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I take mine with both hands. “Thank you, it smells delicious. What is it?”
“It’s a chai tea, with cinnamon. And a dash of bourbon.”
“Thank you. That’s exactly what I feel like.” I take a sip of the hot drink. It’s incredibly delicious. “Do you have a recipe for this?”
“Yes. I’ll dig it out and give it to you.”
“Thank you. I’d like that.”
“Anna? What’s going on? You didn’t come to ask me for a recipe.”
I sit back against the couch. “You know why I’m here.”
“What happened last night?” she asks.
I look at her, right into her eyes. “I did something really bad.”
“Oh god. What did you do?”
“It’s not what you think,” I say quickly. I tell her how I showed up at Isabelle’s door. How we argued. The terrible things she said to me.
“She said she was pregnant.”
Her eyes grow wide. “Luis’s?”
“Yes. Or so she said.”
“What happened then?”
I consider telling her about the necklace, how I snatched it off her, how it caused the thin welt on my hand, but I don’t. I’ll leave that for another day. I don’t think June needs any more reasonsnotto help me.
“We argued. She said she loved him and…anyway, look. When I left her, she was perfectly fine, and that’s the truth. I just walked out. She was laughing behind my back. I sure didn’t kill her. And anyway, she fell down the stairs, according to the detective.”
“Down the stairs?”
“That’s what he said.”
She shakes her head, like she’s annoyed with me, like I’m not taking the situation seriously.
“But you see, June, if the police were to find out, it would probably get leaked to the press, don’t you think?”
“Why would it get leaked?”
“Because she’s…because I won the Pentti-Stone, because it’s a lurid story…The usual reasons.”
She thinks about this for a moment. “And you really, really didn’t do anything to hurt her?”
“No, June, I promise you, she was perfectly healthy when I left her. She was in much better shape than I was, and that’s the truth.”
She takes the time to think about it some more, and I sit there, my heart in my mouth. Finally she says, “Okay, then I’ll say we were together. I’ll say we came back here if anyone asks.”
“Oh god, thank you. Thank you. June, you have no idea what that means to me.”
She shakes her head. “So what time did you get home?”
“Good question, I’m not sure, to be honest.” I give a small, embarrassed laugh. By now I’m embarrassed about everything I’ve done, the way I behaved, how out of control I got. “About one a.m. I think. Maybe later.”
“You really did go out on the town.”
