At least one person other than the coroner knows the truth: Libby Bernard, Marchant’s favorite shrink. That’s one way it could come out. There could be other people who know; people my father has trusted over the years. I’ve never asked him for a list.
I prop my cheek against my palm and try my best to think about something else. But all I can think about is handcuffs. I don’t think I could be prosecuted for what happened, but it could sure as hell make me look guiltier in the Sarabelle disappearance.
I remind myself I didn’t do that.
So what?
Innocent people go to prison all the time.
I’ve been cuffed one time before, after a bar fight at the Wynn a few years ago. I still remember how much it reminded me of my wrists, years ago, pinched together by long fingernails.
“Piece of shit! You little bastard!”
And fuck it: that calls for another glass.
I’m halfway on the road to plastered when my cell rings again. Marchant.
“Yello.”
His voice is tight. “How you doing, man?”
I rub my eyes. “I’m doing. Sleeping beauty’s upstairs.”
There’s a long pause, during which I expect Marchant to ask about my semi-drunkenness. Instead, he says, “You haven’t heard from Dave yet?”
“I did.”
“So you know?”
“Know what?”
“So you don’t know.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Through the haze of liquor, I feel a wash of something prickling and cold. There’s silence on the other end, and I want to come through the phone and throttle him. “Know what, dickhead?”
“Sarabelle is dead.” His voice cracks on that last word. “They found her in San Luis. Dave says they found her with one of your cuff links in her hand.”
Elizabeth
MY PHONE RINGS a few minutes after Hunter leaves, and it’s Suri—sobbing. I know it’s about Cross, and my heart is in my throat when she says, “HE’S AWAKE! Talking a whole lot!”
“Holy shit! Are you kidding me?”
She isn’t.
Cross woke up two—really woke up—two and a half hours ago, with Suri in his room. She was holding his hand just before the end of visiting hours and reading him a magazine about vintage motorcycles.
The news makes me so excited, I actually shriek, then promptly sit down on the bed, because my knees are shaking.
“Suri, I want every freakin’ detail.”
“The last day or so, he was different,” she says. “I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t something I could explain, but he was looking around the room some and sometimes he seemed like…uncomfortable or something. I would look down at a book and then back up and it seemed like he had shifted. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.
“Then tonight he made this choking noise, and I thought something was wrong so I pushed the nurse button, and as soon as I did he said my name! I was worried it was a fluke, but he’s still awake now and they’re checking him over. They’re even going to give him orange soda in a straw.” Her voice breaks, and I sink down in a chair. “Nanette said he might be asleep by the time I get back, but they were doing some man stuff so I didn’t need to be in there and I just had to tell you. Am I interrupting anything?”
I tell her an abbreviated version of the Hunter saga, and then I steer things back to Cross. He’s so much more important than my romantic angst.
“Suri, did he seem okay? I mean...did he seem the same?”
I can hear tears in her voice as she says, “He really does.”
“I can’t believe it,” I breathe. “I mean, after the stroke, I was worried he would...”
“I know,” Suri says. “Me, too. But he seems okay. At first glance, anyway.” She laughs a little. “I asked him all the silly TV questions, like did he remember the year and who’s president, and he did. He even asked about his bike.”
I wipe my eyes. “That’s just amazing.” And it really makes the anxiety and drama of tonight seem about a million times more worthwhile.
“You should feel really proud of yourself for having the guts to do what you did,” Suri tells me. “It wouldn’t be a course I would have taken, but you got what you needed, and for Hunter to be the winning bidder...call me crazy, Liz, but I think it’s the universe repaying you.”
I snort. “I’m not so sure about that, but I’m over the moon about Cross. Suri, I want to hear from you soon. I mean very soon. Within hours.”
“We’ll call you, Lizzy! As soon as we can, I promise.”
‘We’...
That sounds strange.
By the time I hang up the phone, my mind is reeling in three different directions. I take my time in the luxurious, over-sized shower attached to my room, then change into a big, cozy University of San Francisco T-shirt and my favorite pair of comfy, bikini-cut panties—deep red, with a white pattern of Xs and Os. The huge, canopy bed is cold, and the pillow smells strange, like vanilla and lavender, and I can hear the air whooshing through the ducts somewhere nearby.