Chapter 8: Page Ninety-Nine

I did not eat dinner.

I sat on the cabin bed with the Lie Ledger open on my knees and the phone beside me, and I turned to page ninety-nine.

The lamp on the nightstand was a cheap one with a bent shade.

I tipped the page toward it to read the entry again.

Then I stopped.

Something ran along the margin that I had not seen, because I had read the book in firelight and in a truck.

It was pencil, very faint, in a hand I knew.

I tilted the page again.

It was Anders's square handwriting, small and light.

Beside entry ninety-nine, it said: Not true. She was at a clinic. How did D know?

I turned back one page.

Beside entry ninety-eight: Not true. Shift log, 14th. She was on nights.

Ninety-seven: Not true. The friend is a patient's daughter, ask hospice.

I went back to the first page and read it slowly, with the page held to the light.

Beside the tax forms: Not true. Checked the mail receipt myself. She did them.

Beside the grandmother's pneumonia: Not true. I drove her there.

Beside the parking lot at the wedding: Not true. I carried her to the truck. She was asleep.

She was asleep.

I put my hand over my mouth.

I read all ninety-nine of them, and every one had a line of pencil beside it.

Some had a date.

Some had a name.

On a few of them, the pencil had pressed so hard that it had torn the page.

Not true.

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