21. Liv
Liv
Isat on the plane that would take me to LaGuardia Airport, struggling to get comfortable in the cramped seat.
I’d handed Chloe over to Gray for an extended visit with mixed feelings, admonishing him to talk to her about Luna, or whoever was next in his string of conquests.
He’d promised me he would, but I’d believe that when Chloe told me her side of the story.
The plane was tiny, with two seats on either side of the aisle and no first-class section. It was worth it not to have a layover. What wasn’t worth it—what was making my stomach flutter and my heart pound—was being trapped for two hours next to Theo Dressler.
The man in question sat next to me, gazing at his phone, his hazel eyes half-lidded and his black hair brushing the collar of his long-sleeved tee. I remembered the silken sensation as it had slipped through my fingers, and had to force the memory away.
If the tension crackling between us troubled Theo, he hid it well.
“I checked into the online records, like I said I would,” he said over the hum of the engine, glancing up from his phone.
“I couldn’t get my hands on the police reports.
But I did find a couple of agencies that handled abandoned kids in New York back then—the Children’s Aid Society and the Foundling Hospital. ”
“I know the Aid Society,” I said, grateful for something to focus on other than his too-close proximity. “Isn’t that the place that sent children west on the orphan trains?”
He nodded and took a sip of his soda. “Yeah, and the Foundling Hospital did, too. I thought if our missing mystery girl ended up there, we might be able to track her through the orphan train’s records. They’ve got a whole system.”
That seemed promising. Not to mention, distracting from the situation at hand. “So, what happened?”
“Well,” he said, “I hunted down an archivist at the Aid Society, but the guy told me that by 1927, the place didn’t take kids in off the street anymore.
The Foundling Hospital had a basket where you could drop off infants, but our mystery girl would’ve been too old for that.
The Aid Society dude said it was more likely a private orphanage would’ve taken her in. ”
“Like Divine Grace, where Grandma Ella went,” I said, brightening as I reached across him to toss my discarded cup into the flight attendant’s trash bag. “That makes sense.”
He took another swig of Coke. “Yeah, except there were a bunch of those places in the city back then. It was starting to feel a little needle-in-the-haystack, I’m not gonna lie.
But then I talked to a dude at the 42nd Street Library, who sent me a scanned page from Manhattan’s 1927 phone directory.
And,” he said, turning his screen toward me with a flourish, “look at this.”
There, in tiny black print, between “Astrologists” and “Athletic Goods,” was a heading: “Asylums and Homes.” And beneath it was… “Oh no.” I reached out, tracing the words. “There’s two columns of names, Theo. How are we going to research all those places, even if the records still exist?”
He brushed his hair out of his eyes and grinned.
I did my best to ignore the swan dive my stomach took at the curve of those wickedly talented lips.
“It’s not that bad, Liv. Look closer. Baptist Home for the Aged, Hebrew Convalescent Home, Home for Incurables…
some of these places were for older people, or people who were sick. Not a lost kid.”
I peered closer, looking for the orphanage Grandma Ella had been adopted from.
Sure enough, there it was: “Divine Grace Home for Children.” Following Theo’s suggestion, I scanned the page, my gaze lingering on the unfortunately named “Washington Square Home for Friendless Girls.” If I’d been born in the 1920s, would I have ended up there?
I had to do this. Not just for Grandma Ella and Lily Dressler, but for the girl I might have been. Abandoning this quest had begun to feel like turning my back on myself.
Swallowing the lump that threatened to rise in my throat, I said, “What else did the librarian say?”
“He said we should start with newspaper articles that were published around the time of the girls’ disappearance.
Maybe we’d turn up some clues we couldn’t find online.
” He turned toward me as a father and son squeezed through the plane’s aisle, and his hand brushed mine. I bit my lip, suppressing a shiver.
“And,” he went on, settling back in his seat, “he said the library’s catalog will tell us what they have on microfilm, and where it is.
Most of it will be at the main branch on 42nd Street.
But if they have the orphanage records, those would be in the Manuscript and Archives Division.
I made us an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.
” He gave me the shy smile I hadn’t seen since that first night, like he wanted me to tell him he’d done well.
“So. Any news about the guy at The Players?”
Unfortunately for me, I found shy, approval-seeking Theo even more alluring than sexy Theo.
“Actually, yes,” I said, struggling to sound professional, and not like I wanted to lick him like a lollipop.
“He’s agreed to meet with us tomorrow morning, at the club.
” That had taken some finagling, but like most people, Ethan Polk had been eager to talk about his work.
I’d mentioned wanting to read his book, and he’d perked right up, saying he’d bring a copy for me.
“That’s great! Hopefully, by the end of the day tomorrow, we’ll know a lot more.” He grinned at me again, but it faded as the plane plunged downward, his fingers tightening on the armrest. “Ugh, I hate turbulence.” His jaw tensed. “Distract me, please.”
I willed myself to remove my mind from the gutter. “With what?”
He grimaced, glancing out the window. “Anything. Make me stop thinking about the fact that there’s a few inches of steel between me and a free-fall to certain death. It’s either that or join the mile-high club, and that’s not on the table.”
A blush rose to heat my cheeks, and Theo drew a deep breath, as if trying to center himself.
“No mile-high club,” he said, forcing a smile. “Right?”
I wouldn’t think about kissing him, about the way my blood had heated when he moved inside me. About how long it had been since anyone had made me feel that way. I wouldn’t. “No,” I agreed, trying to smile back. “Um…you want to try to narrow down the list of places for us to research?”
He shook his head. “I can’t read right now, not with the plane like this. It’ll make me sick. Option B, please.”
I struggled to think of a topic that would keep him talking. “Okay, then tell me about your family. About why you think their problems can be traced back to Lily.”
His jaw tightened. “It’s not a pretty story.”
Maybe this had been the wrong tactic to take, but it was too late to turn back now. “You wanted to talk,” I countered. “Come on, give me something.”
He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Fine, here’s the Cliff’s Notes.
Dad’s been AWOL since I was a kid, mom’s a depressive who doesn’t take her meds and abuses alcohol to cope.
My brother Will basically raised me. Without him, I’d probably be working at a gas station, drowning my sorrows with booze. ”
Despite his attempt to sound flippant, the pain in his voice was so vivid, it was all I could do not to wrap my arms around him—which, I reminded myself, would be a Very Bad Idea. “And Lily…”
Theo dragged in a breath. When he spoke, his voice was toneless. “My great-grandma May blamed my grandma Susi for letting Lily out of her sight. Susi was supposed to be watching her, but she was a kid, and she got distracted. It wasn’t her fault. But try telling that to May.”
He shrugged, the movement shaking both our seats.
“My mother used to tell us about this all the time. How May would accuse my grandma of awful shit, then lie in bed, refusing to speak to anyone. Eventually she got so depressed, she wound up in a psych hospital. Kings Park, I think it was called. And…she died there.”
A shudder went through me. When I was getting my PhD, I’d studied the sprawling state hospitals that had housed so many patients until the legislation of the 1970s had cast them out onto the streets.
Long Island’s Kings Park Psychiatric Center had been notorious for its sheer number of patients… and for other, worse, things, too.
I knew how bad the conditions at Kings Park had been in the 1930s, when May had likely been there.
And I knew, too, what the standard treatment for depression had been back then: electroshock, with twenty-odd patients treated at a time, on gurneys lined up against the walls.
I’d seen footage of how orderlies held the patients down as the electrodes were attached to their temples and the current coursed through their bodies.
I’d read the descriptions of what had happened afterward: patients shrieking in agony or stunned into silence.
If what Theo believed was true, and the Carters had stolen May’s child, then they had stolen her life from her, too. You didn’t recover from a place like Kings Park. Even if she went home, she’d never leave it behind.
“And your grandma?” I said, my voice a whisper over the hum of the fan that blew above us, recirculating the plane’s stale air. “What happened to her?”
Theo shrugged again. “Susi blamed herself. She waited a long time to get married and have a kid, and when she finally did, she was cold to my mom, distant. Her marriage fell apart when my mom was five. Grandma Susi took back her maiden name and never had anything to do with her ex again. When my mom was wasted, she’d get on a roll about how Grandma never showed her any affection and left her to raise herself.
She’d cry about it all the time, how her mother drove her father away and stopped loving her. ”
“Susi lost the people she loved most,” I said, the pain of it resonating deep in my chest. “Her sister, and both her parents. So she decided she wouldn’t let anyone get close enough to hurt her like that again.”
“She screwed my mom up, bad.” His fingers drummed on the armrest, belying his calm tone.
“My mother’s desperate for someone to love her, but she’s got a knack for choosing the worst men imaginable.
My dad was a drunk, a cheater, and an abusive ass.
I think she had me and Will to trap him into marrying her, but it didn’t work.
It was the best day of my life when he walked out that door. ”
I remembered that first phone conversation we’d had: Gray’s a liar and a cheater, I’d said.
I’ve had quite enough of that in my life.
And Theo had responded, So have I. I thought he’d been talking about an ex-girlfriend, but he hadn’t.
He’d been talking about his father, who hadn’t even cared enough about his son to give Theo his name.
No wonder dating wasn’t Theo’s “thing,” as he’d told me that night on the phone. He came from a legacy of women who were punished for showing love. Why would he ever take the risk?
But if he could restore Lily to her sister, then he could heal his grandma, and, in turn, maybe save his mother from her demons. Because if Susi got Lily back, that would mean it was safe to love the people who mattered to her. Including her own daughter.
The man who’d told me he lived for work, not letting anyone close other than his brother, was doing all of this…for love.
Damn it. I didn’t want to fall for Theo; I wanted to believe that no matter how attractive I found him, this weekend was merely a means to an end.
The more I got to know him, though, the more I began to worry that I was kidding myself.
That no matter what we discovered in New York, the biggest risk I was taking involved my heart.