Chương 3
“Detective, thank goodness,” she said.
“My grandson has become hysterical.”
Reyes looked at Lucas.
Then at me.
Then at the casket.
Her expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Mercer.”
“Are you arresting her?”
The question came out too fast.
“No.”
Evelyn smiled.
It was small, but I saw it.
Reyes saw it too.
“We’re here because Lucas provided information concerning Lily’s death, and because some of that information warrants immediate preservation of potential evidence.”
“That is not an arrest,” Evelyn said.
“No, ma’am.”
“So I’m free to leave.”
Reyes studied her.
“At this moment, yes.”
Evelyn picked up her handbag.
Lucas looked at the detective in disbelief.
“You saw the messages.”
“I saw screenshots.”
“She forged Claire’s signature.”
“I saw an image of a document containing a disputed signature.”
“She lied about taking Lily to urgent care.”
“We’re checking that.”
“She asked about the payout while Lily was dying.”
Reyes’s face remained calm.
“And that is one reason I’m standing here instead of asking you to come to the station tomorrow.”
Lucas’s anger collapsed into confusion.
“But you’re letting her walk out.”
“For now.”
Evelyn passed him.
At the end of the pew, she stopped beside me.
Her voice was barely audible.
“You see what he’s done?”
I stared at her.
She leaned closer.
“He’s destroyed Lily’s funeral because he needed someone else to blame.”
My hand moved before my judgment did.
I slapped her.
Hard.
The chapel inhaled as one body.
Evelyn touched her cheek.
Detective Reyes closed her eyes briefly.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
“I know.”
“Please don’t do that again.”
“I know.”
Evelyn looked at me with something almost like satisfaction.
That frightened me.
She wanted me uncontrolled.
She wanted Lucas hysterical.
She wanted herself to be the only calm person in the room.
I stepped away from her.
“Go.”
She did.
Nobody followed her.
Not even Marjorie.
The doors closed, and for several seconds the only sound was a child somewhere outside asking an adult whether they could have a snack.
I looked at Lily’s casket.
The funeral program was still crushed in my hand.
Detective Reyes approached Lucas.
“I need the original tablet.”
“It’s at home.”
“Has anyone else handled it?”
“Me.”
“Anyone besides you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t turn it on again.”
He nodded.
“What about the phone?”
“Keep it for now, but don’t delete or alter anything.”
Lucas glanced toward the doors Evelyn had just gone through.
“You really can’t arrest her?”
“Not because you want me to.”
His face hardened.
Reyes did not soften the answer.
“That isn’t me dismissing you.”
“Feels like it.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Lucas,” I said.
He shoved his phone into his pocket.
“I’m going outside.”
“Stay where I can find you.”
“I’m nineteen.”
“And I just buried your sister.”
He stopped.
Neither of us corrected my wording.
Lily was his stepsister.
He had never called her that.
He nodded once and went through the side door.
Detective Reyes watched him leave.
“He did the right thing bringing this forward.”
“Did Evelyn kill my daughter?”
“I don’t know.”
It was the first answer anyone had given me in four days that did not pretend to be comforting.
“Then find out.”
“We will investigate what happened.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No.”
She handed me her card.
The funeral continued twenty-seven minutes later.
Father Daniel asked whether I wanted to postpone.
I said no because I could not imagine waking up the next morning and having to put on the same black dress again.
Half the mourners had left.
I resented them for leaving and resented the others for staying.
Grief had made me petty in ways I did not recognize.
During the final prayer, I kept looking toward the side door.
Lucas did not return.
When everyone stood to approach the casket one last time, I remained seated.
Beth sat beside me.
“You need water.”
“I hate water.”
“You don’t hate water.”
“I do today.”
She dug through her purse and produced a mint.
I stared at it.
“What?”
“Evelyn smelled like peppermint.”
Beth put the mint away without comment.
Outside, people gathered in uncomfortable clusters beneath the funeral home awning.
Nobody knew whether condolences were still appropriate after possible murder entered the conversation.
Marjorie approached me twice and turned away both times.
I finally found Lucas sitting behind the building beside a dented green dumpster.
He had taken off his suit jacket and folded it under himself to keep his pants off the damp concrete.
“Your dad would kill you for sitting on that jacket.”
“He’s already dead.”
The words landed badly.
Lucas winced.
“Sorry.”
I sat beside him.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Cars passed on the road beyond the parking lot.
Somebody from the funeral home wheeled a cart of flower stands through a service entrance.
Lucas picked at a loose thread on his cuff.
“Do you believe me?”
I looked at him.
“I believe you found something.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
I could have lied.
Four days earlier, Evelyn had been the woman I trusted to drive my sick child to a doctor.
Now my daughter was dead, and my stepson had shown me evidence that might mean something monstrous.
Between those facts was a space I could not cross just because I wanted certainty.
“I don’t know what happened yet,” I said.
Lucas nodded without looking at me.
“You sound like the detective.”
“I’m probably less qualified.”
That earned the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth.
Then it disappeared.
“There’s something else.”
My stomach clenched.
“What?”
He stopped pulling at the thread.
“I didn’t tell the detective everything.”
I turned toward him.
“Why?”
“Because one of the messages is from Dad.”
Mark had been dead fourteen months.
For the first time since Evelyn struck me beside Lily’s casket, I felt truly cold.
Lucas reached for his phone.
“What message?”
May you like
He looked toward the funeral home doors before answering.
“The one where Dad told Grandma never to insure Lily.”
