Page 21 of The Five Year Lie

He puts his hands to the keyboard again. “Pull out your phone? I need to see the obituary again.”

“Sure?” The browser tab is still open from when I showed him earlier. All I have to do is set it on the counter.

He types rapidly for a moment on the laptop, and then Drew’s familiar face appears on the screen. “See that? His ID photo, uploaded on the same date as this HR file was done. It has the same plain background as mine.”

“Yeah, okay?”

Zain points at my phone. “The obituary photo is identical. Why would that be?”

“Because it’s a decent photo?”

Zain tilts his head and looks at his own screen again. “But, like, which of his army buddies in North Carolina had a copy of it? And how’d they get it?”

My heart skips a beat inside my chest. “That’s a good question.” I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. Then again—that obituary shook my world. I was too busy crying to wonder about the photo.

“I just think it’s strange,” he says. “I wonder if the newspaper would tell you who sent in the obituary?”

“Doubt it,” I stammer, while my head explodes for the tenth time in two days.

“You could check,” he says.

I could. But it would probably lead to nothing. And I don’t see why Zain cares. “Why do you want me to? Why did you come here?”

His eyebrows crowd together aggressively. “Because you were curious about him, and so was I. Thought you might want that data. Seems like you don’t have a lot left of him.”

This is a hundred percent accurate, but I still don’t understand his interest in the matter. “Just... don’t talk to anyone about this, okay?”

He frowns down into his wineglass. “I didn’t miss the whole deep, dark secret thing. Not an idiot, here.”

“Sorry,” I say quietly. “I’m having a very strange week.”

“Mama?”

I whirl around and spot Buzz at the top of the stairs, his red pj’s bright against the polished wood. “Hi, baby.” I set my wine down and I slide off the stool. “It’s bedtime.”

“I know,” he says. But he doesn’t move.

“I’ll go,” Zain says. He snaps his computer closed. “That’s all I had for you.”

It was plenty, though. “I do appreciate it.”

“Yeah. ’Course.” He jams the computer into the bag and heads for the door. “Sorry to wake up your kid.”

“No... Thank you for, um...”

He flashes me a frozen smirk and lets himself out.

I walk Buzz back up to bed. Again. This time I lie down beside him in the dark. My heart rate is still charging along, and I wonder if I’ll ever feel calm again.

“Who was that man?” Buzz asks.

“My friend from work.” I rub his small back.

“He’s nice?”

I hesitate a half second, because I don’t know what to think of Zain at all. “Yes,” I say, and maybe it’s even true. “He shares all his toys in the sandbox.”

Buzz smiles in the dark. And I lie there beside him until he falls back to sleep, his eyelashes fluttering softly.