Ashes Learned Human Names novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Ask Him Tonight

The phone buzzed under Lucia's pillow at ten past three in the morning.

She had slept with her hand on it for a week.

The number was the one on the slip from room 214.

She slid out of bed, careful of the graft on her thigh, and took the call in the bathroom with the fan running.

"It's me," the girl whispered. "The green dress."

"I'm here," Lucia said.

"I can't sleep. I keep seeing photos I've never even seen."

"I know. Every night."

"I'll tell the detective." The girl's voice shook. "What I remember, and what Gabriel's friends said on Sunday. Tomorrow at noon."

"Not in your room," Lucia said. "Come to the fourth floor, to Elvira Castellanos's wing. One door, one camera."

"Okay."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," the girl said, and hung up.

Lucia stood at the sink in the dark and did not turn on the light.

Through the door she could hear Rafael breathing in the recliner.

For six mornings he had been in that chair when she woke, and every morning she had asked him one small question and he had answered it truthfully.

She had not asked him why he left again.

Instead she had watched him look at her when he thought she was reading, and each time he looked away first.

She decided not to wake him.

If she told him now, he would fix it, the way he fixed everything, quickly and without saying how.

She wanted to know what he did when she did not hand him the problem.

At eight, Rafael went home for a clean shirt, the first time he had left her in a week.

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