Timepiece: An Hourglass Novel by Myra McEntire Page A

street, but I could see her lips twitching from the corner of my eye. “Don’t push it.”
    “Fine, then.” I kept my focus on the street as well. “I don’t like you, either.”
    “Good,” she said, sounding authoritative. “You think we can work on this ‘finding crap’ thing for a few minutes before dark? My calculus homework isn’t going to do itself.”
    I gave in to my smile. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 18
     
    T

hree days.
    That’s how long it took Lily to find an object that didn’t belong to her.
    “I did it, uh-huh, I did it.” She danced around in my laundry room, swinging her hips from side to side, holding up the shirt I’d worn the night at Em’s house when I’d discovered Lily’s ability.
    It took great effort, but I kept my focus off her hips and on the situation at hand. While I was happy about the latest development, I had to fight to ignore the twinge in my gut telling me that we weren’t moving fast enough. “Okay, think. What did it feel like? How did you know where it was?”
    “Kind of a hook in my belly button.” She rubbed her hand across her stomach. “But I could see the shirt, too, like a photograph. Right there under your Batman boxer briefs.”
    “Those were a gag gift. And my last pair of clean underwear.”
    “I don’t know which of those statements I find more disturbing.”
    “Try again,” I said. “Find my sword.”
    She tilted her head to the side. “ Lame. ”
    “Get your mind out of the gutter, Tiger.” I didn’t sound half as frustrated as I meant to. “I meant the one from the masquerade.”
    “There’s no room in the gutter. You’re taking up all the space.” We stepped out of the laundry room into the hall. “I simply meant that finding the sword should be a piece of cake.”
    “Sure you did.”
    We’d reached some sort of working truce after the conversation about my mom. I didn’t want to blow it by pushing Lily harder, but I needed more from her. We all did.
    She’d just closed her eyes to concentrate, when my back door flew open.
    Dune had a folder full of papers, and a big smile.
    “What did you find?” I asked.
    “The jackpot. I searched the public school systems around Memphis.” Dune dropped the folder on the kitchen table. “Oh. Hey, Lily.”
    “Hi, Dune.”
    They spent more time smiling at each other than was really necessary.
    “I didn’t realize you two had met,” I said, a spark of jealousy popping up out of nowhere. Why did I care who Lily smiled at?
    “Yeah,” Dune said. “Em introduced us after you told me about Lily’s search ideas.”
    When Dune noticed I was staring at him, he stopped smiling. “Okay, then. I did some editing on a photo of Jack and ran a face recognition program. It only took twelve hours to get a hit.”
    “Who are you? Bill Gates’s younger brother?” I picked up the folder.
    “Don’t insult me.” Dune flipped a chair around and straddled it. It creaked under his weight. “My gene pool is way more impressive than his.”
    Lily laughed. It was sort of husky and really sexy. I’d never heard that laugh from her before.
    Dune started smiling again and slid a picture out of the folder. “Here’s the one I created.”
    “Nice editing work,” Lily commented, putting her hand on his shoulder to lean over and look at the photograph. “Is that version 9.5 or 9.7?”
    He looked up at her sideways, and his expression rivaled that of a kid getting ready to blow out his birthday candles. “It was 9.5, but I had an add-on and I was able to manipulate—”
    I cleared my throat and tapped my fingers on the tabletop.
    Dune’s smile disappeared, and he pulled out a piece of paper. It was a black-and-white picture, and it was grainy. “Here’s what the search uncovered.”
    A copy of a photograph. I peered down at the face. It wasn’t super clear, just a tiny scan from a yearbook, but there was no mistaking it. “That’s him. Jack. With a really bad haircut.”
    “Someone put it up on a