The Search for Lily Myers ✓

44 | The Lost Girl's Tale

Six-and-a-Half Months Ago

The very first time Lily laid eyes on Colton, she was embarrassingly sweaty—it was the first day of her internship and the air conditioning had gone out in the office. It was sweltering, but she wanted to make a good impression and seem amicable, so she dared not open her mouth to complain even as she felt a beat of perspiration trickle down her back.

The intense first day was probably an omen of the very intense internship to come. Most of the kids they were working with had been recently removed from unsuitable home situations, which meant that there were also sometimes detectives and police officers drifting in and out of the picture helping them deal with the legal ramifications of the cases. They weren't the cheeriest group—that was at least the impression she had gotten so far on day one. But when he came over to her, holding out a water bottle so cold that it was slick with condensation, he looked everything like an angel and not at all like the devil she would later know him to be.

"Thanks," she said, her cheeks flaming. She hoped this was just a person being nice and not due to the fact that she looked like she'd sweated out all of the water in her body.

If she looked gross, he didn't let it on. No, he was charming, with hair the color of honey and a smile just as sweet, but he was clearly several years older than her. She wondered how many cohorts of interns he'd been forced to interact with already, if he'd just learned to plaster on a smile by this point even if he secretly disliked the college students.

"What's your name?" he asked politely, and she almost wanted to say, I have a nametag on, doofus, but getting sassy with the cop didn't seem like a great thing to do on any day, much less her first.

So she said, "It's Lily, what's yours?"

"I, ah, I think you're technically supposed to call me Officer Maine here," he told her in a manner that clearly suggested that he was about to make an exception for her.

"Right," she said quickly, glancing down. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

There was something velvety about the tone of his voice, something almost inappropriate, something that also felt a little bit dangerous. Lily knew that she was surely just imagining things, but that didn't stop the hairs on the back of her neck from bristling.

"Between you and me, it's Colton."

"Colton," she repeated.

She didn't form a crush on him, not ever. Maybe in another life, one where she didn't have a beautiful boyfriend who adored her just as much as she adored him, she might have. Even then, she wasn't sure—she liked Colton Maine exclusively in the sense that he felt like a little bit of a safety net, someone keeping an eye on her.

As time went on, she didn't want his eyes on her anymore.

It just seemed like he was being friendly at first. She usually only saw him once or twice a week, but in the brief moments of respite that she got during the workday, he'd ask her about her hobbies, her friends, her family. That much would have been bearable if not a bit awkward, but he kept showing up in unexpected places—once, it appeared that he had been lingering by her car to talk to her when she walked out to the parking lot—and things began to feel more solidly inappropriate.

She should have talked to her manager or her supervising teacher back at the university, asked if there was any way she could be placed somewhere that wouldn't involve interacting with him. But she didn't want to be the student who was demanding or complicated; she told herself that he was merely talking to her.

The summer would be over soon, anyhow, and her life was so much bigger than him. It was crying happy tears on the Fourth of July when Henry came home and said that he was staying home this time, hearing him say that he wasn't going back to Seattle. It was finally getting home after a long day to see Liam already cooking dinner for her, kissing in the kitchen while the dog's tail happily thumped against their legs. They sit in bed and talk about getting married one day and giggle over gummy rings. And when they kiss again, her hair fanned out against the pillow, she thinks, This is my future. This is everything I want.