My Last Wish novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Who Wore the Bracelet

I held the three tickets in my hand until the paper curled.

"Callie," Dane said. "I know how that looks."

"I'm not looking at that."

I put the envelope back in the drawer, very carefully.

I'd spent an hour learning that a man had loved me in secret for a thousand days.

Now the other thing came up in me, the cold one, and it was clearer than anything I had felt in years.

"On day zero," I said. "When you ran in from the street. Tell me exactly what you saw."

He went still.

"I saw you in the kitchen."

"Before that. When you came up the path."

"Callie."

"Whose wrist was it, Dane?"

I turned around to look at him.

"The little key on the bracelet. I saw it again on Saturday at the diner. I told myself that plenty of women own one."

He shut his eyes.

"Dane."

"A small white car was parked in the alley behind your house," he said. "When I ran up, the back door was swinging. A woman was going over the fence in her socks with her shoes in her hand."

"Who was it?"

"Tierney Archer."

I didn't move.

The lamp ticked on the bench between us.

"I saw her face as she went over," he said. "I've known her to nod to for years. I knew her car. I knew what I'd seen."

"On day zero."

"Yes."

"And you've known for a thousand days."

"Yes."

"She came every Sunday with a casserole," I said.

I heard my own voice, and it was calm, and it frightened me.

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