The Sound of Broken Ribs(43)

“I’m alive.” She offered him a sad smile. He didn’t accept it.

“You’re not wallowing in self-pity—are you? It’s just an arm, for fuck’s sake.”

“It’s not that. They, um, they still haven’t found the person who did it. And I’ve been thinking about her a lot.”

“Tell me a story. I enjoy a well-told tale.”

“Okay. Well, you know the details about the accident—if it can even be called an accident.”

“It can’t. Call a spade a spade. It was attempted murder.”

“Is that racist? That ‘call a spade a spade’ idiom? I’ve always wondered where it came from.”

“You know—I don’t know. We’ll have to Bing it later. Google is for laymen and pederasts.”

Lei couldn’t contain her laughter. She almost spilled her drink, she shook so hard.

“You’re too kind, Lei. I’m not that funny.”

“You’re right—you’re not. But there’s been a serious lack of laughter in my life these past two years and that one hit me just right.” She at last tried her drink. The clear liquid burned from her lips to her gut. “Jesus fuck, what is this.”

“Red Eye Louie’s Vod-Quilla. Newer company. They send me cases and I say on camera that it’s my drink of choice. Commercials run before YouTube vids as part of some viral marketing campaign. The stuff is the best mistake you’ll ever knowingly make.”

Lei was sure that, when she spoke, she would breathe fire; even if her breath wasn’t an open flame, it was hot enough to steam her eyeballs. “I wouldn’t say that I knowingly made this mistake, but thanks in advance for the violent vomiting that’s likely to plague my evening.”

“You’re welcome. Speaking of attempted murder, continue with your story.”

“All right.” Lei took another sip and sat the tumbler on the coffee table. A copy of The Interlocutor sat in the middle of the table. Her face graced the cover, along with the tagline: POPULAR AUTHOR’S NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE INSPIRES BOOK! “I can’t believe you bought that thing.”

“I didn’t buy it. I lifted it. Shoplifting is easy when you’re shorter than the counters of your local convenience store.”

Lei gave another wan smile. “My story, then?”

“Please.”

“They never found the woman who hit me—the lady who said she just wanted to ruin something.”

Donald quoted: “‘I wanted to know what it felt like to destroy something. What it felt like to ruin a life. You were just in the right place at the right time.’”

Icy fingers tickled the nape of her neck. “Yeah. That. Your memory astounds me.”

“I never forget good dialogue. Especially not creepy shit like that. I will admit that I wrote it down after you first told me. I was going to use it in a story, but finally decided that would be in bad taste. It’s your haunting, not mine.”

Lei didn’t think she could have put it better herself.

She said, “All right. So, they never found her, but that was partially my fault.”

Donald leaned forward, elbows on knees. “How so?”

“The lady sheriff who came to see about me in the hospital, her name was Jenna Wales. She said she was going to check on one of three women she knew of with half-moon scars on their eyebrows. Right here,” Lei used her pinkie to carve the shape into her own brow. “I never saw the sheriff again after that. She was shot and killed while checking out a guy named Tony Marchesini.”

“How did he play into your attempted murder?” Lei appreciated how Donald made such a conscious effort not to call the event an accident.

“That’s what the sheriff’s deputy who came to see me wanted to know. The deputy—his name was Robert—was only following up on my case because it was part of the sheriff’s workload. He had no idea Wales had been to see me. When he popped up, he asked me about the incident—sorry, the attempted murder—and Harry told him Wales had already been to see us. He had a clue, but he wanted to know if it had anything to do with Marchesini.”

“I bet.”

“He told us that Wales had been murdered. Harry was the one who found out the name of the guy who shot her though. It was all over town. Bay’s End is a tiny place. Word spreads quickly, and the sheriff was a kind of local hero. Anyway, Deputy Robert didn’t tell us. Besides, all Harry had to do was Google it to fact check. He’s not a layman or a pedophile, by the way.”

“I said ‘pederast’. There’s a difference. I doubt that Harry is either, yes. But go on.”

“Anyway, while Robert was there, he asked me if I thought that Marchesini had anything to do with my having been run over. He, um, asked what all I told Jenna and… and I lied.”

“You did what?”

“By this point, my arm was starting to wake up.” Lei lifted her prosthetic. “They call it phantom pain.”

“I know the term. Theodore Landover from SLASHER has a false leg. I did extensive research on amputees before writing the character. Go on.”

“Well, I wasn’t in my right mind, I guess is the best excuse I could offer. I knew why Jenna had gone out there, I knew why she’d been killed, even if Marchesini wasn’t a woman and couldn’t have been the person who hit me and… and said what the lady with the scar said. Somehow, I just knew. What I didn’t know was the relation Marchesini had to the woman. I thought maybe it was a husband or lover or something like that. Turned out, Marchesini was her brother. But I didn’t find that out until much later.