Page 63 of The Next Lie

“Reva—”

“No. I’m done for now.”

“Do not shut your phone off.”

“Then don’t get on a plane.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Cal.”

“I won’t come today.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It’s all I can give you.”

I laugh under my breath. “You people and your little negotiated truths.”

“Keep your phone on,” he says. “Stay close to Blackwood and Rousseau. Lafitte too, when he isn’t being a jackass.”

Despite myself, something in my chest tugs.

“You know Shiloh?”

“I know enough.”

“Of course you do.”

“Reva.”

I wait.

His voice lowers. “Don’t trust Delia blindly just because she shares your blood.”

My stomach twists.

“And don’t hate her for surviving.”

The line goes quiet between us. For one second, I think I might cry. I don’t. I’m out of tears, apparently.

“Goodbye, Cal.”

I hang up before he can say anything else. Then I stand there with the phone in my hand while the sky turns brighter over the marsh.

I thought calling him would give me something solid. Instead, I have a new list of questions, a father-shaped hole in the middle of my chest, and one brutal little certainty sitting underneath both.

Cal knew. Not everything, but enough to be a liar.

Whatever I decide to do next, I am going to have to do without pretending Chicago was ever clean.

Delia—

Cal knew.

I don’t know how to make those two words smaller.

He knew you were alive. He knew I was mourning someone who was still breathing. He let me build a whole childhood around your grave and called it protection.