Page 2 of These White Lies

Deep in my head, sirens are going off, but I can’t seem to focus.

It feels like the time I almost drowned in the lake. I was thirteen, and my cousin dared me to jump off the high, clay bank. I knew it wasn’t safe… She knew it, too.

It’s why she suggested it—she wanted me to back down. But she’d underestimated—my then—reckless approach to life. Particularly with Colton Weaver watching.

God, he had been beautiful. Tan skin and bleached, summer hair. My cousin knew I had a crush on him. She did, too. I think everyone at our school did.

So of course, with a fuck-you smirk in her direction, I leaped.

I still remember the weightless feeling of falling and the sharp pain when my head hit something in the too-shallow water. Even as my body tumbled, pulled by the underwater current, my brain told me to swim to where the sun was breaking through the blue water.

My body hadn’t responded. Instead, I’d floated like dead wood beneath the surface, allowing the current to pull me farther away.

It had been peaceful in a way, before my lungs started to burn. Before Colton and his friend Elijah jumped in to pull me out.

That’s whatthisfeels like.

I’m here.

But I’m not.

The light through the water in this case is figuring out why my ex-husband is sitting in my house with two bullet holes in his chest.

He looks surprised.

The absurd thought hits me just as the wine makes an unceremonious return in my throat. With my hand clamped over my mouth, I bolt for the bathroom, bare feet slapping against the hardwood floors.

Clutching the porcelain rim after emptying my stomach, the blissful, numb shock retreats.

There’s a dead body in your house, Beth.

This isnotgood.

Neither is the fact you’re mentally referring to yourself by a childhood nickname.

No one is going to jump off a cliff and save you this time.

I have to save myself.

That thought finally breaks through the remaining fog. Taking deep breaths slowly through my nose, I wash my hands, rinse my mouth, and do what I do best. Think.

All emotion is banished to a box deep inside me, and my logical brain takes over. There’s a certain relief in it. This is just another problem that needs to be solved.

You’re on a clock, it tells me. Pull your shit together.

The security system will have recorded when the interior door from the garage opened. I’m not sure exactly how long I stared at Keith in a stupor, but there is nothing that can be done about that now.

I need to call the police.

If I let more time pass, it will be suspicious.

Your ex-husband is dead in your house. That’s pretty fucking suspicious, Beth!

Shut up.

I suck in a shaky breath and squeeze the hand towel I’ve pressed to my face tighter.

Not enough.