Page 329 of The Lies We Play

“Since the merge. I know.”

The phone is on speaker on the center console. Creed’s voice comes through thin with distance and airport noise. He just landed in Minnesota. He plays tomorrow. He should be in a hotel car right now, annoyed about time zones and post-flight stiffness, not listening to me make one bad decision after another in the rain.

“Hal, you should’ve waited for Aren.”

“No.”

“Hal—”

“Aren’s doing other things,” I say. “This can’t wait. Remember that people in my family have always had suspicious endings. Even when the death certificate says otherwise.”

“It’s raining. Pull over.”

“Aren should be at the strip. The pilot is ready, and the jet is fueled. Forty-three minutes.”

“Forty-three minutes is too long.”

“It’s not too long if I don’t stop.”

“Hal. Hal, listen to me. I’ll send a driver.”

“I can do this.”

“Stay where you are.

“ Call Aren.”

“I already called Aren.”

“Then call him again.”

The rain gets harder.

The wipers can’t keep up. They drag water across the windshield and leave more water behind, each pass smearing the road into black glass and red brake lights. I have to lean forward against the wheel to see, and the two sets of headlights behind me are close by a car length.

Liv is very quiet beside me.

Too quiet.

That scares me more than anything Creed can say through the phone.

“Liv.”

“Yes.”

“Seat belt all the way.”

“It is.”

“All the way, Liv.”

“Hal, it is.”

Her voice has gone calm in the way it does when fear has moved past noise. I’d rather she scream. I’d rather she swear at me. I’d rather she accuse me of being controlling, reckless, emotionally unavailable, all the things she says when she’s trying to keep herself from crying.

Instead, her hand rests on the door grip, white-knuckled and patient, while I drive us toward a strip of private asphalt at the edge of a county neither of us has ever had a reason to visit.

The car behind the car behind us pulls into the left lane.