As Lie the Dead

LATER

I finger-combed my long hair needlessly, then smoothed the front of my unwrinkled blouse. Nervous gestures I had no reason to be exhibiting, standing in front of room 134 at the Amsterdam Inn—a far cry from any other hotel I’d stayed in. I almost felt out of place in the swept and polished hallway.

The décor didn’t matter, and neither did my comfort. I had business.

I rapped my knuckles against the smooth white door, just below the peephole. The sound echoed in the quiet hallway. A chain rattled on the other side, then a lock slipped out of place.

Leo held the door open, and I went inside. The room was neat, the bed made. It smelled of aftershave and pizza. No alcohol in sight. Even Leo seemed neater than in any of our previous encounters—shaved, washed, remaining hair combed flat, pants pressed.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to come see you,” I said.

“Your friend Phin said you were sick.” His tone told me he didn’t quite believe that but didn’t want to be rude and call Phin a liar. “Were you?”

“Sort of, yes.”

I sat in one of the room’s striped upholstered chairs and folded my hands in my lap. Leo perched on the edge of the bed opposite me, cracking and recracking his knuckles.

“You’re better now, though?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

God, why was this so hard?

“Would you like something to drink? I have a cola in the ice bucket, and the water’s good.”

“No, I’m okay.”

He scrubbed a hand across his mostly bald head. “I’ve wanted a drink every waking minute since last week, and it isn’t even because I’m starting to think I really did see what I think I saw in your apartment. It’s because I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to tell Alex the truth and ask him to forgive me for lying the last six years.”

“Lying about what, Leo?” Damn, I hadn’t meant to ask that out loud.

Bone-deep weariness wilted him. “Alex knew I was an alcoholic. I never hid it, was for years. I still was six years ago when his sister Joanne came for Thanksgiving. Alex wasn’t home from college yet, but the kids said they wouldn’t come home at all if I drank. Joanne came out to dinner with her mom and me. I hadn’t had a drink at all in two days. On the way home, the car went off the road.”

He hadn’t said it yet, but somehow I knew how the story ended, and the words broke my heart for both father and son.

“They died. I didn’t. Told the cops I was driving, so they wouldn’t … It was the first time in months I’d gone out and hadn’t had a drop to drink. Blood test was way under. The cops believed it was an accident. No charges, but I haven’t had a drink since. It was years before Alex began taking my calls. I thought we were starting to mend things.” He wiped his eyes.

“And now you can’t tell him the truth,” I said, my throat tight. “Who was actually driving, Leo?”

“My wife. I had a god-awful headache from withdrawal, so she drove home. She’d had a glass of wine, always does when we eat Italian. If they’d thought she was driving, they’d have done a blood test. I couldn’t do that to them. She wasn’t drunk. It was an accident, but Alex … I couldn’t let him think his mom …”

Leo couldn’t let Alex hate his mother for drinking—even if she was under the legal limit—and killing herself and her daughter. Leo had known he’d be blamed anyway for not driving, so he’d taken all the blame onto his own shoulders. For six years.

“It’s okay.” I understood, and he seemed to realize that. He cleared his throat hard and rubbed his eyes again. He seemed finished with his story.

My turn.

“Leo …” The words wouldn’t come out. I’d practiced this all morning, rehearsed the speech in my head. Tried out different ways of telling him something a father should never hear about a child. News I’d never had to deliver before. And now that I did, I couldn’t look up from my hands.

“It’s okay, Chalice.” He reached across the pocket of air between us and squeezed my knee. “Please … tell me how my son died.”

My head snapped up, and I met his eyes. Sad and determined, they asked for details on something he’d already accepted. My nervous stomach settled a bit. I covered his hand with mine and squeezed.

“Okay,” I said, and took a deep breath. Exhaled. “I’m not Chalice Frost.”

He blinked hard and pulled his hand away. Confusion and hurt thinned his lips and hardened his stare. “So what are you? Some sort of cop? Is Chalice just an alias?”

You have no idea. “No, I’m not a cop, Leo. My name is Evangeline Stone, and two weeks ago I died.”