Chapter 77
LILY-ANN
Lily-Ann turned away from Frank DeYoung’s music studio to watch a flock of pelicans glide along the cliff top. She smelled eucalyptus and the tang of fertilizer, and considered trying to force the door.
She couldn’t decide if she should call the cops—well, the cop.
She didn’t trust Detective Enible with justice, but she trusted him not to burst onto the scene with guns blazing.
Upon reflection, that felt like a remarkable amount of trust. Still, she felt comfortable with the decision.
Enible wasn’t the sort of fearful, macho cop who reached for a gun.
Also, he was willing to be persuaded if you presented the right argument.
However, what if her theory about the murderers was wrong? She considered that as the wind shifted and the fertilizer stink turned sour and visceral and rank.
Oh. Oh, no. What if she was right?
She crept around the side of the building, then almost gagged when the stench curdled in the air. It wasn’t like fertilizer at all. More like an outhouse. The smell seeping from under the music studio door.
Lily-Ann felt her throat clench in disgust but she made herself try the door.
The handle didn’t move. She banged with the heel of her hand and the door still didn’t budge. She heard nothing from inside, yet a sense of urgency rose in her chest, almost like panic. What if it was a matter of life and death?
She tugged the handle once more, then crunched across a carpet of fallen eucalyptus leaves to a pile of branches the gardeners must’ve left behind.
Her pulse rushed in her ears. She grabbed a branch that looked right—two feet long, as wide around as her wrist—and jammed it behind the door handle to use as a lever.
Then she pulled and pulled, but nothing happened except the smell got worse.
So she wrenched with all her might and tore the handle from the door.
However, the door itself remained closed.
Shit. Using her fingernails, she tugged at the splintered mechanism.
The door still didn’t open. She’d torn the handle away but the door remained locked.
She swore and reached for her phone again. Her hands were shaking so hard that she dropped it. She took a calming breath, then regretting taking any kind of breath, and caught sight of her Volvo pulling to a stop in the driveway.
She grabbed her phone and texted Anthony to look to his left. She watched as he stepped from the car and didn’t glance at his phone. So she shouted his name and waved until he came toward her across the grounds.
“You okay?” he said.
“Break this down,” she told him. “We need— You need to look inside.”
He didn’t ask why. He simply looked at her face for a moment, then kicked the door away from the frame and, as the stench billowed forth, he went inside.
Lily-Ann waited until he reappeared with CJ in his arms. Her head lolled and her feet dangled. She was caked in filth, lumps of sick in her hair, but her face wasn’t the white of a corpse. She was alive. Barely alive.
The smell shoved Lily-Ann back a few paces. She said, “Don’t move her too much.”
“Four empty pill bottles,” he said.
“You’re not supposed to move injured people. Stay here with her, I’m calling an ambulance.”
As Anthony set CJ gently on the ground, Lily-Ann headed for the main house.