Page 156 of Liberating Lily

What was she doing? Why had she gone out that way?

Why had she been on the ground? Why was she limping?

And why was she alone?

Twenty minutes later, he stormed into Ronan’s house.

And breathed out a sigh of relief. Thank God. Sitting in the living room, drinking wine, were Fiadh and Amanda.

“Fiadh, why don’t you ever answer your phone?” he snapped.

Fiadh frowned up at him. “What, no hello for your sister? Why are you so grumpy? What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be tucked away with your new girlfriend?”

“Where is she?”

Fiadh blinked at him. “What do you mean, where is she? Isn’t she with you?”

“No, she’s not with me. Do you know where she went?

“How would I know? I’ve never met her.”

He froze. Oh, fuck.

Oh, shit.

“Fiadh, when you went to my house today, did you talk to Lily?”

Fiadh’s face grew pale. “She was at your house?”

“Yes, she was there when you two visited. And now, Lily is missing. My security cameras caught sight of her in the backyard. She looked like she was limping. Maybe she twisted her ankle. I don’t know.”

He hated the idea that she was hurt and he couldn’t help her.

“We went to your house today, Harvey, but we never saw Lily. Did she leave before we got there?” Fiadh asked.

“No, not according to the timestamp on the security camera footage. The two of you appeared at the front door a good five minutes before she was seen in the backyard.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

“What did you do? Fiadh, what the fuck did you do?”

“Hey, boy, why are you swearing at your sister?”

Harvey glanced over as his grandfather walked into the living room.

“You don’t swear at your sister and you don’t yell at her.”

“What is going on in here?” Ronan strode in as well. Fuck, he hadn’t realized that his oldest brother was home, but at the moment, he didn’t care what he said or did. He just needed Fiadh to tell him what had happened.

“Tell me what happened, Fiadh. What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything.” Fiadh ran her fingers through her hair, looking distressed.

“What is going on? And before you say anything more,” Ronan said, “you’re going to stop talking to Fiadh like that.”

“Then she better start talking. Lily is missing. I got home to find the house empty. Trey said he left for about an hour between one-thirty and two-thirty. I checked the security camera footage. That’s when Fiadh and her friend here arrived at my house. Uninvited. Soon after, I saw Lily leaving via the back gate. She was limping, and for a start, she seemed to be crawling along the ground. Why would she crawl along the ground, Fiadh? Why would she leave the house?”

Tears started to roll down Fiadh’s cheeks, and Ronan scowled at him. “Talk to her like that one more time . . .”