She Trusted a Fake Lie Detector, So I Left Her the Truth novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Twenty Thousand in Minutes

The money lands at once, but Milo is already dead. Joanna wires more and Dane mocks Flynn on the phone, so Flynn signs the divorce, and a hospital social worker says someone answered Joanna's line and refused the first call.

Rhoda did not ask why.

"Done," she said, and the line went dead.

Before I could put the phone away, my banking app buzzed.

Twenty thousand dollars had landed in my account.

She had not even asked what the money was for.

She only wanted me out of her daughter's life.

I sent it to the hospital from the back of a cab.

Then I told the driver to go faster.

I did not call Joanna.

She would not have believed me, and I had no time to be disbelieved.

At the hospital doors, a nurse was already walking toward me with a gurney.

"Mr. Sewall," she said. "I'm so sorry."

I stopped walking.

"It happened a few minutes ago. We did everything we could."

The money had arrived in time.

My son had not.

I went into the room where they had put him.

He lay very still, with a bruise on his forehead and the gap where his front tooth had been.

I took his hands.

They were cold, and no matter how long I rubbed them, they would not get warm.

I couldn't cry.

I stood there and talked to him about nothing, because I did not know how to stop.

A nurse set his school backpack on the chair.

A drawing stuck out of the zipper, a stick-figure family of three holding hands.

I did not take it out.

I knew who was meant to be in the middle.

Then I did what you do.

I signed forms, I answered questions, and I held the paper that says a person is gone.

My phone rang while I was still signing.

It was Joanna.

"I sent you fifty thousand dollars," she said.

She sounded like she was tossing a scrap to a stray dog.

"Next time, tell me the truth and I'll give it to you without the show."

"Joanna."

"And since you're out spending, get Milo some new school pants. He's outgrown his."

"He's dead," I said.

It came out of me as a roar, and a nurse down the hall turned to look.

"Joanna, he is dead. He died twenty minutes ago."

There was silence on the line.

Then I heard Dane close to the phone, laughing softly.

"Wow," he said. "He's good. He actually has the crying down. He must be furious about the watch."

"That's enough," Joanna said, and her voice went hard.

"How dare you say that about our son? You asked for money, and now you're burning it on a story?"

"Joanna, call the hospital."

"I'm done, Flynn. You may not be tired of this, but I am."

She hung up.

I stood in the corridor with the phone in my hand.

Cold sweat ran down my back, and the floor seemed very far away.

A social worker found me there and walked me to a chair.

She stayed beside me while I made one more call, to the crematorium.

I don't remember the drive.

I remember a clerk handing me a pen.

When I finished the cremation forms, Rhoda's lawyer had emailed me the divorce agreement.

Joanna had already signed it that afternoon.

I read the page twice, and then I signed it too.

My hand shook so hard that my signature ran off the line.

A text from Rhoda arrived before I put the pen down.

"Do not contact my daughter again."

I had no wish to.

The social worker called while I was waiting for the paperwork to clear.

"Mr. Sewall, I'm sorry to bother you. I'm putting together the chart, and I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"This morning at ten to nine, before we reached you, we phoned Joanna's direct line as Milo's second contact."

"And?"

"A man answered."

I held my breath.

"He said she wasn't interested, and that we should stop calling."

There was only one man who answered her phone that way.

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