The Marriage Lie(49)

Most were images I’d seen before on Will’s phone or on Facebook, but there were a few new shots, candids with Corban surrounded by others at the gym, their faces shiny with sweat, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders. Their easy smiles and relaxed postures told me their friendship extended beyond occasional workouts, and seeing them made the hurt throb all over again in my chest. Why did Will keep that part of his life secret from me?

“Will was a good friend. The best,” Corban says, his voice and expression mournful—more points in his favor. “I already miss him like hell.”

“Me, too.” I swallow down the sudden lump in my throat, scolding myself for letting him get me choked up. No way I’m going to let him play me like that, not until I know for certain he didn’t send me that note. I curl a hand around my teacup, threading a finger through the handle, and pull myself together.

“The paper said they’ve begun recovering bodies from the crash site and have already returned some personal items to the families.”

I nod, my free hand floating to the spot where Will’s ring hangs from a chain, right above my heart, my emotions skidding into dangerous territory, my eyes filling—dammit—with tears.

“Jeez, Iris. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that must be for you.” He wraps a palm around my elbow, gives it a quick squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”

I’m so sorry. The exact same words on Will’s note.

Even though the words are generic, the match dries my eyes like a blast of icy air, and they narrow into a squint I bury in my teacup. Was it intentional? A fluke? The idea that this man would send me that note, then taunt me by saying the identical words to my face, burrows like an insect under my skin. I gulp at my tea, but the hot liquid only fans the flames in my belly. Could Corban really be that cruel? Could anyone?

“Are you okay?”

His concern, as genuine as it sounds, tells me I need to get a hold of myself, of this conversation. I wipe my expression clean and drop my cup back onto the saucer.

“I’m fine. But I asked you here because I wanted to get your take on something.” I pause to receive his nod. “I called ESP, the company you told me offered Will a new job. I talked to their head of HR. She didn’t know Will, and what’s more, she told me the last executive job was filled over eight months ago.”

“I don’t...” Corban’s gaze doesn’t let mine go, but his dark brows—along with his lashes, the only hairs on his head—dip in a sharp V. “You’re telling me that Will didn’t get a new job in Seattle?”

“That’s right.”

“But... I don’t get it. Why would he feed me that elaborate story about a new job on the West Coast if it wasn’t true? Why would he tell me about these hotshot new colleagues he was going to have, all the cool and crazy things they did on their team-building excursions? He told me they were taking him skydiving, and that their office building had a zip line. I mean, those are some pretty specific details. Why would he make all that up?”

“He didn’t make it up. I’m pretty sure he got it from ESP’s website.”

“But the new job, the move to the West Coast, his worries you wouldn’t want to leave your family... That was all fabrication?”

“Apparently so.”

Corban’s frown deepens, and his eyes flash with something I recognize as disappointment. His friend, the one he misses like hell, lied to him. He seems so genuinely offended that I decide to switch tracks.

“Did Will ever tell you where he was from?”

Corban tries to shake it off, crossing a denim-clad leg and bouncing his red Converse sneaker under the bar. “Oh, sure. I have a couple of cousins in Memphis, so Will and I were always comparing notes. Turns out we’ve been to a bunch of the same neighborhood haunts.”

“Will is from Seattle.”

“Okay.” Corban drags out the word like he’s humoring me, but his legs go still. “But then he moved to Memphis when he was what, five? Six? I know for sure it was when he was still a kid. Will went to Central, the big rival of the school where my cousins went.”

“Will went to Hancock High. In Seattle.”

For the longest moment, Corban is speechless, a lapse of silence that amplifies the coffee shop sounds all around us. His face goes slack, like he’s run headlong into a door. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. I have the yearbook to prove it.”

“So, okay. That’s...” He runs a palm over his shiny scalp, and I can see his mind working, trying to puzzle the pieces together. That he can’t make them fit seems to have him baffled. “Sorry, but I have to ask. Why all the lies?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. But if it makes you feel any better, he told them to me, too.”

His head tilts. “You thought he was from Memphis, too?”

“Yes.”

“Then how’d you find out about Seattle?”

I don’t see any reason not to tell him, though I do keep my answer as vague as possible. “I received a condolence card from Hancock Class of ’99. One thing led to another.”

He takes that in with a curt nod, then falls still for a long moment. “Okay. So on the one hand, I’m more confused than ever, but on the other, in some weird, twisted way, things sort of make sense.”