Chapter 14: Look It Up

Melanie sat across from me at the kitchen table at nine that night, with her hands flat on the wood.

She had washed her face.

Without the lipstick she looked younger, and a good deal more tired.

"I heard you in the bathroom," she said. "Two nights ago. You were sick for ten minutes."

I didn't answer.

I put a kettle on the stove, because it gave my hands a job.

"You're not swallowing them," she said. "You haven't been for weeks. I'm not going to tell him."

"Why not?"

"Because I want to ask you something, and you're the only person in this house who won't lie to me."

She stopped, and then she said it.

"Why can't Marshall drive at night?"

I turned around.

"I drive him everywhere," Melanie said. "I've driven him for two years. He says it's the bourbon and his knee."

"Ask him."

"I did. He said I was tired."

"Then I won't tell you either," I said. "If I tell you, you'll think I'm saying it to hurt you."

"Then what do I do?"

I put the kettle down.

"Open the county incident log," I said. "The public one. Search the eleventh, two years ago this month. Read the sixth entry."

She stared at me.

Then she pulled out her phone, and her thumbs started to move.

I made tea and set a cup near her elbow.

I did not watch her face, and I watched it anyway.

I saw the exact second she read it.

Her mouth opened, and her thumb stopped.

"Female juvenile," she whispered. "Alder Lane. Five."

"Wren," I said.

"I knew she died. I picked the flowers for the service."

Her voice cracked.

"Marshall said it was a driver nobody ever found. He said he couldn't bear to talk about it."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Husband Framed Me for His Mistress's Crash from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.