Chương 6
“Exactly.”
Lucas stepped closer to me.
“Maybe not here.”
I turned on him.
“Where would you prefer?”
His face closed.
I hated myself again.
Marjorie looked toward the remaining mourners.
Most had drifted toward their cars, though several were pretending not to watch us.
“She sounded irritated,” Marjorie said.
“Irritated how?”
“Like Lily was being difficult.”
The ground beneath my shoes felt unsteady.
“Difficult?”
“She said the inhaler wasn’t calming her down.”
“That isn’t what an inhaler does.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Marjorie flinched.
“My husband had asthma.”
“Then you should’ve known.”
The accusation came out before I could stop it.
Beth said my name quietly behind me.
Marjorie’s face collapsed.
“I told her to call 911.”
“You could have called.”
“I didn’t know where she was.”
“You knew where Evelyn lived.”
“She told me they were driving.”
“You just said she sounded like Lily was with her.”
“I thought they were on the way to the hospital.”
“You assumed.”
“Yes.”
“So did I.”
That ended it.
My anger had nowhere clean to go.
Marjorie looked down at the grass.
“I’m sorry.”
I almost told her sorry was useless.
Then I looked at her hands.
They were trembling.
She had probably been replaying that call since Tuesday too.
I had no right to make another person’s guilt carry mine.
“What time?” Lucas asked.
Marjorie opened her purse and pulled out her phone.
Her movements were clumsy.
She dropped a lipstick onto the grass and muttered, “Damn it.”
Nobody picked it up.
She found the call log.
“Four forty-seven.”
Lucas looked at me.
That was nine minutes after the tablet had connected to Evelyn’s home Wi-Fi.
“Did you save anything?”
he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Voicemail, recording, messages.”
“No.”
“Did she text you after?”
Marjorie scrolled.
“One message.”
She held up the phone.
Lucas did not take it.
“Read it.”
Marjorie swallowed.
“Forget we spoke about this.”
Beth inhaled sharply.
“What time?”
“Five eleven.”
Lily had reached St. Matthew’s emergency department at 5:24.
I looked toward the cemetery entrance.
Detective Reyes’s car was still parked along the curb.
“Come with me.”
Marjorie hesitated.
“I don’t want to make trouble.”
I stared at her.
She closed her eyes.
“I know how that sounds.”
“Then don’t say it again.”
We found Reyes beside her car speaking into the phone.
She held up one finger when she saw us and finished the call.
Marjorie told her everything.
Reyes asked fewer emotional questions than I did and more precise ones.
Did Evelyn say where she was?
Did Marjorie hear vehicle noise?
Did she hear an inhaler discharge?
Did Lily cough, wheeze, speak full sentences?
Did Evelyn mention calling emergency services?
Marjorie answered as carefully as she could.
“I heard Lily cry,” she said.
“And I heard her say she wanted her mother.”
“Anything else?”
“She said she couldn’t breathe.”
Reyes’s pen stopped.
“Exact words?”
Marjorie covered her mouth.
“I think so.”
“You think, or you remember?”
“I remember.”
Reyes wrote something.
“Please don’t delete that text from Evelyn.”
“I won’t.”
“I may need your phone preserved later.”
Marjorie looked alarmed.
“My whole phone?”
“Potentially.”
“I need it for work.”
“We can discuss options.”
Her discomfort irritated me.
Then I remembered that normal people still cared about work.
Normal life had not vanished because mine had.
Reyes turned to me.
“We’re requesting Lily’s ambulance and emergency department records.”
“You said she arrived by car.”
“She did.”
“Then why ambulance records?”
“To confirm there wasn’t a dispatch.”
I nodded.
“What about the backpack?”
“One of the officers is checking property logs at St. Matthew’s.”
“And Evelyn’s house?”
“We’re working on legal process.”
“You mean a warrant.”
“If probable cause supports one.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Some pieces support further investigation.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I can give.”
Lucas shoved his hands into his pockets.
“What happens if she throws the backpack away?”
Reyes looked at him.
“That concern is being addressed.”
“How?”
“I’m not going to describe investigative steps in a cemetery parking lot.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“Lucas.”
He looked at me.
I expected anger.
Instead he looked embarrassed.
“Sorry.”
Reyes put her notebook away.
“You don’t have to apologize for being suspicious.”
He blinked.
“That’s kind of your job now, isn’t it?”
she added.
He gave a humorless smile.
“Apparently.”
Beth drove us home after the cemetery.
Lucas sat beside me in the back instead of taking the front.
Neither of us spoke for the first ten minutes.
At a stoplight, Beth asked whether anybody wanted food.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Lucas said at the same time.
Beth nodded.
“Good, one human remains.”
I looked at the back of her head.
“That was rude.”
“Yes.”
Lucas stared out the window.
“What do you want?”
Beth asked him.
“I don’t care.”
“That isn’t food.”
“Burger.”
“From where?”
“I really don’t care.”
“Now you understand adulthood.”
He almost smiled.
I did not.
At home, Lily’s yellow rain boots were still beside the front door.
One had fallen on its side.
I had walked past them every day since Tuesday without touching them.
This time I stopped.
Lucas nearly bumped into me.
“Sorry.”
I bent and set the fallen boot upright.
That was all.
No revelation followed.
No memory.
It was simply crooked, and I fixed it.
Beth put takeout containers on the kitchen counter.
The smell of fries made my stomach turn.
Lucas ate standing up.
He swallowed too quickly and coughed.
Beth handed him water.
I sat at the table without taking off my coat.
The chair across from me had a small scratch near the edge where Lily had once stabbed it with a fork because she wanted to know if wood was softer than metal.
Mark had laughed.
I had not.
Now I would have given anything to hear the scrape again.
Lucas’s phone buzzed.
He checked it and froze.
“What?”
I asked.
He turned the screen toward us.
The message was from Evelyn.
May you like
You have made a terrible mistake.
Beth leaned over his shoulder.
