Page 3 of Everything We Found

Her gaze darted to the exit.

Fuck.

This wasn’t going to end well.

Then again, when had anything between them ever been simple?

1

NADIA

TEN YEARS LATER

“This is new.” Nadia Jacobs murmured to herself and picked up the framed photo she hadn’t noticed before in her best friend’s office at Aimee’s Café in downtown Los Gatos. She remembered the hot summer afternoon the picture had been taken. Had it really been almost thirty years ago?

“Sorry about that.” Aimee breezed into her office, her first break after the morning rush. Aimee had asked Nadia to stay after she finished her coffee, a honey almond milk latte that had her buzzing with energy and pacing the office while she waited.

“Why do you have a photo of Thomas?” She flipped the frame to show Aimee what she’d found on her friend’s credenza among the other photos of Aimee and her husband Ian’s family and friends.

To be fair, it wasn’t a photo ofjustThomas. They were all in the picture. Thomas, his brother James, James’s best friend, Nick, who was also Kristen’s husband, Aimee, Kristen, and her. Sprawled on bright plastic floats in the middle of Nick’s pool they wore vibrant smiles, their wet hair plastered to theirfaces. They’d been young and innocent. Neighborhood kids who thought they’d be friends forever.

Hard to fathom then the people they’d become. The things that Thomas would do.

What she’d do.

Nadia swallowed the guilt that rose whenever she was reminded of the years Aimee had believed James, her childhood sweetheart and former fiancé, had perished in a boating accident two and a half months before their wedding only to discover almost two years later he’d still been alive. Thomas had his reasons for hiding James, claiming he’d been protecting his younger brother while he lived in a dissociative fugue state.

Aimee despised Thomas with a DEFCON 1 level hatred.

Aimee pushed out a hefty breath and closed the door, shutting out the noise of clattering dishes and the whir of a blender. “That’s not a picture of Thomas.” She removed the café apron she was wearing over a fitted white tee and flared jeans, the rubber toes of her lime-green Chucks peeking out from under the wide-legged bottoms. “That’s you, me, and Kristen.”

“And Nick and James and Thomas.” Nadia gave her a flat look.

“I tell myself it’s just us girls so I can stomach having it here.” Aimee took the frame and tossed it inside the credenza, closing the drawer with a firm shove of finality. Nadia’s eyes widened and Aimee heaved a sigh, dropping into her chair behind her desk. “Caty framed it for my birthday for my office. I couldn’t say no.”

Aimee wouldn’t dream of offending her eight-year-old daughter, who was just a year younger than Aimee and Nadia had been at the time of the photo.

“Where did she find it?” Nadia thought Aimee had put her photos of Thomas and James in storage. Had she been inAimee’s situation, she would have doused them in kerosene and lit a match.

“An old photo album. We’ve been cleaning out the garage for the remodel. Do you still have yours?”

“The picture? Probably.” Nick’s mom had printed copies for each of them. “Did she ask who the boys were?”

“I told her they were the neighborhood kids I grew up with and left it at that.”

“Do you think you’ll ever tell her about what happened?” Nadia cautiously asked as she settled in the seat opposite Aimee. She crossed her legs and skimmed her hand along her thigh, plucked a piece of lint from her heather camel-colored ankle pants. She was always hesitant about bringing up the subject. What happened to James and the ensuing fallout had traumatized Aimee. She and James had been inseparable. His “death” and eventual re-emergence forced her to grow up quick. They’d all been affected to some degree by what Thomas had done.

Aimee shook her head with an unfocused stare. “Not if I can help it. But if she can learn from my experience and not get herself sucked into a toxic relationship, then maybe. I was naive. I’d never wish upon anyone what I went through.”

“She’s already more worldly than we both were at her age.”

“True.” Aimee smiled. Caty had joined her dad on several of his photo expeditions overseas, exposing her to different cultures and life outside of their community. Aimee and Ian also weren’t as overprotective with their two kids as Aimee’s parents had been with her.

Nadia looked down at her hands. She picked at a gel tip that was lifting off one of her fingernails. “Do you ever hear from him?”

“James? I haven’t, not for years. Thomas reach out to you anymore?”

As she always did at the sound of his name, Nadia felt a tightening in her chest. She shook her head, lips pursed, eyes downcast.