Page 5 of Lost
“It’s...nice,” Lysander said, unsure of how else to put it. “Do you live here alone?”
“Not alone,” Zack replied. “I live with my wife, and our two dogs.”
“Oh, right. Dakota told me you were married. I forgot.”
“Dakota? Your girlfriend?”
“My sister.”
“You have a sister?”
Lysander looked at the man curiously, and the look on Zack’s face told him all he needed to know. His heart sank. Here he was, hoping to save his sister, and their father didn’t even know she existed. He turned his attention to the lawyer, who had been standing just a few feet away the entire time. Her megawatt smile had been replaced by a frown. He wanted to swing his backpack at her head.
“You didn’t tell him?” he demanded. “Why the hell not?”
“I think it’s something better explained in person, don’t you?”
Pat, who had busied himself with retrieving Lysander’s suitcase from the trunk of the car, watched their exchange with interest. His eyes fixed onto Mrs. Corte.
“You been keeping secrets, Maria?”
“I have,” she admitted, lips pursing. “Why don’t we go inside so I can finish explaining, hmm?”
After a moment, Zack nodded. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and headed for the door. Mrs. Corte followed. Lysander turned back to Pat and gestured to the suitcase.
“I can take that.”
“I’ve got it,” Pat assured him. He nodded towards the door. “Get in there, kid.”
The interior of the house was more along the lines of what Lysander had been expecting. It felt bigger, with framed golden records on the walls and a bizarre zebra printed rug thrown across the marble foyer, but it was somehow warm and welcoming and that was what mattered. Pat deposited the suitcase at the bottom of a grand staircase and gestured for Lysander to follow him. Lysander set his backpack down beside the suitcase and did just that, grateful for his guide.
Pat led him through an expensive looking living room, decked out with an entertainment system the likes that Lysander had never seen, and straight into the most spacious kitchen he’d ever laid eyes on, where Mrs. Corte was already making herself at home. Zack was producing drinks from the fridge when they made it over. Lysander sat, and accepted the bottle of water that Zack offered him with a tight smile that the man returned. It wasn’t until both Pat and Zack had taken their seats across from Lysander and Mrs. Corte that the woman spoke, at first to Lysander.
“Are you going to be all right to hear this?” she asked.
He nodded. He had lived through it, after all. Nothing she said could be any worse than that.
“All right.” Mrs. Corte returned her attention to the two men in front of them. “The first thing you need to know is Samantha — his mother — didn’t die from natural causes. There was an accident.”
“She was murdered,” Lysander interjected.
“Murdered?” Zack repeated, clearly stunned. “Jesus. I didn’t even think...” He ran a hand through his hair, shooting a sympathetic look at Lysander. “Did they catch whoever did it?”
“No,” Lysander said before the lawyer could speak. “And they won’t, because they haven’t got enough evidence to tie him to the murder.”
Pat and Zack shared a look.
“Him?”
“Jacob Alfonzo.”
Silence fell, tense and uncomfortable. Zack looked to his lawyer, and she shook her head.
“There’s no proof he had anything to do with it,” she said. “No proof it was even a murder. It’s just Lysander’s word. The coroner ruled it an accident.”
A fact that Lysander had made sure everybody knew he did not agree with. His friends had been on his side, but nobody who mattered wanted to hear it. More than one police officer had told him he was grieving and looking for somebody to blame.
“Why do you think it was Jacob Alfonzo?” Pat asked calmly, his attention on Lysander. There was not a trace of doubt in his hazel eyes. Lysander liked him all the more for it. “Did he have a grudge against your mother?”
