Page 133 of The Next Lie

Isabel crosses the room and stops at the bar. She doesn’t pour a drink. She only touches the neck of the decanter, turning it a quarter inch so the crystal catches light.

“You were young then,” she says.

“I was old enough.”

“You were obedient.”

I don’t answer. Defending my obedience would send the wrong signal.

She glances over her shoulder. “Weren’t you?”

The room tightens around the question.

“That goes without saying.”

“Fifteen years ago, I gave you an order.”

My pulse stays steady through sheer force of will.

“Why are we doing this? I just rehashed everything⁠—”

“Humor me and repeat that order.”

“Why?”

Her expression barely changes, but the temperature in the room does.

She leaves the decanter and walks toward me. No hurry. No anger. Just certainty. When she stops in front of me, she is close enough that I can see the fine lines at the corners of her mouth, the pearl sheen of her earrings, the absolute absence of doubt in her eyes.

“Repeat. It.”

I hold her stare for two seconds longer than I should. Then I lower my eyes. Not far. But enough. She sees the concession and accepts it.

“Kill her,” I say.

“Who?”

“The younger girl.”

“Her name, Deacon.”

I taste blood where I bite the inside of my cheek.

“Reva Leigh Hart.” I force myself to think of her as white ink on paper, not the Reva I know now.

Isabel—no, Mother Superior—smiles, a small, devastating, knowing smile.

“There. It is good to remember the shape of unfinished work.”

I lift my gaze back to hers, and when I speak it’s through dry lips. “Reva Hart was declared dead.”

“By police who wanted a solved tragedy. By men who believed sheets over bodies meant the room was counted. By people who see what they are told to see.” She reaches up and straightens my lapel, then pats it, as if I am a boy she is sending to church. “You and I know better.”

Her touch lasts one second too long, but I don’t move away. Moving away reveals too much.

She drops her hand.

“You kept a story quiet,” she says. “That was either disloyalty or vanity. I haven’t decided which.”