The tears came then, and now that the dam had been broken, they threatened to fill the entire room. Drown us both. I didn’t wipe them away. I’d cried about this man for hours. Days. A lifetime. And I finally wanted him to know. To his credit, he didn’t look away. After a moment, he opened his mouth, and I waited for the next excuse.
“I’m sorry.” It had come as fast as a pitch, but I didn’t even try to catch it. Instead, I stared at the desk, as if I could see where his words had landed in front of me. He spoke again, softer, gentler, slower. “Thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t want you to see your parents arguing all the time, hating each other.”
“So you decided it was better I didn’t see you at all?”
But he kept going, as if it was the first time he was admitting it to himself as much as to me. “It got easier to stay away, to convince myself it was okay because I was paying for the house, the school, some magic trick your mother told my mother you wanted.”
The Houdini box. I could still remember going down the stairs the Christmas I was ten and seeing it for the first time. And even though I’d abandoned the dream pretty quick, I’d kept the box. It was currently in my basement. Though I knew Santa hadn’t really dropped it off, I never knew Mel was the one who’d bought it.
“Melina—Lena—I’d die for my kids. I’d kill for my kids. I just want you to be safe. It sounds melodramatic as hell, but it’s the truth. Just like not coming to your graduation was one of the two biggest regrets of my life.”
My first inclination was to make a joke about how the other was not signing some big-name rapper. “What was the second?” I said instead.
“Letting your sister drive off the night of her accident.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I thought you were at Morgan.”
“Told Veronika I was having a boys’ night with my frat brothers. Took a plane back.”
Him having to fly back to New York wouldn’t have been a big deal to Veronika. She might have come with him, but she wouldn’t have thought it was weird. There was only one reason not to want her to come—or to know.
“What was her name?” I said. Unlike Free, Mel hadn’t had a cheating scandal since my mom.
“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t want Veronika to know since it didn’t work out so great the last time I got caught. Of course, I still lost my daughter. Again.” He had to take a moment after that one. “Desiree saw me—us—coming out of some private club. Took off. I didn’t find out about her accident until the next morning. When I called, she hung up, so I stayed in Maryland. Figured she’d tell her mother, but she didn’t. She didn’t come home either. Decided to shack up with that helmet guy.”
I was still stuck on Desiree catching Mel cheating. It took me a second to get what else he had said. “Naut?”
I’d always assumed Desiree met Naut well after her accident since that’s when he first started popping up on her Instagram.
“Naut,” Mel said. “Ridiculous name. They met that night. She told her mother it was love at first sight or some shit. He was a bartender. Plied her with alcohol. Guess she was on her way to meet up with him when she hit that pole. Almost killed herself.” He looked at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I wasn’t. He was just in my eyeline as I tried to work it all out. Two things were clear. Mel didn’t know Desiree wasn’t driving that night. And he sure as hell didn’t know about Kevin House. I sure wasn’t going to be the one to tell him either. Because I believed him when he said he’d kill for Desiree.
Mel thought she had never made it to see Naut. But what if she had? I flashed on Alex’s video, the pale arm hanging out the window. Green had acted like Naut had an ironclad alibi—performing in front of thousands of people for thousands of dollars. But that alibi was hidden underneath his astronaut helmet. A robot could be under there pushing buttons on his Mac.
“Well?” Mel still stared at me.
“You’re right,” I said before I changed my mind and told him everything. “Desiree just overdosed. That’s why I came by. What I wanted to tell you.”
“You’re done playing detective?”
I nodded, smiled, got up, for once glad he didn’t know me well enough to know when I was lying. I made it to his door before he finally spoke.
“Your mother raised an amazing person.”
When I stepped back into the sheer white of Pierce Productions, Tam was still at her desk and Erin was with her. They both smiled at me, tentative. “Everything go okay?” Erin said.
I nodded. “Naut.”
*
The Apollo marquee had long gone digital but still spelled its name out in iconic bright neon-orange letters. It was advertising the producers’ showcase. Erin and I had spent hours camped outside Naut’s building, but he hadn’t been home. Finally, I remembered that I knew exactly where he was. And crashing his gig seemed like a much better plan than being alone with him—again—in his apartment. Staring at the picture he’d painted of my sister. When I’d first seen it, I’d assumed him painting over it was the worst thing he could do to her.
I was wrong.
After we parked the Cadillac, we walked over to the theater and followed the crowd inside, where Erin kept going until she found an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign. She didn’t even hesitate before going in.
No one stopped us then or as we wandered backstage, me gripping my pepper spray as our every move was accompanied by a soundtrack of today’s biggest hits, thanks to whoever was doing crowd warm-up.
We stumbled upon the stage entrance next to a wall filled with autographs. The DJ onstage was sans helmet, but I wasn’t surprised. Naut wasn’t coming out early. This was the opening act. As I looked closer, I recognized his assistant, Trevor.
Seeing him out there made me realize he could’ve been the one actually performing the night Desiree died. All he would’ve needed was an astronaut helmet and a private place to plop it on his head.
We kept going, passing anxious producers sitting in a bland white room with outdated couches. The greenroom. But no Naut. So we knocked on any doors we thought could possibly hide a dressing room. We finally found him up a set of stairs and behind a door that said “2.”
He responded to our knock, looking as if he’d been expecting someone else, and then became confused. Two separate worlds were colliding, like seeing your teacher at the grocery store. Good. I wanted him out of his element. Uncomfortable. Unsure.
He leaned in to hug me. “Lena…” The smell of alcohol on his breath was as faint as a damsel in distress.
I leaned back and he hesitated, unsure if he’d made a mistake. His smile when it came was awkward, and I wondered if that was how he’d smiled at Desiree when he’d taken her car keys two years ago. When he’d injected that heroin into her body nine days ago and left her to die.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“We need to talk.”
He glanced at Erin, but she must’ve been giving him the same look. “Okay.”
He stepped back to let us in. He was sans entourage so we were alone. The room was spare with the same French-vanilla-colored paint job as in the greenroom but way less seating. The few chairs were pushed against the counter that ran along one wall. A mirror was above them. It forced us to sit side by side. I took the middle. Naut slouched in the chair to my left. I placed my bag on the counter. The plan was for Erin to record our convo on her phone so we could deliver it to Detective Green.