Forty-five

The car disappeared in a churn of white. Lola knew it was impossible, but she imagined she heard the mocking rattle of her phone, sliding around on the car floor.

The decibels in her knee subsided from a scream to a murmur. All those times she’d taken the pills to sleep, she’d forgotten about their original purpose as painkillers. Nice.

Then: No.

She didn’t dare succumb. Somebody would eventually look for her, but no one would think to look in this place. By the time they found her, she might be dead. Would be. The only question now, would she freeze before the pills did her in?

Unfair. All those times she’d wanted to die. Now that she didn’t want to, here came Death, grinning like a fool.

“Go away.”

He ignored her. Took a seat close by. Settled in. Got comfortable.

She stuck her fingers down her throat and retched. Nothing came up. She tried again. Farther. Some coffee-stained liquid. A few white crumbles. Not enough. The knee roared back to life. She lay back. Heard Charlie again, after he’d come home from dealing with yet another fatal overdose.

He was on his back, smothered by his own vomit. All his friends had to do was turn him on his side. He’d be alive.

Lola rolled onto her side, face pillowed in the snow, and waited for the knee to shut up.

“You, too,” she said to Death’s cackle.

If nothing else, she had to leave a message. She fumbled in the jacket pocket where she always kept a notebook and pen. Hah. Melena hadn’t thought of everything. She scratched at the paper, working at an M. Nothing. The pen had frozen in the cold.

Maybe the police would see the M shape dug into the paper. She should finish the word, at least. Melena. Or, better still, Margaret. So that if nothing else, her daughter would know her mother’s last thought was of her. Or would she just see it as the beginning of a suicide note, proof of her mother’s purposeful removal?

Another chortle from Death, that bastard. It wasn’t enough that he sought her for himself—and that, for too long, she’d encouraged him. Now he wanted the world to know that she’d chosen him.

She had to let Margaret know she’d changed her mind. She patted hopelessly at her pockets, hoping to feel a cold-defying pencil. Nothing.

Wait. Something.

The little burner phone she’d gotten in Vietnam.

Pleasepleaseplase. She held it against her chest before daring a look. Its screen lit up. Power! A single bar, but power, nonetheless. Along with a red light warning that the battery was low.

Lola punched the numbers with fingers gone fat and frozen, and heard the sweetest words ever spoken on the planet.

“911. What is your emergency?”

First things first.

She pulled Melena’s address out of her ass.

“There’s a dead girl there. Her name is Mai. Melena Shumway killed her. She killed Sariah Ballard, too.”

“What is your name and the location you’re calling from?”

“Lola Wicks. L-o- … never mind. I’m at the lake … ”

The phone went dead.

Death slid beside her, put an arm around her, pulled her close.

I’m sorry, Margaret.

I’m sorry, Jan.

I’m sorry, everybody.

But Charlie, oh, Charlie. She’d get to see him again.

That’s good. Right? It’s good, isn’t it? Where are you? She reached for him, hands scrabbling through the snow. But he pushed her away, so hard she could almost feel it, leaving her alone in the censorious blackness.