“Oh good, I was just about to go look for you two,” she says, dropping the bags on the countertop. “I need your help.”
“With what?” Lyric asks, still holding my hand as she roams over the counter.
Lila undoes the buttons on her coat and shucks it off. “With my event tonight. I had a few waitresses cancel and I need fill ins.”
“You want us to mingle with my mother’s pretentious clients.” Lyric scrunches up her nose.
“They’re not pretentious.” Lila digs around in the bag and starts pulling out cans of condensed milk and stacking them on the counter. “They’re artists, like you.”
Lyric sits down on a barstool. “And I’m very pretentious.”
Lila shakes her head, but smiles. “Oh Lyric, you remind me so much of your father sometimes. Always so full of sarcasm.”
“Why thank you,” Lyric replies, beaming with pride. “Because of your compliment, I’ll give you a free night of my ever-so-awesome waitressing skills.”
A laugh slips from my lips as I sit down beside her. “Guess that means you get mine, too,” I tell Lila. “But mine aren’t so awesome.”
“That’s okay.” She throws the empty bag into the drawer. “At this point I’ll take whatever I can get.”
We start opening the cans of milk while Lila whisks eggs in a bowl, giving us directions on how to cheese fondue. After a few minutes, Lyric whispers for me to tell Lila about the knife.
I loathe giving her more bad news, knowing she’s only going to get more stressed than she already is. I still recap the details, and Lila rushes out of the kitchen to call the detective and tell him.
“She seems upset.” I open the fridge to grab a stick of butter.
“Of course she’s upset.” Lyric takes the butter from me and drops the stick into a small plastic bowl. “You’re her son and some creepy dude snuck into your room and stole a knife from you because he believes in some icky ritual.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I tell her as she places the bowl into the microwave and presses the timer.
“I’m betting that’s what the detective will say to her. They’re investigating this group, right? They have to know about their rituals.”
I hate that she’s probably right about the group and the rituals. That she knows so much about this. That stuff like this exists in our lives.
When Lila returns to the kitchen a minute later, her eyes are bloodshot and her cheeks are streaked with the remnants of tears.
“Ayden, you need to make sure that you have someone with you at all times for the next few days.” She goes right back to mixing.
Lyric and I trade a look from across the kitchen island.
“How come?” Lyric aligns the lid of the can with the opener and opens the top. “Because the man still hasn’t been caught?”
“Yes. It’s just a safety measure until they can track down the guy and find out if he’s part of this group—get a positive ID on him. They dusted for fingerprints but nothing came up.” Lila taps an egg against the side of the bowl and separates the shell. “The detective brought up the therapy sessions and wants to have another visit to discuss how they’re going. He said we could do it when you guys go down to look through some photos”
“I don’t know why he wants to visit about that. Nothing’s changed. I still can’t remember,” I mumble as the microwave dings.
“Honey, that’s not your fault.” Lila retrieves the bowl of melted butter from the microwave. “You’re doing everything you can by trying.”
I nod, unable to speak. I feel like such a failure over the fact that I’ve gotten nowhere with my memories because my fear of remembering is hindering the progress.
“Ethan’s going to have to go to the concert with you guys,” Lila adds as she pours the butter in with the eggs. “I mean, we were going to go already, but he’s going to have to be backstage with you, to keep an eye on things.”
“Are you sure this is just for safety measures?” Lyric questions as she pries the top of another can open, trading a suspicious glance with me.
“Of course. What else would it be for?” she asks, wiping her hands on a towel.
Excellent question. If they’re not even positive who this man is or why he broke into the house? I think of my brother and how his body was found by that house.
Maybe that’s what this is about.
Maybe Lila knows the real reason the man was in the house.
Maybe he was coming after me.
Chapter 14
Lyric
The next week passes rather quickly, but that might just be because I’m stressed out. We all are. Even at my mother’s slamming art show, we were all a wreck. Fiona kept saying she had a feeling someone was watching us, or more specifically Ayden. After what she said that night, the girl has utterly creeped out.
Most days, everyone just kind of hangs out at the house, waiting for news that never gets delivered. Ayden and I are only allowed to be by ourselves when we’re at band practice, a place that’s quickly becoming our sanctuary through all of this, even though we work our butts off to learn one of the songs I wrote. Actually, the one Ayden and I wrote together.
After a lot of contemplating and Ayden refusing to let us sing one of his songs, I decide we should do the one we wrote. We had to complete it first, though, which took us an entire night, a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, and an endless amount of gummy worms.