Page 110 of Death on Riddle Road

I dipped my head in acknowledgement.I sucked in a breath, then hiccupped.And hiccupped again.

Of all the times...

But I wasnotinterrupting this moment to sip water or breathe into a paper bag.

Grimly, I spoke through mini eruptions.

“For fifteen years, I was known as the author ofAbandon All.”

No reaction.

“I know you’ve heard of it, Teague.You and Clara discussed it numerous times.”A little bitterness might have leaked into my voice.They couldn’t have made me more uncomfortable during those conversations if they’d tried.“I used that name then — family names, though Sheila Mackey is my real identity now and close to my birth name.Anyway, I used that name.But—” I searched his face, seeing no condemnation in it, waiting for a hiccup to pass.“—I didn’t write the book.Kit did.”

Still, he didn’t say anything.

Deep in his eyes, I thought I saw the glint of amusement that so often lingered there.But maybe I was hallucinating.It was hard to keep focus with the hiccups bobbing my head around.

“I’m not who you think I am,” I repeated, to make sure he understood.“At least I wasn’t for all those years.And that’s who the world would think I was, if it ever made the connection.I stepped out of that life — well, Kit pushed me, but either way, I didn’t tell anyone in that life where I went and I haven’t told anyone in this life who I was.”

Another hiccup struck.I tried another deep breath.It fueled the next hiccup.

But after that passed, I got out, “I’ve lied to you about teaching and inheriting money from an aunt and all that.”

“I know.”

“You know,” I repeated blankly.“You mean because I just told you?”

“No.Before that.”

“You...knewbefore?But...When...?”

“About the book?That you didn’t write it?Wondered for a while.Then, after meeting Kit a few weeks ago, I re-readAbandon All.Was clear she wrote it.”

“I don’t—” I hiccupped irately.“—mean about the book, I mean aboutme.”

“Remember the day at the dog park, when Clara told me you always saidCall me Sheila.”

The hiccups disappeared.

“That was the first day we met.You’re saying you knew who I was — had been — thefirst day we met?”

At one level I was incensed.I’d wrestled, struggled, and tortured myself over what, how, and when to tell him and he’d known all this time?

More broadly, I was that wonderful British termgobsmacked.

I was also relieved the hiccups stopped.

“I wouldn’t say Iknewthen, exactly.”

“Buthow?How on earth could Clara saying that I saidCall me Sheila Mlead you to me being known as the author ofAbandon All?”

“It didn’t.Not in one jump.Butcall mewas an interesting way to say it—”

Abruptly, I remembered being uneasy when he’d repeated those words.Shivered a little.But, then, it had been a January day at the dog park, so I’d passed it off.

“—notI am, butcall me, like it wasn’t really your name—”

“It is,” I protested.“Part of it.More than the other one.”