No More Secrets: A Novel, page 19
Finn holds up both hands and backs up inside with a slow shake of his head.
“Where are you going?” she asks with mounting panic.
“Sorry, Shy Girl. I can’t be with you.” He turns around and disappears inside.
Shiloh stands there in a daze. Did he dump her?
“Want me to call your mommy to come get you?”
Taken aback, Shiloh glares at Aldo. “Fuck you.”
He throws his head back with a burst of laughter. Then he drags his stool over and pats the seat. “The band’s only playing for another hour. The guys won’t be long. You can wait here with me.”
As if he’s her babysitter.
No, thank you.
Shiloh doesn’t give him the courtesy of a reply. Arms crossed tightly over her chest, she turns in a circle. It was foolish to call Finn and come here. Now what’s she supposed to do? Where can she go? Girls in line laugh at her. The bouncer calls her over again. He’s laughing, too. Her throat starts to close up. She feels like she can’t breathe. Everyone’s pointing and laughing and gawking, and she has nowhere to go. Panicking, she slips around the building to hide.
31
Lucas wakes up with the mother of hangovers. He slowly eases from bed. Feet on the floor, he drops his face in his hands and leans over, waiting for his stomach to settle, and not just from the alcohol. He’s sick with nerves, terrified for Shiloh. He blacked out after Lily ran away, and he blacked out before he chased his father in his truck. But this time he remembers everything. Not even the laughable number of shots he tossed back will let him forget he lost Shiloh.
He needs to find her and ensure she’s safe.
Someone bangs on the door, and his heart lurches into his throat. He jackknifes from bed, glancing at the clock. Six a.m. Why is he still here and not behind bars?
Memories from the previous night light up. There’s a warrant for his arrest, but not for what he thought, which doesn’t make sense to him. Neither does Zea. Sophie, rather, or whatever her name is. Who is she?
More banging. “I know you’re in there, Lucas. Open up, or I’ll bust this door down.”
Sophie. Shit.
He looks down at his naked body and wonders if he undressed in front of her. There’s a glass of water on his nightstand and two aspirin. He’d never have left those there for himself. Pushing off the bed, he pops the pills and downs the water. The room spins, and he stops short of hurling when he takes several deep breaths. He pulls on athletic shorts and pushes his arms into a shirt on his way to the door.
“Lucas!”
He jerks it open, and she jumps at the suddenness of it. “You never answered my question last night.”
She blinks. “Good morning to you, too.” She moves past him into the apartment.
He shuts the door. “Two questions, actually.”
“Here, for you.” She gives him a coffee in a disposable cup. She sips from her own.
“Where’d you get these?” They left her car at the tavern, and the keys to his truck are on the counter, so she didn’t use it to go get coffee.
“Toya made them for us.” Their neighbor next door to Sophie and behind Ivy’s apartment. “Her espresso machine is badass. Did you know she’s a retired barista?”
“Are you always in your neighbors’ business?” He drinks the coffee, and his stomach turns over. He sets it aside.
“You’re a bucket of sunshine in the morning. Do you know where Finn lives? I asked you last night, but I’m not sure if you remember.”
“Uh-uh.” He wags a finger in her face. “Who sent you, and why are you here?”
“I need a ride to my car.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
Her mouth flatlines. “I told you. Don’t ask me to explain. I’m already in enough trouble.”
He grinds his teeth. What is she hiding? Who’s she protecting?
His eyes narrow, and she holds her gaze, even lifts her chin. He swears. He doesn’t have time for her games. Shiloh is out there, possibly alone and hurt. He made a mistake when he didn’t go after Lily. His sister spent her life running from Ryder Jensen. He tried to kill her. What if Ellis is Shiloh’s Ryder? What if Finn is? Shiloh could be just one of many underage girls he preys on through that half-baked app.
He isn’t going to make that mistake again. He’s going after her.
“Answer me this,” he says pointedly to Sophie. “Do I need to worry about you calling the cops on me?”
“Depends on what you have planned.”
“I’m going to find Shiloh, then I’m bringing her here.” He heads for the bathroom.
“You can’t force—”
He shuts the door in her face.
After a quick shower, he towels off and returns to his room. He pulls on jeans and a shirt and goes to retrieve his boots when he notices the envelope of cash is missing. “Fuck.” He shoves on his boots as he jerks open the dresser drawer where his laptop should be. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He slams the drawer and strides into Shiloh’s room. The bed is a mess, the sheets balled at the foot of the bed, the pillow on the floor. He tears off the sheet and shakes it out. Nothing. “Fuck!”
Sophie appears in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“She took it.” He looks under the mattress, livid not because she stole from him. Rather, with the cash and laptop, she could be anywhere now. She only needed Finn for a ride. She’s young, naive, vulnerable, and alone in a big city. And he has no way to reach her. No way to help her.
“What did she take?” Sophie asks.
“My laptop.” He rakes fingers through his hair, looking up at the ceiling. “My cash. She took everything.”
“How much?”
“Five grand.”
“You need to report her.”
He swings around to face her. “Are you kidding me?”
“It’s theft, Lucas. Enough that it’s a felony.”
“Do you remember anything of what I told you last night?” he asks. She can haul him to jail, but he’ll never go out of his way to contact the police, especially on Shiloh. They’ll send her to juvenile detention. He’d never expose her to what happened to him.
“I’m surprised you do.”
He scowls and her eyes soften.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you. Those guys should have been tried and convicted. But—”
“I don’t need your pity,” he interrupts. He swipes up his keys and wallet and heads for the door.
“I’m coming with you.” She rushes after him. They get in his truck, and he guns it for the highway.
“I’m contacting the police if you won’t. We need to find out if she’s been reported as missing,” she says when they’re on the road. “They’ll put an APB out for her. We also need to get CPS involved.”
“No.” His grip tightens on the steering wheel. “Let me handle this.”
“They need to be made aware that her situation back home isn’t safe.”
“They’ll just stick her in foster care, where another jackass like Ellis will take advantage of her.”
“You don’t know that,” Sophie argues.
“Neither do you,” he snaps. “And you’re not coming with me.”
“Why? I have experience with runaways.”
He shakes his head hard. “Did you see the way she looked at you last night? She thinks Ellis sent you to find her.”
Sophie grabs the handle when Lucas speeds through a tight turn. “I didn’t know that.”
“Did he?”
“Send me? No.”
That answers one of his questions.
“How do you intend to find her?” she asks.
“Don’t know, but Lily is out there. I have to try.”
“Lily?”
Shit. He’s losing it. He grinds his jaw and takes a beat to regain his focus as he turns into the tavern’s parking lot.
“What are you doing?”
“You said you needed a lift to your car.”
“I’m going with you. The police—”
“There will be no police. I’m not an animal, Sophie. I’m trying to be good. But if you don’t get out of my truck . . . Please. I have to do this. I have to know she’s okay.”
Sophie’s eyes swing between his, holding his gaze until she sighs, resigned. “I wasn’t hired to chase a bounty.”
He focuses on what she didn’t say. “Who hired you?”
She gets out of the truck and looks up the road, her expression conflicted.
“Who hired you?” he presses.
She meets his eyes. “Log on to your cloud account. You should be able to track Shiloh through your laptop.” Then she shuts the door.
He stares at Sophie through the window. That’s how she found him.
He doesn’t ask how she hacked into his account or how she came by his email address in the first place. He doesn’t press why she’s here, only that he now knows for sure she’s here because of him. But for some reason, she’s become distracted with Shiloh.
He should ask what she plans to do next, but the clock is ticking.
He floors the truck for the highway.
Lucas coasts up and down Sunset Boulevard waiting for a ping, growing antsier by the hour. Shiloh hasn’t turned on his laptop since she left California City. He’s low on gas, hungry, and terrified for her. Ivy’s called him twice. He didn’t show up for work. Sophie is probably tracking him, too. But they can wait. Shiloh’s his priority.
He refreshes the map on his phone again, and like magic, a laptop icon appears as if it’s been there all along.
Air bursts from his lungs with his relief.
He enlarges the map. She’s about a mile from him. “Thank Christ.” He tosses the phone onto the seat beside him and makes a U-turn toward Shiloh.
The building he arrives at a few minutes later is nothing to shout about from its slate-gray, windowless exterior. The posters plastered on the front tell him it’s a dance club or rock grotto, the latter more likely given Finn’s in a band. She’s not out front, so he assumes she’s inside, and turns into the driveway adjacent to the building to park in back.
He takes a few breaths, preparing what to say after last night’s confrontation, promising himself he’ll assess the situation first before he jumps to conclusions. If she’s not in distress, and she doesn’t want to stay with him, he’ll leave. But if Finn is keeping her against her will . . . If he’s laid a hand on her . . . Memories of his father holding Lily at gunpoint clash with his imaginings of Ryder strangling her, which contort into Bob and Barton attacking Shiloh and the fear on her face when she thought Ellis sent Sophie for her. Lucas grinds his jaw, his hands squeezing the steering wheel.
He eases his truck around the corner of the building and slams the brakes. Seated with her back to the wall, his laptop in her lap, is Shiloh. He gapes at her, almost disbelieving she’s here. That it was this easy to find her. She’s alive and she’s whole. The exact thoughts that raced through his mind when Olivia had left the message that she and Josh found Lily.
Shiloh looks up, her eyes huge. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” His voice is strained through a throat tight with emotion. Relief and something else. Regret? Could he have found Lily this easily if he’d tried?
“How’d you . . . ?” Her gaze drops to the laptop. “Oh.” She frowns. “But I just turned it on.”
“I arrived several hours ago. I’ve been driving around.” He puts the truck in park and gets out, his movements slow so he doesn’t spook her. He was drunk last night and a bit out of his mind when she last saw him. “I was worried about you. I wanted to check you were safe, that Finn—” He glances around. “Where is he?”
Shiloh doesn’t answer. She stares at him for one beat. Two. She puts the laptop aside and launches at him. He stumbles back against the truck. Her hug is fierce and unexpected. More surprising, he doesn’t flinch. That’s the second person with whom he’s been able to tolerate physical contact without mentally preparing himself beforehand, and he briefly speculates whether things are changing in him because he finally confessed his assault. His secret is out in the open. He talked it out. Or in his case with Sophie, he yelled it. It isn’t a cure, but it’s a start. And he wonders if it’ll get easier the more he shares, and the more he lets people in. Because his assault isn’t his only secret.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Shiloh bursts into tears, pulling him back into the moment.
Lucas can’t remember the last time he held Lily when she cried. But he holds on to Shiloh, needing the reassurance that she’s okay as much as she does. He pats her back and lets her soak his shirt. He wants to believe he’s making up for when he abandoned Lily when she needed him. But that isn’t entirely true. Finding Shiloh, and her relief that he did, shows him he can be a good guy. He made the right decision by coming here. It’s also helped him realize he doesn’t just want the life he started to build in California City and to feel a connection to others. He doesn’t just want a second chance with his sisters, with Shiloh. With life. He wants to fight for it. He wants to be in control of who he is.
But he’s let his past—the assault, his suicide attempt, his apathy—define him for so long, he just doesn’t know where to start.
Shiloh’s sobs recede, and she steps back, turning her face in embarrassment as she wipes off her tears and snot. Then she glowers at him. “You left me.”
Alone and unprotected, the way she was in the encampment.
“I know. I realize that now. I’m sorry.”
“I was so mad you. You promised I could stay with you.”
“I know. If I could change what I did, I would. But I’m here now.”
Her mouth pinches, and she glances away before turning back to stare at the center of his chest. “You were right. Finn’s a dick.” Her rib cage widens, and nostrils flare with a sharp, deep inhale.
He frowns, leaning down to catch her eyes. “Shiloh, where is he?”
“Home, I guess.”
“You guess?” he repeats, incredulous.
“He and Beck were here last night to watch a band; then they took off.”
“He left without you?” She nods. “How long have you been here?”
She chews her lip. “Since last night.”
“Last night?” His blood pressure spikes. “You slept here, in the parking lot?”
“I didn’t sleep.” Her eyes shift left and right to encompass the lot. She was too scared to fall asleep.
Lucas can’t believe Finn abandoned a fifteen-year-old girl, when it occurs to him that might be why he did. “How old is he?”
She pulls at her sweatshirt. She can’t look at him.
He dips his head again to see her face. “Shiloh?”
She huffs and looks past him. “Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-what?”
She meets his gaze. Fire burns behind her eyes. “You heard me, now shut up. I made a mistake. I never should have come.”
“Why are you still here, then? You took my cash. You could have gotten a hotel.”
“I’m fifteen, remember?” Underage, she wouldn’t have many options if she tried to book a room. None that were suitable for an unaccompanied minor.
“You could have used the money to get a cab anywhere you wanted to go. You have enough.”
She tugs the drawstring in her hoodie and visibly swallows. He knows guilt when he sees it. “You couldn’t spend it.”
“Yours or Ivy’s.”
He balks. “Where’d you get her money?”
Her gaze skirts away. “I stole more from Ivy’s safe.”
“Jesus, Shiloh.” Though he’s got to hand it to her. She is resourceful. He laughs. He can’t help it. He’s too relieved he found her to care what she took.
“It’s not funny.” She grimaces.
“No, it’s not. And you’re going to return it.” Before Ivy notices it’s missing. She’ll report it.
“Good, because I don’t want it.” She buries her fists into her kangaroo pocket. She squints up at him against the sun that’s moved behind his head. “So what happens now?”
“Now we get something to eat.” He hasn’t eaten all day, and she must be hungry, too.
“Then what?”
“That’s up to you.”
32
“Here you go, one All American Burger and fries.” The waitress deposits Shiloh’s order in front of her. Lucas sits in the booth across from her at the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank slathering extra ketchup onto his bacon cheeseburger.
“Anything else I can get you?”
Lucas catches Shiloh’s eye, and she shakes her head.
“We’re good,” he says.
“Enjoy, then.” The waitress leaves for another table.
“Dig in.” Lucas lifts his burger and takes an enormous bite.
Shiloh peeks under the bun on hers at the dressing inside. The burger is huge. It smells amazing. The chocolate shake she’s been drinking is the best one she’s tasted. She’s so relieved Lucas came for her that she can’t describe her feelings, and she’s grateful he brought her here to eat. But she’s suddenly not hungry.
Her backpack rests beside her, weighed down by a stolen laptop, over $5,000 in cash, and her guilt. She shouldn’t have trusted Finn when she knew he was unreliable. But she was desperate to get to Hollywood. Now that she’s here and realizes how sorely unprepared she was, she just wants to leave. She feels terrible that she repeatedly stole from Ivy when the woman hasn’t been anything but nice to her. And it was wrong of her to take Lucas’s cash and laptop. She wants to return to California City with him, but what’s to stop him from taking off again? Without a guardian, she runs the risk of being sent home or getting lost within the system. Or worse, getting kidnapped and trafficked. Someone eventually will turn her in or sell her off.
But most of all, she misses her mom.
She wishes she could go home, but she doesn’t see how, not with Ellis around.
Lucas chews a bite and looks at her over his half-eaten burger. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
She picks up a fry and nibbles on the end. It tastes bland without ketchup, and she doesn’t feel like reaching across the table for the bottle. She drops the fry on the plate.
