In hindsight, Amelia should have taken the gun on the nightstand as an omen that her life was taking a turn for the worse.

But when you're around a gun enough—in her case, when your dad is a security guard and your boyfriend a police officer—you begin to forget that it's a killing thing. You'll never fully forget, not quite, but it slips away to the edges of your consciousness like an item you've packed away and stuffed in the attic for later.

"You've really gotta stop bringing that thing in here," she mumbled, still half-asleep, as she rolled over onto her side to look at her boyfriend.

Colton was already mostly dressed in his uniform but paused buttoning up his shirt to sit back down on the edge of the mattress, which dipped slightly beneath the added weight. A loose strand of dark blonde hair hung over his forehead as he leaned over to cup her cheek in his hand.

"Sorry," he murmured. "You want breakfast?"

Amelia almost said that she'd rather sleep in than eat right now—it was 6:30 on a Saturday morning, after all—but what was the point of moving in with him if not for them to spend time together? If he had to endure working on the weekend, the least she could do was drag herself out of bed to have breakfast with him.

"Yeah." She stifled a yawn. "Just give me a minute."

It wasn't until he had finished getting dressed and left the room to go start breakfast that Amelia crawled out of bed, rubbing her eyes as she slouched to the bathroom to evaluate her appearance in the mirror. Her black hair practically looked like a rat's nest and she had to resist a strong impulse to do much more than quickly rake her fingers through it for right now—she was going to have to get used to not always looking perfectly put-together in front of Colton if this whole living together thing was ever going to work.

They were testing the waters right now, a trial run of sorts. He had wanted to go all-in right away, but Amelia wasn't quite brave enough to immediately give up her apartment to move in with someone she'd been dating for eight months. She could tell that he was slightly irked about it; her mother, meanwhile, was on the verge of disowning her for even considering moving in with someone she wasn't married to.

No matter what she did, it always seemed to be the wrong thing. But Amelia had never been great at making other people happy—it was something she'd just learned to live with.

As she leaned forward over the sink to brush her teeth, the loose neckline of the tee shirt she'd worn to bed sagged downward and revealed a splotch of purple on her shoulder. She lifted a delicate finger to it, then winced; it was still tender. Self-consciously, she pulled her shirt back up to hide the bruise as if someone besides herself were watching her right now and might comment on it. She'd have to remember to wear a better top if she went out anywhere today.

But in spite of her attempts to shove it out of sight and out of mind, that little mark on her skin seemed to nag her the entire time she was getting ready. Colton wasn't a bad person. Colton would never hurt her on purpose. Colton loved her. He was just so accustomed to being rough with people on the job that it occasionally slipped his mind to be more gentle at home.

The buttery smell of fresh hash browns wafted down the hallway as she made her way to the kitchen. She could hear the sound of the news playing on the TV. As silly as she thought it was that he still put that on—what almost-thirty-year-old still watched the morning news in 2020?—she found it equally endearing.

He was quietly humming something as he dished the potatoes onto two plates—a larger serving for him than her—and Amelia sat down on the couch. He joined her a moment later just as the news segment was switching and the headline Local College Student Missing popped up onscreen.

"Authorities tell us that twenty-one-year-old Bellevue University senior Lily Myers hasn't been seen since Wednesday of last week," the anchor was saying. "Her roommates claim that after leaving her boyfriend's apartment at approximately 9 p.m. on Wednesday the 2nd, Lily never made it home, and her car was found abandoned near Radnor Lake the following day. Foul play is not suspected at this time, but if you know anything about Lily's whereabouts, please call..."

Amelia set her fork down on her plate and glanced over at Colton as the news anchor rattled off the contact info for the police station. "Have you heard about that girl at work?"

He nodded. "Yeah, they've been looking for her, but it's a bit of a cold case. Other than the car, we haven't found anything suspicious."

"You don't think anything happened to her? You think she ran away on purpose?"

He shrugged. "The detectives could tell you that better than me, but yeah, I think that's what it's looking like. They didn't find any signs of a struggle, so it's more likely that she ditched the car intentionally."

Amelia was intrigued—maybe a little too intrigued—as she'd always been fascinated with true crime stuff.

"And there's nothing sketchy going on with the boyfriend?" she questioned, probably insensitively, as she stuffed a bite of potato into her mouth. "They said he was the last one who saw her, right?"

"As far as I'm aware, he's in the clear. The apartment complex he lives at has security cameras, so we were able to verify that she actually left and that she left alone." Colton shook his head slightly, like he was deep in thought. "I'll admit it's a little bizarre, 'cause no one they've interviewed at the station can come up with any reason why she'd want to run away. But since she's not a minor, there's only so much snooping around that's within our jurisdiction to do without a strong reason to believe she could be in danger."

"Oh, right." Amelia sometimes forgot that the police weren't allowed to just Scooby-Doo their way into any situation. "That sucks, though. I hope she shows back up soon."

"But if you're interested..." Colton got up from the couch and walked back into the kitchen like he'd suddenly remembered something. He pulled down a piece of paper that he must have hung on the fridge with a magnet very recently; Amelia hadn't even noticed it. "I saw this at the store last night. Her family must want help looking for her."

It was a missing person flier. Beneath a picture of Lily—a beautiful, vibrant-looking girl with dark, long hair—and much of the same info she'd just heard on the news was another paragraph in bold font.

SEARCH PARTY: A group will meet at Radnor Lake at 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 12th to search for Lily near the area where her car was found. Volunteers are welcome. If you have any additional information about Lily's whereabouts, please contact the Metro Nashville Police Department.

"Wouldn't the police have already looked there?" Amelia thought aloud as she read the paragraph.

"Thoroughly? Probably not," Colton admitted. "I'm sure they glanced around. But like I said, there's only so much time and resources we're allowed to allocate to a case that might not be a crime at all."

She ate the last few (now lukewarm) bites of her hash browns, debating if she should show up to this search party. On the one hand, she might look a little weird doing it. But Bellevue was the college that she'd attended and if this Lily girl was a senior now, that would mean she'd been a freshman back while Amelia was there as a senior. As far as she was aware, she and Lily had never crossed paths, but they very well could have made mutual acquaintances at school.

Colton leaned over the back of the couch to give her a kiss. "I'm gonna be late if I hang around any longer. I'll see you tonight."

"See you tonight," Amelia echoed. "Be safe."

A smile toyed at his lips. "You don't need to worry yourself with worrying about me."

He said that to her every single day and it never stopped her from worrying. So she said the same thing she always did. "Of course I do."

"I love you, Amelia."

"Love you, too."

Amelia's old Corolla creaked to a standstill in the parking lot at Radnor Lake Nature Preserve. She had worried that she wasn't even going to the right place, but the small crowd that had already formed near the trailhead told her that she'd managed to find her way to where she needed to be.

It wasn't until she was already walking over to the group of people that she started to feel self-conscious. Had anyone else simply seen the call for volunteers by chance like she had, or was she the odd one out in a group of Lily's friends? As she glanced around, she noticed that the people around her varied in age, but what they all had in common was that they already seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing. Meanwhile, Amelia felt a bit like a child who'd been left alone in the grocery store.

"You okay?" someone suddenly asked from nearby, nearly startling her out of her own skin. "You look a little...lost."

It took her a second to process that she was the one being spoken to. The source of the voice was a boy who looked to be around her age, with curly, dark brown hair and blue eyes hiding behind a pair of glasses. His skin was tanner than hers (though that wasn't necessarily saying much—she was pale as a ghost), more olive-toned, but what drew her attention the most was the sleeve of black tattoos that snaked all the way up his left arm.

"Do I know you?" she questioned, perhaps a little more bluntly than it had sounded in her head. "You look familiar."

His eyebrows furrowed like he was struggling to place her; she supposed that even if they did know each other from somewhere, she wasn't the most memorable-looking person. She didn't have any fun tattoos or neon-colored hair to set her apart from a sea of other girls.

"Did you go to Bellevue?"

She nodded.

After another prolonged moment, he ventured a guess. "...Intro to Business class with Dr. Brooks? You sat in the second row?"

Amelia laughed, nearly blushing at the fact that this stranger actually did remember her. But she supposed that while there wasn't anything particularly unique about her appearance, it hadn't changed all that much since college aside from the fact that her once-long hair was now chopped to her shoulders. "Yeah, that class sucked."

He politely offered his hand for her to shake, but the smile that he gave her as he introduced himself wasn't stiff at all. "Henry Caruso."

For some reason, she'd expected his grip to be tight, but it was relievingly gentle. "Amelia Allen. So, um, how do you know Lily?"

It wasn't until the words were already out of her mouth that she realized that his warm expression didn't quite make it all the way to his eyes. He looked tired. Very, very tired.

"She's my cousin."

"Oh." Amelia swallowed a lump in her throat, immediately feeling guilty for having asked. But it was bound to come up sooner or later, right? "I'm, um, I'm sorry. For what you're going through."

To her surprise, that actually made him grin a little bit. "You don't have to apologize, Amelia Allen. But since you're here and I assume you showed up to help, do you want to walk with me?"

Going off into the woods with strangers wasn't usually something she aspired to do in life, but this Henry seemed like a perfectly nice person and probably wasn't a serial killer. Or if he was, he'd have to be a very dumb serial killer to try to do something to her when everybody was already on such high alert.

She nodded, but she was already making a mental note not to mention this particular tidbit of information to Colton later. He had some jealousy issues that they needed to work on, and her being alone with another man was something he was very likely to blow out of proportion. But this boy in front of her was someone in genuine need of help and Colton had practically instructed her to come here, so surely it wouldn't bother him, right?

No matter. Amelia shoved her thoughts of him aside for now. She was going to follow her gut and do what she thought was the right thing to do, consequences be damned.

"Lead the way, Henry Caruso."

But as she said it, she thought she felt that little spot on her shoulder start to ache again.

____________________

A/N: 

Welcome to The Search for Lily Myers! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter.