Page 61 of Secret Triplets for Christmas

I unfolded it, careful not to rip it.

Inside was smeared lipstick that I guessed was a kiss from a girl. Disappointment filled me even as I smiled. Liam had carried the kiss of a girl in his glove. It was sweet. I wondered which girl it was. He hadn’t been dating Lindsay yet when his ball playing days ended, so it was likely Debbie or Katie. Maybe it could be Darcy, but I doubted it. She didn’t seem the type to kiss a piece of paper for Liam to carry with him for good luck.

I set the glove aside and dug back into the box. Next was a stack of comic books with yellowed and dog-eared pages. At one time, Liam had loved superheroes. That was until he grew up enough to realize that there were no benevolent saviors of the downtrodden. I flipped through each, looking for papers, notes, anything out of place, but there was nothing.

I pulled out a photo of me and Liam when he graduated from high school. I’d been the only family of his to attend. We stood with our arms around each other's shoulders, grinning like we had the world at our feet. I remembered hoping that Liam recognized the significance of his achievement. Sure, I'd graduated from high school, but I immediately got a job so I could better help Liam and his future. High school graduation was the first step to a life beyond the pain we’d endured. That dream died when Liam did. It was probably why the photo was hidden away instead of out where I could see it.

I continued through the next few items, but nothing stood out as something the texter would want. No notes. No ledgers or papers. No jump drives. Nothing.

“What did you take, Liam? And where did you put it?” I asked the photo.

It occurred to me that Lindsay’s home had been searched, but mine hadn’t. Had whoever it was come here but wasn’t able to get in? It wasn’t that easy to access the building, much less my condo. Or had the person known that it wouldn’t be here? But if that was the case, why text me? Unless Liam had sent whatever it was to me, which would explain the attempts to get into my electronic devices.

Exhaustion finally caught up to me and I headed to bed. Despite being tired, I lay for a long time, unable to sleep. I was disappointed that I'd made this trip for nothing. By being gone, was I going to stop the momentum she and I had been building? Should we even be building it? When I’d left this afternoon, I’d been so certain that I could put Liam in the past and move forward. But as I lay in bed realizing that I was no closer to solving this issue with Liam, the dream I’d had the other night came back to me. He'd warned me to stay away from Lindsay. Was it just my guilt manifesting as a haunting vision, or was there some truth to it? Did he really want me to keep my distance?

What if Liam had succeeded in his plan? Would Lindsay have forgiven him? Would she have taken him back? She suggested that was a possibility when she hinted that she and Liam hooked up on Halloween before he died. Perhaps those feelings she said she felt for me were only because I’d been there for her.

“Jesus fuck.” I scraped my hands over my face, frustrated at the way my mind was fighting with itself. If I wanted a future with Lindsay, I'd need to confront and resolve these feelings. To give our relationship a fighting chance, I'd have to let go of Liam and his memory, no matter how painful that might be. But how?

Finally, sleep came and it was a relief. Lindsay appeared, looking gorgeous and sexy with her long blonde hair hanging down her back, her face turned upward as she rode me to ecstasy. I watched her, thinking she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“You’re a hypocrite.”

Liam’s voice blasted through my dream. Lindsay evaporated. My heart shattered.

“What?”

He stood at the end of my bed. “You blame me for all this. For bringing danger. Yet look at you. Three thousand miles away, safe in your fancy condo.”

“I’m trying to find what you had so she can be safe.”

He scoffed. “I was killed in her apartment, not reminiscing over my baseball trophies.”

Oh, fuck. “What did you hide? Where did you hide it?” Even in my dreaming state, I knew it wasn’t him, but I asked anyway.

“What do you care? I’m gone and now you can have her. That’s what you wanted.”

“No.” I reached out to him. “Not for your life, I didn’t.”

He shrugged and pain seared my chest. Had he died thinking this? Thinking I’d abandoned him? Of course, he had. My last words to him were in anger.

“I would trade places if I could,” I said.

“I know.” His words gave me some relief. He seemed to know that I loved him, even as he was pissed at me.

His image started to fade.

“Liam. You have to help me.”

“I was at Lindsay’s when I was killed.”

I bolted awake. Liam had been killed in Lindsay's home after he had moved out. I knew this, but for some reason, perhaps because she hadn’t found anything, I didn’t realize the significance. Whatever Liam had, he’d have given it to her. She didn’t know she had it. Maybe she didn’t have it anymore. But whoever killed Liam, whoever was texting us, knew Liam had been there. And because of that, Lindsay was in graver danger than I’d considered. God, what an idiot.

I jumped out of bed, noting that it was just after five thirty in the morning. I dressed in the clothes I wore yesterday and grabbed my phone to book a flight back to Boston. I had to return to get to Lindsay.

Panic grew when I saw that Boston was under siege by a snowstorm. There were no flights available until further notice. I called a charter company, hoping I’d find one willing to risk the flight, but they too said there was nothing they could do.

I tossed my phone on the bed and paced as dread consumed me. What the fuck had I been thinking to leave her? I needed to get back to Boston. I needed to go through Lindsay’s things with a fine-toothed comb. But what if whatever it was wasn’t there? She’d moved since then. It was likely lost in a dump. How could we convince this guy that it was gone? It wasn’t a threat to him.

---