Page 59 of The Next Lie

I almost hang up. Then the line clicks open.

“Reva?” Cal’s voice is rough with sleep, filtered through distance and old habit. “It’s early, kid. Everything okay?”

No. Obviously no. I roll my eyes. There is no version where calling your guardian at dawn from a crime-family mansion in Louisiana says everything is okay. But I can hear the concern under his voice, the immediate shift from sleep to readiness, and that hurts worse than I want it to.

I swallow hard, then force my voice to harden. “I saw her, Cal.”

Silence, except for a swift inhalation, as suddenly cut-off. It’s not a confused silence, or a surprised one…it’s just…silent.

A tear leaks from my eye and I swipe at it with my sleeve. That tells me more than shouting ever could have. Cal draws a breath to speak.

My hand tightens around the phone. “Don’t.”

His breath moves once against the line. “Where?”

I close my eyes. One word to make the world tilt on its axis.

“You knew.”

“Reva—”

“You knew Delia was alive.”

Another pause. Measured. Careful. Cal choosing where to step because the floor between us is a minefield now.

“I knew she survived,” he says at last.

The air leaves my lungs. For a second, I am back in the Hart house with my hands on dusty floorboards, looking for proof that does not exist.

I grip the balcony railing. “And you chose not to tell me.”

“Yes.”

The word is calm, which somehow makes it worse. I want him to sound guilty. Frantic. Cornered. I want him to give me something I can throw my anger at without it bouncing back and hitting me in the face.

Instead, he sounds like Cal. Steady as ever. A little wary. Sorry in a way he has no intention of allowing to weaken him.

“You kept her from me. You let me mourn her for fifteen years.”

“I kept you alive for fifteen years.”

I can’t process that right now. My eyes burn with more tears I won’t let fall.

“You let me think she was dead!”

“I let you think a lot of things that kept you breathing.”

“Oh, good.” My laugh comes out thin and ugly. “Excellent. We’re doing noble lies before breakfast. My favorite.”

“Listen to me, Reva⁠—”

“No.”

“Reva.”

“No.” I straighten, because if I don’t, I might fold right over the railing and let the marsh have me. “You do not get to use the dad voice right now. You lost dad voice privileges somewhere around letting me build my entire life around a lie.”

He exhales, and in that breath is a lifetime of patience.