The Last Thing She Ever Did(26)

She was a leaf—no, a piece of trash—that he was scooting out of view.

With each step, Liz thought of Carole. Her actions had turned her closest friend into a sodden ball of misery. Carole was about to slide into a very dark place. She would have to go into the bedroom where her son had slept and face the emptiness. She’d pass by the cement pad of the new patio with his tiny handprints embedded forever and know they’d never grow larger. That the family Christmas card with the three of them that Carole had sent last year had been a one-off, not the first of a series. Liz had brought all of that on. The thought ricocheted through her mind that maybe none of this had really happened.

That it was a bad dream.

That she was an actor in a play.

That she’d wake up.

That the curtain would rise.

That Charlie wasn’t dead on her father’s workbench in the garage.

Liz faced her husband. Her brown eyes were on the verge of letting tears fall. She started to shake.

“I have something to tell you,” she finally said.



“You’re fucking crazy,” Owen said. His eyes penetrated her. “You didn’t do that, Liz. You couldn’t have.”

Liz didn’t say anything. When she told him what she’d done, each word had stuck in her throat like a dull steak knife. Saying it a second time would surely make her cough up blood.

Charlie’s blood.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said, her eyes finally flooding. “I panicked.”

Owen started pacing. He slammed his fist onto the top of the morris chair that faced out at the river. He couldn’t look at her just then.

“You don’t run over a kid and then not call an ambulance,” he said.

Liz went to him. She didn’t touch him. She just stood there. “I didn’t run over him. I didn’t. I—I bumped him. It was an accident.”

Owen spun around. “This is more than just an accident, Liz. Get a dose of reality. You messed up in the biggest way anyone ever could. You made bad into worse. There isn’t a word for this disaster.”

Liz reached for him, but he pushed her away. “I’ll fix this,” she said.

Owen took a step back toward the window. “How? How in the hell can you fix this?”

Now Liz started pacing. She went to the kitchen. She hurried back to him. Over to the front door. Then back to her husband.

“I’ll tell Carole and David,” she said. “They know I loved Charlie. They will know it was an accident. Carole knows me.”

Owen tried to hold it together, but his wife’s reasoning was completely ludicrous. “Seriously?” he asked from his place by the window. “And then you’ll tell them the part that you put their kid’s body in the garage so you could go take the bar?”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” she said. “I was messed up.”

Owen shot her a look. It was cold. It was meant to hurt. Hurting her just then was the only way that he could stun her into stopping her inane excuses for what she’d done.

“Hopped up,” he said. “You were hopped up on those goddamn pills you’ve been taking. It isn’t an accident when a drunk driver kills someone. It’s a crime.”

Liz’s eyes went to the front door. It passed through her mind that she could make a run for it. She could push past Owen, get to her car, and drive far, far away. She could go to some place in Idaho or Nevada. A place where no one would know what she’d done. A place where she could start over. She’d never be a lawyer. She’d lose Owen. She’d live the rest of her life looking over her shoulder while she worked as a grocery checker or motel maid. She’d never be anything in life, and in that moment, she accepted such an inevitable outcome. She deserved it. She could feel the doorknob twist. She could hear Owen yelling at her to stop, but only halfheartedly. He’d want her gone. He’d want to start over with his big money and a wife who wasn’t a murderer.

“I’m sorry,” she said, crying. “What do you think I should do?”

Owen slumped back down into the chair facing the river. “Let me think. The police are crawling around the neighborhood. Let me think of what to do. Goddamn you, Liz. You screwed up big-time. The biggest screwup in the world.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We aren’t going to do anything.” Owen went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He looked in the mirror, not at himself, but in the direction of his wife, whom he could hear rummaging around for a corkscrew.

“Owen, we can’t just leave him there.”

“We won’t,” he said, reemerging from the bathroom. “We aren’t. I’m going to clean up this mess.”

He didn’t say your mess, though Liz knew that was what he meant.

“Owen, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You know that, don’t you?”

He barely looked at her.

“Don’t do anything,” he said, going for the door. “Stay put. I’ll fix this. I’ve worked too hard to lose everything because of something you did.” He turned to her to show that he meant what he was about to say and amended his words. “We’ve both worked so hard.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MISSING: FOURTEEN HOURS