was poetic or plain cruel that Tristan would be brought to justice in his own car. Joaquin hit the brakes, and they squealed. “We don’t want them to see us coming.”
“Good call.” Joaquin shoved the gearshift into park. His fingers balled into fists atop his thighs. I knew the feeling. The tension in the air was so tight I felt like if I moved, the whole world would shatter. If I was right, we were about to find Tristan. I had to believe it. My hope was the only thing I had left.
Bea pulled her Jeep up behind us, and her headlights momentarily filled the SUV before she doused them. Night was starting to fall, but with no sign of the sun, evening didn’t look much different from day. Everything was just a darker, murkier shade of gray. I glanced in the side mirror as the doors of the Jeep opened with a muted pop. Five hooded figures piled out and flanked our car.
I rolled down my window as Joaquin did the same. Raindrops slipped along the inside of the car door. Fisher, Kevin, and Cori were on my side, Bea and Lauren on Joaquin’s.
“You really think he’s in there?” Fisher asked, gazing off toward the house in question.
“I refuse to believe it,” Lauren said, her lips pinched. “The searches have been so organized. There’s no way he could have been hiding right under our noses all this time.”
“Not all this time, but maybe in the last day,” I said. “At least, that’s what I’m hoping.”
“Let’s get this over with.” Kevin cracked every one of his knuckles, one by one.
“My thoughts exactly.”
