My entire childhood after eighteen rearranged itself.
The lie had started small.
Stupid.
Cowardly.
One sentence.
Then:
Her parents were so kind to me.
Mr. Lockheart offered to delay the internship start.
Avery cried.
Now everyone thinks Stacey died.
I stared at Mitch.
“You killed me because you didn't want to correct yourself?”
He sobbed.
“At first.”
“At first?”
He looked at me.
“Dad found out.”
Of course.
Carl Benton did not react to lies by correcting them.
He evaluated them.
At the time, Dad's small contracting company was collapsing.
He owed suppliers.
The mortgage was behind.
My hospital bills had added more.
Then someone remembered my life-insurance policy.
Not Mitch, he claimed.
Dad.
My father looked at a lie his son had told his fiancée—
and saw a financial solution.
Mom resisted.
For one day.
Then Dad called Neil.
The funeral director.
The man who understood death paperwork.
