He Let Me Grieve a Lie, Now He Begs Forgiveness novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Strangers in the Lobby
Her husband and brother come for her, she asks security to remove two men she does not know, and her own handwriting names Elio on the list.
"That's a wedding ring," Taylor said, very gently. "You were married."
"To who?"
"I think you need Dr. Coombs for that."
Chiara slid the ring off and held it up to the window.
Inside the band, someone had engraved: Whatever it costs.
She did not know what it meant.
She put it back on, because her finger looked wrong without it.
Taylor brought her toast, a clean sweatshirt and a plastic bag with her phone, keys and a house key she did not recognize.
The phone had forty-one missed calls.
Every one was from a contact named E.
She held it up. "Who is E?"
"Don't call him back yet," Taylor said.
The phone lit up again in her hand.
Down the hall someone started shouting.
It was a man's voice, hoarse and loud, and it was shouting her name.
Taylor moved so fast the chair tipped over.
"Stay here."
Chiara did not stay.
She walked down the corridor in her socks and stopped at the glass door of the lobby.
Two men stood at the front desk, both in dark suits.
The taller one had his hand flat on the counter and was leaning over a young receptionist.
"I don't care what your policy is," he said. "I'm her husband. Where is she?"
The other man was broader and angrier.
He turned, saw Chiara through the glass and pointed.
"There she is."
They came through the door together.
The tall one reached her first.
He stopped a step too close, and his hands came up toward her face and dropped again.
His eyes were red, and the skin under them was gray.
"Chiara," he said. "Thank God. Are you hurt? Why didn't you call?"
She studied him.
Black hair, dark eyes, a good face, tired.
She felt nothing at all.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Do I know you?"
He did not move.
"It's Elio."
"I don't know anyone named Elio."
The broad man laughed once, with no humor in it.
"Enough, Chiara. We saw the tape. You're upset, we get it. Get in the car."
He took her arm.
She pulled free so hard she hit the wall.
"Don't touch me."
"I'm your brother."
"I don't have a brother."
The lobby went quiet.
A woman with a walker had stopped in the corridor to watch. The receptionist had her hand over her phone.
Taylor came through the door at a run.
"Security," Taylor said to the receptionist, loud and clear. "Both of these gentlemen. Now."
"You can't do this," the broad man said. "She's family."
"She's a patient, and she just told you to let go of her."
Chiara stood with her back against the wall and her heart going fast.
She had no idea why she was afraid.
She only knew it was not of the men themselves.
It was of how much they seemed to expect from her.
Two guards came in from the side entrance.
The broad man swore and shook off the first one's hand.
"Where is Coombs? I want the doctor who did this."
"I'm here," Dr. Coombs said.
She came down the hall in a gray suit with her glasses on her nose and a folder against her chest.
She stopped between the men and Chiara.
"Mr. Marcato. Mr. Pellegrino. You are shouting in a medical facility."
"What did you do to my wife?" Elio said.
His voice was low, and it cracked at the end.
"I did what she asked."
"She would never ask for this."
"She did," Dr. Coombs said. "Last night, at midnight, sober, in her own hand."
She opened the folder and held out a single sheet of yellow paper.
Elio took it.
Chiara watched his eyes move along the lines.
He read the first name.
His face did not change.
He read the second, the third and the fourth, and a muscle in his jaw jumped.
Then he reached the last line, and the paper began to shake in his hand.
The broad man leaned over his shoulder, read it too, and went silent.
Elio turned the page around so the lobby could see.
Last on the list of five, above her signed consent, in Chiara's rounded slanting hand, someone had written: Elio Marcato, my husband.
Elio looked at her over the top of the paper.
"You put me on a list," he said.
"I don't know why I would."
"You wrote it down."
"You did this to get back at us," the broad man said. "Look at me, Chiara. Look at me and tell me you feel nothing."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"I feel like I'm being shouted at by two strangers in a lobby," she said.
His mouth opened, and nothing came out.
She looked at the handwriting.
It was hers. She knew the way her own fours were open at the top.
She did not know the woman who had written it.
"Then I must have had a reason," she said.
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