Page 85 of Lillian

But then the phone rings again.

Yasmine.

I pick it up immediately.

“Hello?” My voice is shaky.

“Lillian, thank God, I got you. I didn’t want to leave this over voicemail.” Yasmine’s voice is laced with no small amount of stress and worry, which makes my own emotions bubble to a breaking point.

“Leave what over voicemail?” My voice feels far away, ears ringing.

“Talia missed her phone check-in last night. A social worker came by today to do it in person, but nobody answered. The cops are on their way now to do a wellness check.” She pauses. “Look, I shouldn’t even be calling you. But my gut is telling me something is wrong. If you wanted to?—”

I cut her off. “Tell me where. I’m on my way.”

A breath of relief is blown through the phone. “I’ll text it to you and meet you there.”

A text comes through immediately, and GPS says it’s a ten-minute drive from Lincoln’s apartment. Racing through the apartment, I stop only long enough to put on some shoes and grab my car keys.

Minutes later, I’m speeding in and out of mid-day Phoenix traffic, honking at anyone driving the speed limit in the left lane. Normally, this kind of driving would bother me, but I’m beyond caring about things like road etiquette or politeness.

Each stoplight I hit feels like the longest two minutes of my life, and I seriously think about running them anyway. All the while, I’m studiously ignoring the angry fingers and looks being thrown my way as I speed closer and closer to my daughter.

I make the final turn onto the road my GPS says the address is at, and I don’t even have to look at it anymore. Up ahead are four cop cars with their lights on and an ambulance with its back doors thrown wide open.

When I’m twenty yards away from the closest car, I slam on my brakes, throw the car in park, and jump out. Not evenbothering to shut my door behind me, I’m running at full speed to the apartment a stretcher is being pushed through.

I get to the apartment complex’s lawn before a tall, muscular cop throws his arms out to stop me. I try to push through, but the man isn’t budging, and slamming into him feels like hitting a wall.

“Ma’am, you can’t go in there,” he says with a bite of impatience, not even winded holding me back.

“Get off me!” I yell, pushing against his arm with all my might. “My daughter is in that apartment!”

Please be okay. Please be alive.

“You mean your mother?” The guy looks at me with a confused frown. I push off him, taking a step back, and try for a calmer approach.

“No, I mean my four-year-old daughter. I need to see her.” I can feel the tears start to prick the backs of my eyes.

“Ma’am, the only person in that apartment is the woman that OD’d,” he says as if he’s solved the problem. Just as he says it, I see Talia being rolled out on the stretcher. There isn’t a sheet covering her, so they must have been able to revive her.

“Did you check the entire apartment? I have a four-year-old daughter. Her name is Grace, and she should be in there, too.” My voice cracks at the end just as I feel a body rush up to my side.

“It’s true,” Yasmine says out of breath as her shoulder brushes mine. “I’m her case worker. This is her mom.”

Now the cop’s eyes dart between the two distraught women standing in front of him. His brows furrow as he brings a hand up to the radio attached to his vest shoulder. “32, did you guys check the apartment? Possible four-year-old inside.”

There’s silence on the other end. Yasmine grasps my hand hard, waiting on pins and needles with me. She’s grown so closeto Grace over the years, watching her grow up, that I think she’ll be almost as devastated as I will be if anything happens to Grace.

Shit. We’ve got a little girl in here. Hiding in the bathtub.

The words crackle through the radio, barely finishing his sentence, before I’m sprinting for the door. The big cop must have been too surprised that we were right, or maybe now he believes I’m her mother and understands my need; either way, I get by him.

As I break through the doorway, the first thing that hits me is the smell. Body odor mixed with cigarette smoke and a general, disgusting musk about the room.

The next thing I see that blurs my vision with rage is the spoons and needles. There’s cotton and torches on one of the nightstands, liquor on the other. The place looks like several people went on a weekend-long bender.

The sound of tears from the bathroom filters through my boiling fury—familiar tears. My feet carry me through what looks like roach-infested carpets until I’m outside a door where three male cops are surrounding my crying daughter.

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