22 | in which Lawson drinks sherry in a cloakroom

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"Lawson?" a voice called.

A knock on the door.

"Are you in there?"

The voice was high. Unmistakably feminine. Lawson closed his eyes. He would know that voice anywhere; it was a sliver wedged under his skin.

"Come in," he said.

Harper slipped into the cloakroom.

She looked odd in here, Lawson thought, a supernova in the darkness; she was wearing that long dress, the colour of crushed cherries and midnight merlot. Brown hair curled around her neck. Lawson watched as she took it all in — his creased suit jacket, the sherry bottle, the way his hands shook — and did not flinch.

"Ah," Harper said. "I thought I'd find you in here."

"In a closet?"

She sat down. "You seem to have a thing for closets."

"Do I?"

"That's where we first met."

"It was an airing cupboard," Lawson corrected her. "And I seem to recall that you forcefully pushed me into it."

"Details, details," Harper said, and he caught the bright flash of a smile before it faded. "Are you okay?"

Lawson rubbed at his eyes. He wished that he could joke — find some way to make her laugh, to dispel the tension of the last ten minutes — but his mind was drawing a blank. He was just too goddamn tired for jokes. Too goddamn tired for much of anything, really.

"I should have told you," he said.

"Is that what this is about?" Harper's face softened. "Lawson, I don't care. You should be allowed to tell people about Paige's accident whenever you're comfortable talking about it. I shouldn't have pried."

"You couldn't have known."

"No," Harper said, "I knew that something was going on." She fidgeted with her earring, her hands moving restlessly in a way that made Lawson think of butterflies trapped in a jar. "I'd be lying if I said that wasn't at least part of the reason I went to speak with Moira. I actually thought..."

"What?"

Her throat bobbed. "I thought that it had something to do with your Mom."

Ah. For the first time, Lawson saw that day in the kitchen through Harper's eyes. Moira burning the biscuits. Moira shouting. His father comforting her. What had been said right before? His mind cast about for an explanation.

Oh, right.

They'd been discussing Fish dying. Paige's fish. The whole thing had been about Paige, as it always was, although Harper couldn't have known that at the time.

"She went off Vauxhall Bridge," Lawson said quietly. "Two years ago. She was cycling home from the pub, and a drunk driver swerved into her." He stared down at the sherry bottle in his hands. "The police say she died on impact, before she hit the water, but sometimes I picture her drowning. Choking to death at the bottom of the Thames. That's what my nightmares are about."

"God, Lawson." He felt Harper move closer. She touched his knee, and warmth filled him; a warmth he didn't deserve. "I'm so sorry."

"It was my fault," Lawson said.

"How?"

Lawson picked at the paper label. "She asked me to come pick her up that night, but I was out of town. Cricket tournament." He yanked viciously at the corner. "If I'd been in London— If I'd gone to get her—"

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