The Lost Night (Page 41)

“I mean that’s what we were living, babe, you, me, Edie, everyone back then. When we were coming out of this fucked-up phase of politeness and fake prosperity and everyone believing they just had to act proper to get everything they’d ever dreamed of on a silver platter.”

I gave a noncommittal “Mmm.”

Again, the sound of swallowing. “Edie was bored out of her mind,” he said. “Oh, I remember. She was getting a useless degree in like theoretical clothing design, and she was stuck with Alex because they lived together, right?”

I assented.

“And she had those rich, miserable parents in the city and she just, I don’t know, she totally got it. We were just, you know, living our way through it.”

I felt him wait for me to say something, so I tried mirroring again, some faux-hippie shit. “Proving that, like, you weren’t gonna let the monster shaking the tree take you down.”

“Exactly. You got it.” He tittered. “And now we’re back to being hubristic motherfuckers and everyone who’s doing semi-okay feels even more entitled to act like they earned it, survival of the fittest, dog-eat-dog meritocratic bullshit.”

I pictured him now, hair long and scraggly, brain cells desiccated like overbaked cookies.

“When did you start seeing her?”

He giggled. “You really do sound like a cop.”

“I’m not.” Suddenly, recklessly: “I think I might have been involved. In her death.”

Surprised silence, then laughter, full-on guffaws. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“We were fighting, I know how to use a gun, I was blackout drunk, and I was hanging around her apartment that night. I’m—that’s why I’m investigating.”

“Well, shit.” He collected himself. “Here I thought I was an alcoholic.”

“Fuck you.” Panic was fanning out inside me: Why had I told him, what had I done?

“Go ahead, Sherlock. I’m an open fucking book.”

Everything tightened. “Do you think she killed herself?”

“I dunno. I guess not if you killed her.”

“I’m serious.”

“I mean, she had some fucked-up stuff going on, but so did everyone else.”

“Like what?” Had he known about the miscarriage?

“Aw, you know. Secret love affair.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt her?”

“Nah. Edie was cool. I mean, unless you secretly hated her.”

I was growing dizzy; the room tilted like I’d just gotten off a roller coaster. “When were you guys actually hooking up?”

“Fuck if I remember.”

“Can you try? When did it start, what season was it?”

“Ohhh, fuck. Let’s see. I ran into her at a bar in my neighborhood, she was with…I think she lived with the girl. And we were sitting outside so it had to be summer. Actually…I think it was one of the first truly nice days, so maybe May?”

A roommate? Sarah?

“Was she Asian?”

“Edie?”

“The friend she was with.”

“No…I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t really remember what she looked like. I didn’t, like, hang out with her friends. Obviously.”

“And what happened?”

“Uhhhh, she recognized me, and we talked, and finally her roommate left and it was just us and we made out in the bar and then I took her back to my place. Which was sort of just a mattress on the floor in this shitty-ass railroad apartment in Bed-Stuy, so after that we just went to her parents’ apartment whenever they weren’t around.”

Right, as Alex had said. “And you knew she was seeing Alex?”

“I mean, yeah, but it sounded like it wasn’t going great. And it’s not like he and I were talking.”

“You’d fought?”

“Stupid thing over a guitar.”

Okay, so their stories matched. “When was that?”

“Hey, I know, let me just check my blog!” Sarcastically, with mock cheer.

“I know, I get it, it was a long time ago.” I sighed, felt a shudder in it, and decided to go with it. “I’m just trying to piece this together. Ten years too late.” I made sure he heard the wobble in my voice, added a loud sniffle for good measure. The silence bloomed between us and I tacked on another sniff and murmured, “Sorry.”

“Listen, babe,” he said. “It was a long time ago, so don’t hold me to anything. But I think Alex and I stopped hanging out, I don’t know, maybe February or March of that year? Winter sometime. And Edie and I started hooking up around May, and it lasted maybe a month or two before Alex…found out, so we stopped for a while. And then picked up again after they’d broken up, but didn’t, you know, tell him at the time, obviously.”

“Did you and Alex, like, have a stupid manly fistfight at some point or anything?”

“Nah. I just avoided him.”

For a moment, a scene stitched itself together in front of me, one that made sense: Edie and Lloyd canoodling in her apartment for some reason, Alex walking in on them, altercation, grabbing of a gun, Edie tries to intercept, shots fired. Then I remembered Lloyd had been up onstage snapping photos of a band.

“I don’t actually think I was involved. I was just trying to get you to open up.”

“Ha. Okay.”

A long silence.

“Are you gonna tell anyone?” I asked.

“Who would I tell?” Another swallowing sound. “I’m just a drunk piece of shit.”

I heaved a sigh, my stomach aching.

“Well, I gotta boogie,” he announced. “Good luck to you, kid.”

He hung up and I lay staring up at the ceiling, where a long crack snaked out of the doorframe, forked into two, and petered out just above my head.

* * *

I passed a few lonely nights eating dinner in front of the TV, willing Josh to text, Josh or Alex or Michael or someone, someone who’d want me to come out of my apartment and in doing so, to materialize again. At night I lay around my apartment and scared myself, imagining shapes hulking in the corners, wondering what was behind the shower curtain as I peed. Looking up into the mirror sharply, like I could catch the phantom lurking over my shoulder. Instead I just saw my own face, eyes pooled in blackness, cheeks sunken like a skull’s.

Early one morning, I awoke with a start, sweaty and twisted in my sheets and unclear if the heat had triggered a bad dream or vice versa. It took me a moment to register the fake blue light casting shadows on my bed—my laptop, which I’d left open and blank, was lit up now. An automatic update or something, I figured; I crept over, prepared to snap it shut.

My email was open—probably the last thing I’d looked at before bed. I almost closed the screen without reading it, fighting off that ache of curiosity.

Mostly stupid stuff, newsletters and promotions.

And one at the top, from fourteen minutes before.

From: Edith Iredale <[email protected]>

To: Lindsay Bach <[email protected]>

Wednesday, August 14, 2019 at 4:06 AM

Don’t.

Chapter 13

I thought about calling Tessa on the spot, even though it was four thirty in the morning and there was nothing in particular she could do. But I’d stopped updating her on the investigation, her and Damien. I battered around the apartment turning on lights and checking locks. Finally I forwarded the email to Tessa with a plea to call me. I felt anger building like a panic that no one was up to help me, that I was alone in this lunacy, getting emails from the dead.

Tessa called a little after seven, her voice scratchy, and I put her on speakerphone.

“So somebody hacked into Edie’s account and sent you that?” she said.

“Apparently! Unless we’re now of the belief that the dead can fucking send emails.” I looked around again, grateful for the buttery light that pressed in from the windows, washing away the shadows.

“So…we think this means what?”

“This means someone knows I’ve been poking around and wants me to stop. Right? Probably whoever else was in the room, whom I just missed with my camera. I mean, what else could it mean?”

“Is it a threat?” She sounded a little more awake now. “Should we call the police?”

I took a long sip of coffee. “Is that a stupid idea?”

“It just might be hard to explain. Or to get them to do anything for you. I mean, since there wasn’t an actual verbal threat. Hang on, let me ask Will.”

I picked at my cuticle as they discussed it in muffled voices. “Okay, I’m right,” she announced, suddenly loud. “Since there wasn’t an actual threat, let alone a quote-unquote credible one, there’s not much they’d do. Do you want me to look into the header info?”

“Header? Is that like metadata?”

“Sort of. It’s the data involved in getting an email from Point A to Point B. Maybe it’ll show who actually sent it.”

A sprig of hope. “Yes! That’s a great idea. Thank you.” We were quiet for a moment.

“Lindsay, this is fucking weird. This is scary.”