She wondered if he would bring up the suicide note, the one he knew was written long before the crash. The one he and his wife let Lakehaven think she’d written that night. So, she thought, let’s see what he says. “I do blame myself. I was at the wheel.”
“But you don’t know what happened. You don’t. Maybe there was another car, maybe someone ran you off the road, being stupid or drunk or reckless.” He studied his coffee. “Or maybe you took your eyes off the road, or maybe my son did something stupid and distracted you. He wasn’t perfect, despite what his mom and Kamala would say.”
“The suicide note. I spoke to Randy Franklin today.”
Now his gaze met hers. She thought, He’s actually bracing himself for this.
“He said there was an analysis done on the ink. That the suicide note wasn’t written that night of the crash, that it was much older. He said you knew that.”
Cal Hall’s gaze didn’t waver from hers. “Yes. But that was when I decided to drop the lawsuit. We thought maybe you wrote it with an old pen, or the analysis was wrong. But it was your handwriting, Jane.”
“Why would I have had an expired suicide note in the car?”
“I don’t know. You hadn’t been well since your father died. You pushed everyone away. I don’t know. But it didn’t matter. The note made no difference.”
“The difference it made was to me,” she said. “What people believed about me, what they said about me, how they treated me. And you let them think this.” And now that she had thrown his cruelty back in his face, her complaint sounded so petty. David was gone. Would telling the school that the suicide note was old have made a real difference to the Kamalas and Parkers of the world? She realized it wouldn’t.
“I don’t know what to say, Jane.” He wasn’t going to say he was sorry, she supposed. That was a bridge too far.
“Did the police ever tell you that David and I were thinking about running away?”
He made a face. “There was something said by that manager at Happy Taco, but that can’t be right. It would have been utterly unlike you both.”
“David had a laptop at Happy Taco. It wasn’t in the car inventory. Do you know where it went?”
He looked uneasy for a moment. “That inventory must be wrong,” he said. “I remember. He did have a laptop in the car and it was ruined.”
Tell me no lies, she thought.
“There has to be a reason we did what we did. Those missing hours.”
He stared at his coffee.
“Someone claims to know the truth. Someone named Liv Danger.” On her phone she showed him the Faceplace page. “Do you recognize the name?” she asked as he read it.
He shook his head. “It means nothing to me. But the words ‘ALL WILL PAY’ were written on David’s tombstone when we visited his grave yesterday.”
Jane remembered now, the cleaners, the cloths, by the grave. No wonder Perri had felt so raw and angry. She told him about the fight.
Cal said, “Who would do this? Who would know something? Maybe we can contact Faceplace, see who posted this, who created the account.”
“I think it’s Kamala Grayson. She still hates me.”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t deface David’s grave.”
“She would do just about anything to make me look bad,” Jane said. “Don’t be fooled by her sweet exterior.”
“Jane…”
“Look, I’ll tell you one more thing. Did you ever meet the paramedics who responded to the wreck?”
“Meet them? No. I didn’t talk to them. I don’t know their names.”
“Mom found their names out for me because I wanted to write them notes of thanks. I remember seeing the list.” She explained about Brenda Hobson and the strange arson that had torched her neighborhood. “This is on the same anniversary of the crash. That was why I came home. To get a car and drive to San Antonio. But mom’s sold the Toyota and I didn’t want to tell her this, it would upset her. I want to see if Brenda Hobson knows anything. I sent her a note.”
Cal frowned. “Has she responded?”
Jane checked Faceplace on her phone. There was a message from Brenda. Yes, I’ll talk to you. I sent you my address. Jane checked the messages and there was the address.
“I have to get to San Antonio to talk to her. It’s not something I can do over the phone.”
“What’s the address? I’ll go.”
“It’s not your problem, Mr. Hall, it’s mine.”
“You don’t have a car. We’ll go right now.”
Jane was stunned. “It’s a ninety-minute drive each way. We can’t go tonight.”
“Why? Don’t you want to know? And I don’t think you should go by yourself.”
She sipped at her coffee. Three hours round-trip in a car with David’s father. It would kill Perri Hall. But going back and confronting Adam did not appeal to her either. She nodded. “All right. Let me send her a note.” She did so.
He finished his coffee. “Let me make a pit stop, get us a couple of coffees to go, and we’ll head out.”
She nodded while he excused himself. Brenda responded: Yes, we can meet tonight. I don’t sleep well anyway and am anxious to hear what you have to say.
Her phone beeped. A text from Adam, asking where she was. She opened up a text and sent it to Adam: I’m off to San Antonio with David’s dad, to talk with that paramedic.
21
CAL DROVE ONTO I-35 south, the interstate that snaked through the heart of Austin. The traffic wasn’t bad at night, although it seemed like Austin was expanding south and San Antonio was expanding north. Much of the countryside was turning into an endless landscape of shopping centers and housing developments. Cal drove just below the speed limit, which meant every other car blasted by them in the left lane.
They were quiet for several minutes. She felt a sick exhaustion. Her phone buzzed. Probably Adam responding to her text. She didn’t feel like reading it.
“How is it going at Saint Michael’s?” Cal asked, breaking the silence. “Has your amnesia affected your studies? I think it would be so hard.”
She glanced over at him. “I flunked out. I’m sleeping at a friend’s place. I don’t know how to be me anymore.”
“So move home.” His voice was quiet.
“That’s not really an option for me.” She couldn’t say to him, I can’t bear being next door to you, and Mom won’t sell the house, and your wife won’t sell, and I don’t blame her, she doesn’t want to leave a house full of memories of David.
“Are you in counseling?”
“Yes.” Until I see my counselor and he can explain his lying self.
He tapped fingers on the steering wheel. “I went to a counselor for a while after David died. I didn’t want to at first. I thought it was for weak people. I didn’t want to ‘work through my grief’ or ‘find closure.’” She could hear the air quotes around the phrases when he spoke. “I pretty much just wanted to die. But the counselor made me see that my life was going to go on and I could either live it in a way that made David proud or I could curl up and do nothing. I could let him go and love the time I’d had with him or I could hate you. I decided not to hate you.”
His voice caught at the end and he wiped at his right eye, quickly, with the back of his hand. It felt like her chest was going to explode. She couldn’t speak.