“I don’t have all the details, but … he overdosed. And he was in there for a couple of days after he … I guess the others thought he was sleeping. They didn’t find any ID on him, but he had a tattoo on his wrist that said ‘Frances,’ and a few of the other junkies confirmed that he went by the name Tommy.”
“When did he…” She can’t finish the sentence.
“Two weeks ago,” Simon says. “It took that long to ID him. I guess it wasn’t a priority.”
She can feel herself sliding down from the bed to the floor. Her ass hits the carpet soundlessly. She can barely hold the phone to her ear; it’s like her entire body has turned to jelly. Oh god. Oh Frances. Poor Frances.
“Why didn’t Thomas call her? Why didn’t he just go home?” she says into the phone, but she and Simon both know she’s not asking this because she expects an answer. There are no answers. There are only more questions. And more pain.
“She called me from the airport,” he says. “She’s on her way to Stockton. She has to go to the morgue there to make an official ID, and she’s…” His voice breaks. “She’s going to bring his body home.”
Oh Jesus Christ. “I have to call her.”
“She was about to board the plane when she called me, but for sure, give her a call. I’m sure she’ll appreciate hearing from you.”
“Does Lila know?”
“She does now. I called her in between calls to you.”
“We need to be here for Frances when she gets back.” Marin’s brain is going in a hundred different directions. “Let’s plan to meet. She might need help planning his funeral—”
She stops speaking, and gasps as the horror of her words hits her. Her scattered thoughts narrow into one. Just one. And then the flood is unleashed.
The sobs she lets loose are so fast and furious, she can hardly breathe, and it feels like her stomach is convulsing. The phone slips out of her fingers and lands on the carpet beside her. She cries harder than she ever has in her life, because Frances’s terrible news feels like her terrible news, and Simon’s and Lila’s terrible news, because it’s the thing they dread learning the most from the moment they understand their child is missing. The pain is so intense, it feels like she’s cracking into pieces.
On the other end of the line, Simon is crying as hard as she is. Because the only thing worse than not knowing is … knowing.
“Marin? Are you there?” she hears Simon say, but she can’t speak to him. She can’t do this, she can’t process, she can’t deal. It’s all too much.
She disconnects the call without saying goodbye. Simon will understand. He will not call back today.
She scrambles to her feet and runs to the bathroom, where the faucet is still going, steam coming up from the tub like a hot spring. She makes it to the toilet just in time to vomit her Four Seasons breakfast into it.
She strips off her clothes and sinks into the near-scalding hot water. The heats attacks her skin like a million pinpricks, but she welcomes it, welcomes the pain. She wants her skin to sear off, she wants to shed everything that hurts, she wants to be someone else, anyone else, because anything is better than being this, than feeling this.
She aches for Frances. Thomas was only twenty-four. An adult, yes, but a young one, and the exact same age as Derek’s mistress.
She sits up straight, then bolts out of the bathtub, not bothering to wrap a towel around herself. She drips water all over the tile, and then the carpet, as she reaches for her phone to text Sal.
Call it off. With J.
Sal replies immediately. You sure? You won’t get a refund.
Call it off, she texts again. Right now. I’m serious.
I’ll tell him, Sal says, and though Marin can’t hear his voice or see his face, she senses relief in his words.
It should never have gone this far. This only confirms why she and Sal can never be together. They are not good for each other. He is the id to her ego, the devil to her angel, the magnetic force that steers her moral compass in the wrong direction.
She may hate McKenzie Li, but McKenzie Li is someone’s child. Somebody loves her. Somebody will cry for her when she’s dead. And