Ryan
The day after they release me from the hospital, I drum my fingers on my knees as the suburban streets I thought I knew all my life but really only knew for six years whip by outside. Heather and Everett dug up nearly everything I could want to know about Julia and Arthur Daugherty but much less about their apparent partner, Marissa McGuire. Or Beverly Evers. Or Laurel Andrews. My mother.
Lily puts her hand on mine. “Stop fidgeting. If you mess up your stitches, they’re going to kill me.”
I smile. “Kill you? Why? I thought your quick thinking saved my life?”
She shakes her head. “It was a through-and-through, and it only got your large intestine. Painful, likely to get infected, but not immediately deadly.”
“We waited their ten days!” I tap my other fingers on my other knee, even
