Or was it fear?
Lily pushed to her feet, racing toward her. Before Jack could even react, Lily had ambushed her with a crushing embrace. Jack’s auburn curls were wild and they tickled Lily’s face. Those curls took on a tinge of gold in the summer, and a tinge of red in the autumn. The sight of them was so familiar, tears welled in Lily’s eyes.
That was good. She’d be expected to cry. Her mother had, after all, just been murdered. “I’m so glad you called,” she said, pulling out of Jack’s embrace. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to answer, but I only have my phone for a couple of minutes each day. Everything’s supervised here.”
“It’s okay.” Jack’s voice was softer than Lily had ever heard it. She was scared. But Lily was good at soothing people’s fears, and she took Jack’s face in her hands, smiling through the tears.
“You look good. The same, but…”
“Different?” Jack suggested, no longer swimming in the long green coat Raven had given her in middle school. Lily caught a hint of a T-shirt and jeans underneath, loose fitting and comfortable. For years Jack had been stuffed into her mother’s flashy hand-me-downs, and she’d always squirmed and tugged at them, never seeming to relax.
This was better.
“Thanks,” Jack said, following Lily to the fountain. They sat on the edge as the sun sank below the horizon. “And you look like…”
“I’ve been eating? Sleeping?” Lily smiled, glancing down at her no-longer-bone-thin frame. She’d come into this place hating her body, but now, three years later, she was comfortable in her own skin.
Still, she sniffled, because she was supposed to be devastated. She was supposed to feel anguish and grief, and if anyone found out how quiet it was inside her, she might be locked in a scarier place. A place that hurt her instead of helping her heal.
“Things have been good here,” she admitted, gaze flicking to the great wooden structure at their backs. One side of the roof sloped lower than the other. The windows were all different sizes. The building was nothing short of ugly, and the second Lily had entered its wood-paneled walls, she’d felt perfectly hidden from the outside world. Tucked away. “At least, things were good here, before I got the call about my mother and learned Belle had been arrested.”
“And why do you think she was arrested?” Jack asked, a shadow crossing her face. “Did it have anything to do with the recipe the detective found on Raven’s kitchen table?”
“I have no idea how it got there!” Lily’s cheeks flushed with heat, and she fought to keep her voice steady. “I hid it in the orchard years ago. Then Raven went to boarding school, and I never went back for it.”
“Well, that’s convenient.” Jack shook her head, her jaw tight. “How lucky for you that your name wasn’t on it. Just poppy and belladonna, which means the police could come for me next.”
“It wouldn’t be the worst idea to go through your things,” Lily admitted, catching Jack’s gaze. “Clear out your computer, in case you and Belle emailed about our plan. They could use that stuff against you, even now.”
“And you want me to look innocent?”
“Aren’t you? I know Belle is.”
“How can you be sure?” Jack pressed, her green eyes narrowed. There was a brightness to them. There had always been a brightness to Jack, as if she’d swallowed the sun and was glowing from the inside.
For years Lily had wanted to be close with her. She’d wanted to be Raven’s sister. Only one person had stood in her way, and now that person was out of the picture. “I know what you’re thinking,” Lily said. “Belle came up with the plan to murder my mother. But we were scared little middle schoolers then, and we were convinced Raven was going to die. We somehow convinced ourselves we were characters in a fairy tale, taking down a monster.”
“A wicked stepmother,” Jack murmured.
“Yes! But we wouldn’t have gone through with it. I know we wouldn’t have, and besides, why wait three years to commit the murder? If someone had done it sooner, Raven could’ve come home, and I could’ve…” Lily trailed off. She didn’t want to remind Jack that Raven wasn’t the only victim of Evelyn’s wickedness. Lily had been her earliest victim. The first and last person to be hurt by her. “Someone else must’ve killed her. Someone with a reason to hate her now.”
“Someone like you?” Jack asked, cocking her head to the side. Clearly, she hadn’t forgotten any of it. Lily’s veiled hints. Her desperation. “You hated your mother more than anyone, and you kept the Recipe for the Perfect Murder after all this time. If Belle’s not the killer—”
“I didn’t hate my mother,” Lily corrected. “I was scared of her, but I always thought, once I got out of here…” She broke off, frowning. For a moment, she thought she’d felt something stir in her chest, something like sorrow. Something like loss. “Now that she’s gone, I’ll never get to make peace with her. I’ll never know if it was possible.”
Jack took her hands. She was warm, and Lily reveled in the feeling of it. She’d been touched so rarely in this place, and only when a certain someone had come to visit. But romantic entanglements were forbidden at the Rose Hollow Wellness Facility, so even then they’d had to steal their kisses. Clasp hands under tables and squeeze for the briefest of seconds. It had been enough, until it hadn’t anymore. Now Lily was desperate to get out of here and truly be with the person she loved.
But first she needed to tie up some loose ends.
“The police took my mother’s phone,” she said, as the last of the light disappeared and someone inside the facility waved at her. She wasn’t allowed out here after dark, even now. “They took her laptop, too. But my stepdad told me they haven’t gone down to her office yet, and if we sneak in there tonight, we can search her computer for suspicious emails. Maybe someone sent her a threat—”
“We?” Jack asked, her brow furrowing. “Are they letting you out?”
“My stepdad’s on his way to get me. He and Raven had to stop by the mall first, because apparently my mother got rid of Raven’s clothes after he left town. She threw them in the trash or something. Can you believe that?”
“She… what?” Jack wrapped her jacket around herself, pushing out a laugh. “She really wanted to erase him from that house, didn’t she?”
“She succeeded,” Lily said, eyeing the blush in Jack’s cheeks. In the weeks before Raven went to boarding school, Jack had started blushing at the sight of him. Or the mention. “But Raven’s back now, and as soon as his wardrobe issues are taken care of, he and his dad are coming to get me so I can help plan this Saturday’s funeral. That gives me six days of freedom.”
“Do you have to come back here after? If your mom locked you in this place, maybe—”
“It’s up to the doctors.” Lily pushed to her feet, straightening her loose-fitting sweater. Even now there was a part of her that wanted to stay hidden. Unremarkable. The opposite of pretty. “I just went through a review last week, and they seemed really happy with my progress, so… keep your fingers crossed.”