The Last Lie by Stephen White

Author:Stephen White [White, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2011-08-30T18:39:48+00:00

25

What other guy?

My breath caught in my throat. I turned my head so I could check the time on the microwave. The carpool would drop off the kids in fifteen or twenty minutes. I didn't have much time to learn more about the other guy that Nicole had spotted on the lane Friday night.

"Can I get you something to drink?" I asked.

"Some hot tea?" she said. "That would be great. Whatever you have. I love mint."

I fixed the cup of tea as fast as I could. I was torn. The news of the presence of another man on the lane left me with a lot of questions for Nicole, but I didn't want her to perceive my curiosity, nor did I want her to still be at the house when the kids got home from school.

If Gracie knew Nicole was in our house, the world would know Nicole was in our house. Lauren would have no issue with Nicole's visit. But if Lauren ending up asking me some questions about what else I knew about that night, and more to the point, how I knew what else I knew about that night, I was worried the conversation could go in a troublesome direction.

I had absolutely no right to divulge to Lauren my supervision relationship with the alleged victim's therapist. I also did not plan to betray Sam's trust about the Kobe Bryant parable.

"Did you know we almost slid off that cliff? In the van? Could you tell?" Nicole asked. "Oh, this tea is good. Thanks. Is it Celestial Seasonings? Which one?"

"I can go check," I said. "If it's important." I really did not want to go check what kind of tea it was.

"Never mind. After we . . . passed you? Almost . . . hit you. Could you tell we almost flipped?"

"It probably felt like a cliff to you in the dark, but it's more like a steep slope in that section of road," I said. "But, yeah, I could hear your tires spinning. I could tell that Eric was going way too fast going into that turn; I did think for a minute that the van might roll over. It's a tough pair of curves in the dark. I was thinking he didn't even know the second curve was coming."

Nicole shook her head. "He didn't know the first curve was coming. I was barking at Eric to slow down. He was cursing at the road. We had just almost hit you and the puppy and he had just turned the headlights on, and we were just coming out of that second curve--that's the spot where we came closest to rolling, the end of that second curve--and suddenly there's this guy on the road. Just standing there. Out of nowhere. I mean, it was like, 'Hello, what are you doing here?' "

"The man was by himself? No dogs?" I asked. Some of our neighbors with homes near the beginning of the lane occasionally walk their dogs late at night. We see each other when I'm out with Emily and Fiji.

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