Page 82 of The Lies I Told
“Who’re you trying to convince?”
“I didn’t screw up.” I wasn’t afraid of myself, but of someone else. I sipped my coffee and carefully set the mug down. “Here you’re offering me coffee, and I start spilling my guts. You have a way, Mr.Bernard.”
He studied me, clearly recognizing my deflection. “TheMr.makes me sound too old.”
I smiled. “You’re not.” Suddenly a little too aware of him, I stood. “And I’ve got a mountain of editing today, and you’ve got to get to work.”
“Are you working a wedding tonight?”
“No.”
“I never followed up on my sticky-note invitation.”
“Maybe another time.”
Unfazed, he walked me to the door. “I’m going to hold you to that. See you around.”
“Will do.” As I crossed the hallway, I felt him watching me, but when I turned back to smile or wave or something, he’d vanished into his apartment.
As I closed the door, my phone began ringing. I glanced at the number and didn’t recognize it. Still, with new clients reaching out all the time, I accepted the call. “Marisa Stockton.”
The line crackled with silence on the other end.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
I glanced at the number. “This is Marisa Stockton.”
The line went dead.
My first thought was Alan. He’d tried to call, maybe even dialed the wrong number. I walked to my computer and typed in the number. There was no listing.
Hang-ups and wrong numbers weren’t unheard of. Still, they always left me restless, unsettled.
I was being ridiculous. Overreacting, like I did so well. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths, and shifted my attention to my daily schedule. Routine kept me grounded and focused. Today, there was some editing I could do, emails to read and respond to, but it was only a few hours of work, and I was ahead of schedule. Time enough for that later tonight.
Morning sunlight streamed through my window, drawing me to the view. It was going to be a beautiful day. One that would be wasted if I stayed inside. Without thinking, I moved to my old camera bag, thought very briefly about swapping it for the new one Jack and Jo-Jo had given me. It was fancy, upscale, something I would’ve dreamed about owning once. I checked my equipment, made sure my batteries were charged, and shouldered the old, familiar bag. Locking the door, I heard Alan moving about. It was nice to have another human on the floor.
Down the stairs and out the front door to my car, I fired up the engine, grateful that the early-morning chill had softened.
The route was new for this car, but all too familiar to me. I headed south and wove through the suburban side of the city toward RiversideDrive. As I turned down the winding road, tension rippled through my body.
When I’d been shooting in December, I’d driven myself to the point of exhaustion, splitting my time between here and whatever function I was hired to shoot. The mountain of work had gobbled up any extra time I might’ve had to brood. Each night I had fallen into bed completely drained. Finally, when I’d shot this place from every angle, I turned my back on it. I’d hoped I’d expelled the demons. What I realized now was that they’d not gone anywhere. They’d simply gone silent.
I parked in the public parking space and grabbed my camera bag. Locking the car, I headed toward the shore’s edge. When I’d been here last, the trees had lost their leaves and the landscape was stark and barren.
Now there was some greenery budding and blossoming on the naked branches, signaling the land was returning to life. It struck me as unfair. My sister was dead, but the shoreline that had hidden her body was getting yet another renewal on life.
I raised my camera and snapped pictures.
When Richards had told my family about the discovery of Clare’s body, I’d excused myself and then sneaked out of the house and driven to the crime scene. When I’d arrived, the area was taped off, so I’d parked a half mile away and walked in. The riverfront land was roped off with yellow crime-scene tape, and a team of forensic technicians and uniformed officers were searching the brush and shoreline for evidence. I stood back, praying that whatever they found would somehow prove that they’d made a mistake. The body on the rocks was not Clare.
At the crime scene, I’d lingered in the cold, huddling in my jacket, when an officer had made a discovery. He’d found a black blouse with a deep-V neckline. My shirt.
I’d bought the shirt five days before Clare died. I’d taken my father’s credit card from his wallet and treated myself to a few post-Christmastreats. Dad didn’t like when he saw all the bags in my room, but as long as I wasn’t bothering him, that gave him time with Sandra.
The night of the New Year’s Eve party, I’d come into our room to find Clare looking at the top. Since she’d started dating Kurt, she’d been dressing more and more like me. I’d told her to go for it.
