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“They… you mean she’s alive?” I pray that she’ll say yes with every fiber of my being. But then I see color spilling from her skin, and I know this story doesn’t have a happy ending.
“No. They found her body. Well, what’s left of her body.”
My heart crumbles in my chest.
That’s what the phone call was about. It was probably the police telling Finn they’d found his mom eleven years later.
“Holy shit.” I plop down onto a chair as if to ensure my knees won’t give out from under me.
“I know,” Aveena agrees, taking a seat next to me.
“But… how? They couldn’t find her after the accident, but they magically find her now? I thought they weren’t looking for her anymore.”
“They weren’t,” Aveena explains. “There were two other drownings three days ago. A couple in their fifties. They had divers search the lake, and she was just… there.”
My mind is racing.
They found her while looking for other people. It’s almost as though the universe is pulling a sick prank on us, answering Finn’s prayers once he’s just started to make peace with his mother’s death.
“How do they know it’s her?”
It’s been so long since the accident there must’ve been nothing left of her. Plus, Nora Richards isn’t the only person to have drowned in that lake.
“Dental records. They waited for the results to come back before notifying the family.”
It was like Finn’s spirit had left his body after they called him. Like his brain functions were so focused on trying to register the information that he couldn’t hear a word I was saying. No wonder he completely shut down after receiving news like that.
“No one’s heard from Finn since last night. His dad and his brother are worried sick about him.”
“And we have no idea where he could be?”
“No. That’s why Brody stopped by. To ask us if we knew something. Their dad’s out searching for Finn as we speak.”
I want to roll my eyes to another realm at Brody’s “loving big brother” act. He’s never given a shit about Finn. Or about Lexie, for that matter. I first met this guy the day he locked Lexie into the library so he could get drunk with his friends and let her bathe in her own piss. But then there’s also the time he told Finn he was a pussy and pathetic for wanting to be with me.
My body overpowers my brain, and I rise off my chair, making a beeline for the living room. I stop a few steps away from the couch, folding my arms over my chest and glaring at Brody. “We don’t know where he is. You can leave now.”
My disdain for him doesn’t seem to faze him.
He pushes off the couch. “I know you don’t know where he is… but I think I might.”
I hesitate for a moment, reluctant to trust him. I decide to hear him out. Finn needs me right now. I’d make a deal with Lucifer himself if it could help me find him.
“If you know where he is, then why don’t you just go there?”
Brody heaves a sigh. “Because he won’t listen to me. But he’ll listen to you.”
My lips part.
He claimed he came over to ask us if we knew something when he really came over to ask me for my help.
“Talk,” I command.
“There was a place where Finn spent all his time after the accident. A lighthouse, right by the lake. He’d sit up there for hours, just looking out at the water. That’s where he’d go whenever he wanted to be alone. Might be a long shot, but I bet you’ll find him there.”
The lighthouse. Of course. Finn told me about it on the day I drowned. He said his mom would go up there whenever he and his dad would sail on the lake; this way, she could always find him. And that’s why he picked up the habit after she passed.
“Look, Dia… it’s no secret that I’ve been a shitty brother, but I know Finn. This is going to eat him from the inside out until there’s nothing left. He’ll never admit it, but he never stopped holding on to the hope that she was alive somewhere, no matter how unlikely it was. I’m worried about him. Please.”
