The Lost Night

* * *

At work, I had a simple goal: to think of anything but Alex’s mouth on mine. I failed miserably and nearly doubled over in shame when Tessa texted, cheerfully asking how I was doing. I didn’t answer. My mind kept showing me snippets: a married man, on an errand his wife didn’t know about, sitting on my couch and sipping secret scotch. His hand gently guiding my head to the crook of his neck. The kiss like a stamp on my brow and then his eyes meeting mine…

I grabbed my phone and opened my messages. My text to Josh the night before was still unanswered: “How’s work otherwise?”

I drummed my fingers on the desk, then tapped out another message: “I confirmed everyone at Sir thinks the design startup is all smoke and mirrors, too. So your job should be safe. ☺”

A few minutes passed, then thirty. Then an entire afternoon.

Chapter 12

The Saturday subways were all delays and reroutes, but I still arrived early to the diner off Thirty-fourth Street. I sipped my bad coffee and felt my quickened pulse thumping in my fingers and neck.

Sarah burst in sweaty and frazzled and ten minutes behind schedule. “I walked the wrong way at first,” she gasped by way of apology. I waved it away and sped through the obligatory chitchat, my eyes on the entryway.

The front door jingled and Alex appeared, slick with sweat. He looked handsome and eager, like a golden retriever, and I watched him until Sarah cut herself off midsentence and twisted in her seat. Then she whirled back to me, confused.

“Alex, over here!” I waved, and he grinned and sauntered over, pausing to give us both hugs. I let go before he did. Sarah was smiling now, too, but still looking flummoxed.

“Well, surprise!” I said as Alex slid in next to Sarah.

“That’s for sure! I had no idea you guys were even back in touch!” Sarah leaned her elbows on the table.

“Yeah, we bumped into each other, and I thought it would be fun to get together,” I said. “Impromptu reunion.”

Sarah and Alex fumbled through some polite catchup. As I watched them, an eerie feeling spread through my stomach and ribs. Here was the crew from the rooftop, sitting in the same triangle ten years later, drinking sweaty cups of ice water instead of beer and shots.

“So, Lindsay, you said you had something to discuss,” Sarah prompted. “Was that just a ruse?”

“Actually, I did want to talk to you guys. Together. I’ve been reading more about Edie’s death, and I sort of suddenly realized I have the skills to really examine it. And, like, the distance, maybe?”

Sarah’s face was politely blank, a passenger waiting for the flight attendant to take her drink order.

“I basically—I’m realizing I don’t remember it as clearly as I thought I did, like maybe I did actually black out, and it’s this missing piece of my memory that…that you guys were all present for, and that was really bothering me.”

She’d stiffened. Alex kept his eyes on his place mat.

“I went through the case files, and like you said, it just—it doesn’t add up,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this ten years after you…after all of it. But it’s been keeping me up at night. We owe it to her to get it right.”

Sarah looked at Alex, then at me. “So what’s your question?”

“I just—I don’t have all my memories of that night. And so I guess I came to…to ask for yours.” My voice cracked on the last sentence, but I kept the rush of tears from breaking free.

Sarah’s chin trembled and she turned to gaze out the window. “I’m sorry, Lindsay. I’m sorry you were spared the life-altering experience of finding your roommate with a bullet in her head because you’d had too much to drink. But I don’t feel like it’s a good idea for us to talk you through it so you can implant some false memory of being there.”

“Harsh,” Alex said, knee-jerk. We were still. This time I blinked hard and let the tears fall, one from an outer corner, one from inside, along my nose. I felt the pink steam of shame, of disgust with myself.

“Am I wrong?” she said to Alex, eyebrows high.

“I’m sorry,” I said before he could answer. “I really didn’t think through what I was asking. I know it’s not fair. I…I’m sorry.” I swallowed with effort and began to rise from the booth. My thigh stuck on the vinyl and made a ripping noise.

“You know, I was basically ostracized for saying it wasn’t a suicide,” Sarah offered.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” I said, sitting back down. “I didn’t even know you were going through that. But I’m sure everyone was…It was hard enough to process as is.”

“Look, we were all having a hard time,” Alex added, as if that were an apology. “We were worried about you. Like…now we were losing two friends instead of one.”

She nodded. I felt a childish spray of annoyance: three friends, right? Weren’t they sad to see me go?

“Listen, I’m really, really sorry nobody listened to you.” I leaned my head against the booth and closed my eyes. “For what it’s worth, Kevin told me he didn’t think it was a suicide, either.”

“Really?” They said it almost in unison.

I nodded.

“I didn’t know that,” Alex said accusingly, and I shot him a look: As far as Sarah knew, all of this was new material.

She sighed. “So Kevin had his suspicions, too. I can’t figure out if that makes me feel better or worse.”

The waitress came by; Alex got a beer, and Sarah ordered chicken noodle soup, an odd choice. It was strange to watch our old dynamic creeping in: analytical Sarah; confident, patronizing Alex. His fingers brushed mine when he grabbed his glass, and I pulled my arm away; I had to focus.

“Did Kevin say anything else?” Sarah asked.

“No, just that I should figure out what really happened that night.”

“And you looked into it? What’d you find?”

“No real bombshells.” Well, apart from the incriminating Flip cam video. “It’s weird that the cops didn’t talk to Greg, isn’t it? The guy she dated before you, Alex.”

“I did; I looked into him,” Sarah replied.

“Really?” Alex and I both turned to look at her.

“Yeah, I was in total Nancy Drew mode for a while. He was out of town for a conference the week Edie died. He gave a presentation, so it was pretty well documented.” We must have looked astonished. “I went deep on this.”

“Did you know her mom was there that night?” I said.

She nodded.

“You did?” Alex perked up.

“Yeah, the night she died. Shortly before you came over. I told the cops, and it always bothered me how little they wanted to hear it. Like, I was staring at the guy with the pen thinking, ‘Aren’t you going to write this down?’ ”

“What’d you tell them?” Alex asked.

She let out an old, tired sigh. “Well, Edie and I were alone in the main room—I was in the kitchen doing dishes, she was on the couch drinking whiskey and typing away into that diary she kept on her computer—and her phone rings. She talks into it for a little bit, sounding angry and I’m trying not to listen, especially since I’m still annoyed with her. Then she hangs up and says, ‘What the f-word?’ Like, loud enough and then with a waiting air, so I turned around and said, ‘What?’ She made a face and said, ‘My mom is here.’ ” Sarah played with a lock of hair. “I remember looking around and noticing the bong and cigarette butts and empty beer bottles and stuff everywhere, so I was like, ‘She’s coming in here?!’ And she said, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just go meet her,’ all annoyed like I’d told her her mom wasn’t allowed in. So she grabbed her purse and walked out. That was the last time I saw her. I mean, alive.”

The diary—Mrs. Iredale had mentioned it, too. I made a mental note to double-check that I hadn’t missed it in the case files.

“Alex, where were you during this?” I asked.

“Earlier that night? I was hanging out with Kevin and his bandmates. We went to the taco truck.” He was tearing the cardboard coaster into shreds. “Her mom was pretty intense, right?”

“Super intense. Always made me uncomfortable,” Sarah concurred.

“You think her mom did it?” I said, looking back and forth at them. I knew even as I said it that it was a crazy leap.

But Sarah took it seriously. “Probably not. I dunno. Edie didn’t really seem to like her parents, but…I mean, her mom was obsessed with her. I dunno why she’d kill her.” Her soup appeared and she sprinkled it with oyster crackers.

“But it’s chilling she was there that night, right?” I pressed. “What if she hung around after they talked and then snuck up to the apartment?”

Alex crossed his arms. “That’s a lot of luck, to get all the way in and out without anybody seeing you. It was a Friday night—there were people everywhere.”

“Well, no one saw Edie going back to her own apartment,” I said. “Or—if there was someone else, if we’re correct that she didn’t kill herself—nobody saw the other person coming in or out. Calhoun was a labyrinth.” It was its own dimension. Maybe portals lurked below the staircases and between the floors, wormholes for sudden inexplicable entrances and vanishings.