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I don’t know how I should feel about that.
And it scares me.
Chapter 16
Catherine
June 26, 2008
I wake up the next morningto a flurry of activity. Lyla and Toni are standing in the kitchen, talking frantically. Lyla is still in her pajamas—a ridiculously tiny pair of boy shorts and a tank top. Toni is fully clothed in blue jeans, an oversized White Stripes shirt, sneakers, and a pristinely made-up face. Her black hair is pulled into a high ponytail that trails down her back.
“Are you sure she never came over last night?” Toni asks whoever she’s talking to on the phone.
Frowning, I turn to Lyla. She’s also on the phone, and she’s saying, “It’s nothing urgent. If she stops by, could you tell her to call me?”
As soon as she hangs up, I ask, “What’s going on?”
“Jules never came home last night,” Lyla says, her blue eyes smudged with fatigue.
“What?”
“The last I heard from her, she texted me saying she and Dylan were leaving the cocktail lounge to go back to his place. And then nothing…” Lyla spins around to face Toni when she hangs up. “Anything?”
“No.” With a deep sigh, Toni lifts her hand to rub at her forehead. “Her parents haven’t seen her since last week. Neither she nor Dylan are answering their phones.”
“Oh, God.” My mind instantly assumes the worst. “What if…” I can’t even say it. But my mind assumes the worst. Someone killed Lizzie, and, although we don’t know why, they’re still out there. Still free.
“What happened to Lizzie had nothing to do with us,” Toni says, trying to appease me and Lyla. “This is not related. Jules will be fine.”
It sounds like she’s trying to reassure herself as much as us, so I don’t argue. “What do we do next?”
“We wait,” Toni replies instantly. “There’s nothing to do but wait.
When she hops up on the kitchen counter, her feet dangling, her cell phone still in her hand, I force myself to walk over to the coffee machine and pour myself a cup. It’s hours old, the temperature lukewarm, the taste nearly diluted, telling me that Lyla and Toni have probably been here a while.
I got back just after midnight. Toni and Juliette were still out. Lyla was sitting in front of the television, watchingGrey’s Anatomy, the major drama on screen distracting her enough that I had managed to mumble a greeting and escape up to my bedroom without giving her a full breakdown of my night with Aiden.
My night with Aiden.Even through my worrying about Jules, I can feel my unfurling happiness. It blooms within me, opening until I am fighting to hide the stupid grin on my face. I take a deep sip of coffee, hiding my confused smile behind my mug.
“This isn’t like her,” Toni says. “She’s so responsible.”
“Should we call the police?” I ask. “Maybe file a missing person’s report?”
“No.” Lyla paces back and forth in the kitchen. “We should wait until noon, at least.”
“The LAPD don’t require a certain amount of time to have passed before you file,” Toni says. “Maybe we should just do it.” When I look at her, she shrugs and says, “Lizzie,” as if that should explain how she knows about the LAPD’s missing persons’ protocol.
“I think we wait a little longer,” Lyla pushes. “If she is o-”
All of us freeze as the front door clicks open quietly. And then we’re all scrambling, limbs pumping as we hurry through. We pile into the lounge en masse, a crowd of three, smooshed together, our expressions probably showing equal relief when we see Juliette standing on the threshold, heels in hand, staring at us as if we are Cerberus, come to defend our hearth.
“Ah, hey guys.”
There’s a second of stunned silence.
And then Lyla explodes. “Heyguys! Heyguys! We thought you were ax-murdered!”
“What?” Juliette’s skin turns ashen. She looks from Lyla to Toni to me. “No, I wasn’t. Ax-murdered, that is.”
