I don’t find her with Harris or Roger. I go through the house and out on the back deck and through the mob that’s laughing and dancing and drinking and setting off fireworks. Soon I head back out to the front of the house.
Lily is sitting on a lawn chair outside the three-car garage that’s open and full of people.
“You okay?” I ask when I reach her.
She shoots me a cold look. “Do I look okay?”
“Uh, yeah.” I think she does.
Not sure how I’m supposed to answer that question.
“I’d be a lot more ‘okay’ if I could be left alone.”
I nod, think about going back inside the house, then pull out the cards from my pocket.
“Here.”
I give them to her and she takes them, examining both.
The thorny rose on each one.
Again a look of surprise comes over her face. Not just surprise, but total speechless surprise.
“I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything,” I say.
Yeah, sure, then why are you showing it to her?
Lily looks at me and shakes her head. For a minute, she just looks at me. Studying me.
“What?” I ask.
“Is this some trick, Chris?”
“No.” Then I add, “I mean, yeah, I’m sure it’s a trick. But I don’t know how it works. I wasn’t part of it.”
“But you still had to show me the cards, right?”
She’s not stupid.
Those eyes look me up and down. Then she flings the cards onto the ground and holds out her hand.
“We have to follow the rules, don’t we?” she says. “Help me up.”
I take her hand and pull her out of the lawn chair. She looks at my face that surely shows that I’m nervous and don’t know what to say.
“So I’m supposed to leave the party with you. Let’s leave.”
“And go where?”
She smiles. “This time you drive. Just—wherever you go—I want it to be far away from this place.”
“Ray’s house?”
“This town.”