Lie, Lie Again(107)

She stepped forward, suddenly larger than life. “You’re lying! You had an affair, Hugh,” she said, jamming a finger at him to punctuate her words. “How’d you even know where Sylvia lives? I never gave you her address. You’re a liar!”

“It’s not like that. Let me explain.”

Well, this is interesting, Sylvia thought. How could he possibly worm his way out of this? She inched forward as Hugh stepped closer to Lily. He reached for her hand, and as if his touch were searing poison, Lily flung out her arm, knocking him away.

Hugh teetered backward, his arms flailing wildly. “Lily!” he screamed.

Her face was an eerie calm as she lifted her hand to help. Sylvia tried to make sense of her calculated movements. Everything was too slow. Move faster, she wanted to shout. It was as though time hurtled to a stop, only ticking to life again when Lily’s scream pierced the air—a shrill accompaniment to the sound of Hugh tumbling down the stairs like a crash-test dummy.

Ass over teakettle, Sylvia thought. He’d end up with more than a sprained wrist. Poor Hugh. Although it could’ve been worse. The mental anguish of Lily’s tears would cause deeper, longer-lasting cuts. Maybe that would come later. There was nothing more agonizing than poking nearly healed wounds until they were raw and open again. And Lily didn’t seem like the type to let things go. With any luck, as his bones were mending, she’d nag at him until his brain felt like it would explode.

Lily flew down the stairs, tripping on the bright-orange tape, but miraculously, she landed on her feet as graceful as a ballerina. Sylvia puzzled over her sudden rush to action, watching curiously as she fluttered to her husband, who lay in a crumpled heap. Blood seeped from beneath him. Had he scraped his skin on the rough ground?

Bile rose to Sylvia’s throat as the realization hit that his injuries might be more than a few bruises. She raced down the stairs, holding on to the banister like her life depended on it.

“He’s hurt! Help me!” Lily screamed.

Sylvia dialed 911. “A man fell down the stairs,” she said into the phone. “Send an ambulance right now! 1054 Mockingbird Lane.” Squeezing her eyes shut, she recalled Hugh’s head bouncing off the concrete wall with a grotesque thud. And then he’d spilled down, down, down before smacking the hard asphalt with a sickening blow. She’d been so transfixed by the look on Lily’s face that she hadn’t fully absorbed the fall.

Lily looked at her with a shattered expression. “Was this my fault?”

Sylvia didn’t respond, but her brain kicked into high gear as she watched blood pool beneath Hugh’s head. Oh, Hugh. It shouldn’t have come to this. If he died and Lily went to jail, Hunter could become an orphan. That had never been part of the plan. The little boy deserved a loving parent. Everyone did. Then again, maybe she was getting ahead of herself. Her eyes drifted to the ghastly red pool, and she knew in her heart it was bad. “He fell,” she said firmly. “I saw the entire thing. He must’ve misjudged how much room he had when he stepped back. It was an accident.”

Lily nodded wildly. “But I watched him fall! I didn’t stop him!”

Interesting choice of words, Sylvia thought. But she would never say that. “It happened too fast,” Sylvia assured her. “There was nothing we could do. I saw you reach your hand out to help. You tried.”

Lily flinched, then fell to her knees near her husband and took his limp hand. “Hugh, please! Please don’t die,” she begged. Sylvia stood silently. Suddenly Lily fixed a steely gaze on her. “You can’t tell anyone about the affair. If he doesn’t make it,” she started, a sob hitching her speech. “If he dies, I don’t want his name ruined.”

“What about the phone he was using to call me? He posted pictures of me online.”

“Anonymously!” she hissed. “No one knows he did it.”

Sylvia spoke in a whisper. “You’ll need to destroy the phone. Back over it with your car and dispose of the pieces in several public restrooms where there are no security cameras. And we have to tell the same story.”

Lily nodded as tears spilled down. “I stopped by to say hi to you and lost track of time. I called him to pick me up. It was getting dark, and I thought it might rain. I didn’t want to walk home.”

“You walked here?”

“It’s not that far.”

“Yes. It looked like rain, and you didn’t want to walk.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “But he’ll be okay, right? He’ll be okay,” she said, rocking like a broken doll by his side.

Back when Sylvia was a kid, a pomegranate tree grew outside of a house near her school. She and some of the kids used to shake the branches until the hard-skinned fruit fell, collecting as many as they could. Then they would take their haul to her neighbor’s house, where they would hurl the fruit at the garage, slapping high fives all around when one finally broke. Hugh’s skull had to be stronger than a piece of fruit. Should she mention that to Lily? It was strange how she wanted to comfort her.

The other tenants appeared suddenly, swarming from their apartments.

“What happened?” Brandon called as Embry rushed to Lily’s side with Carson in her arms.

“Don’t touch him! He’s hurt!” Lily said through sobs as mascara-tinted tears streamed down her face.