Cause of Death by Laura Dembowski (ereader iphone .TXT) 📗

himself. Neither of us have done too much of that since Lana was born. He’d never admit this, of course, and he has done more than me, since he gets to leave the house on a regular basis, but she still had a huge impact on both of our lives.

I wonder if he’s had an affair. I bet he has. I kind of hope he has, for his sake. Then again, maybe he’s not ambitious enough to search a woman out, woo her, and cover his tracks.

I’m kind of proud of Dave for being brave and going into the ocean, as long as he doesn’t get brave enough to kill himself.

The first moment we walked into the room, he walked over to the window to stare out at the ocean. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was admiring its beauty or thinking it would be an awfully good way to kill himself. It would be a great way to die. At one with the water.

He’s walking back to his beach chair now. It’s early yet; not many people are out. Apparently sleeping in on vacation is a thing.

I’ve been unable to get a good night’s sleep since Lana’s death. It turns out that it’s hard to sleep in a house where someone has died. A melancholy cast hangs over the house, and her dark presence looms in the air. I am perpetually tired, and don’t see that changing anytime soon. I will have to learn to embrace it like the twitch in my eye that has come and gone as it pleases for the past week.

I watch Dave grab a towel and then come back into the room.

“Have a nice swim?” I ask.

“I did, actually. Gave me a lot of clarity.”

“On what?”

“For one, I need to snap out of this funk. I can’t do anything about Lana’s death except find her killer, and if I’m drunk, I’m not going to be very good at that.”

I’m glad he’s going to stop drinking, or at least, slow down.

Wait a minute. Did he just say Lana’s killer?

“Now, honey,” I say, not moving from my chair. “You don’t really believe those detectives, do you?”

I try to get up, but it’s like my legs won’t work. The thought that someone killed Lana tears me up so much more than the belief that she killed herself. To think that someone came into our house and killed our baby. It sends a chill up my spine. The idea that Dave believes someone killed Lana paralyzes me.

“Well, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. She didn’t even leave a suicide note, Maggie. She was too thorough a person not to leave a suicide note. She would have wanted to explain, to tell us why she was leaving us.”

“If she hated everyone and everything so much that she would kill herself, maybe she didn’t want to explain,” I say.

Dave shakes his head. He is unconvinced.

“You’re wrong, Maggie. This whole thing—none of it makes sense.”

He’s right. Lana would undoubtedly have left a note. Lana loved to write, and for her not to take one last chance to put her words out into the world is insane.

That doesn’t mean I think someone killed her, however,

“Maybe we didn’t look hard enough,” I say.

“People don’t usually hide suicide notes,” Dave says.

“Lana wasn’t very ‘usual,’ now, was she?”

“She wasn’t unusual.”

“Whatever you say,” I murmur, rolling my eyes. “Maybe she hid it somewhere, so later, maybe even years later, we’d find it.”

Dave ponders my words. “You really think she would have put that much effort into this?”

“She killed herself,” I’m saying, as Dave puts on a pair of shorts and a button-down shirt. He looks rather beach chic, actually. “She put a lot of thought into the whole thing.”

“I’m not convinced. That’s not my Lana.”

His Lana. Ugh.

“I don’t know. The cops don’t even know. When I get home, I’m going to tear her room apart, looking for a note,” I say, hoping Dave drops the subject, yet knowing neither of us will stop thinking about Lana and what caused her death.

“I’ll help,” he says. “And if we’re going to search her room, we might as well box up her things while we’re at it. Keep a few things, give some away, maybe sell some.”

Where the hell did this come from? Dave went from being a drunk, bumbling mess to wanting to sort through Lana’s things in less than twenty-four hours. I’m impressed, if not a bit suspicious.

Dave’s up to something. Now I just have to figure out what.

I fumble with the keys as I unlock the door. I don’t usually have a problem unlocking it—I’ve done it thousands of times—but with Dave standing behind me, tapping his toe on the brick pavers, impatiently waiting for entrance into the house, I can’t focus. I turn around and glare at him.

“Sorry,” he says, and stops tapping.

I finally manage to open the door and he rushes past me as I turn off the alarm. When he’s in the bathroom, I know where he’ll be headed next: Lana’s room.

Dave managed to enjoy the rest of the trip, although I have no idea how, since he mentioned Lana’s missing suicide note every day, often more than once a day, including making a list of possible places where he might find it when we got home. On the plane ride home, it was literally all he could talk about. Knowing he wouldn’t fall asleep, having worked himself up, I popped an Ambien and drifted off into a deep sleep, void of any thoughts of my husband, daughter, and death in general.

Now that we are home, there is no avoiding the issue. I must face it head-on. I could let Dave tear up her room all on his own, but I’d prefer to take this opportunity to help him clean it out and get rid of her stuff, despite Dave’s continuing protests that he wants to do it all alone.

I beat him to Lana’s room and start