Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Angie
Jason’s forehead wrinkles. He has no idea what I’m talking about.
“R. Lyon?” Jason echoes, his brow furrowed.
“Yes.” I swallow hard against the lump in my throat. “That’s the name of someone who posted on Lindsay’s memorial page about a year ago. He said something really strange.”
Color drains from Jason’s face, and he leans back against the headboard. His eyes are glassy. “I haven’t looked at that page in years. Too much pain.” He swallows. “What did he say, Angie?”
I take a deep breath. “The post said You’ll always be my only love. And then there was a broken heart emoji.”
A storm rages in Jason’s eyes. He’s confused…and angry.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” he finally says, shaking his head. “Lindsay was my wife. She was my only love, and I was hers. Not someone else. Certainly not someone named R. Lyon.”
I have to ask him something, and I don’t want to. Surely it’s already occurred to him anyway.
“Jason,” I begin slowly, “is there any chance that Lindsay might have been having an affair?”
Jason’s face hardens, his eyes turning icy cold. “No.” His voice is clipped. “Lindsay loved me. She wasn’t the type to do anything like that. She’d talk to me first, try to work out whatever was bothering her.”
“But she—” I stop abruptly.
Now is not the time to remind him that she didn’t talk to him about taking her own life.
Which begs the question… Maybe Jason is right. Maybe Lindsay didn’t commit suicide.
But if that’s the case…then how did she die?
What possible motive could anyone have for murdering an innocent woman? A woman who’d just suffered the most devastating loss imaginable?
“Then who is R. Lyon?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He rubs his eyes. “Lindsay and I met the first week of college. She didn’t have any other…”
“No other boyfriends?”
“Just one in high school. They were serious, I guess, until he went a little nuts on her.”
“A little nuts?”
He grips the back of his neck. “Yeah, he started stalking her. Sending her notes all the time. She had to change her number and even got a restraining order. She came here to school because it was far away from her home in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She was the youngest of her siblings, so Barry and Lisa, her parents, moved here too. Sold the house where they’d raised their kids to keep Lindsay safe from the guy. ”
“Do you know his name?”
“She only said his name was Ronny Burgundy.”
I stifle a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. He was born before that Will Ferrell movie came out, so, you know. But it’s not a name you can forget.”
I scratch my chin. “Did she ever hear from him after high school?”
He shakes his head. “No. I’m sure she would have told me if she had.”
“So he just let her go?”
“Yeah. I mean, the local cops threatened to arrest him if he kept bothering her. That’s enough to scare most people off.”
I think for a minute. “The R could stand for Ronny. I don’t know about the Lyon.”
“Lyon. Like lion. King of the forest. Fierce protector.” Jason shrugs. “It’s all a longshot, Angie.”
“Yeah.” I nibble on my bottom lip. “But a longshot is better than nothing. And there’s one thing you’re overlooking.”
He cocks his head. “What’s that?”
“That R. Lyon message was posted two years after Lindsay’s death.” I bite my lip, grab his arm. “Two years, Jason. Who would remember her so intensely to post something like that unless they had unfinished business with her?”
He closes his eyes a moment. “I don’t know,” he says finally.
“Are you sure the note isn’t in Lindsay’s handwriting?”
He looks me straight in the eye. “Yeah. Of that I’m completely sure. I even got some handwriting samples from her parents tonight to prove it.”
“Show me,” I say.
“They’re at home. I dropped them off before I came over here.”
“Then let’s go to your place. It might be good to have a third party look at both samples. It’s about time I saw it, don’t you think?”
He nods. We get dressed, put on our coats, and walk three doors down to his townhome.
His hand trembles slightly as he fumbles with the key. The door swings open to reveal a warm, inviting living room.
Before I have a chance to take everything else in, I notice the photo on a side table next to the couch.
A beautiful blond woman and an adorable little girl.
My heart breaks a little.
He leads me to a home office filled with shelves of books and piles of papers. He opens a drawer and pulls out what looks like a journal.
“I suppose I should show you the suicide note,” he says.
“I suppose so, if I’m to compare the writing.” I shrug. “I’m not exactly an expert.”
“Neither am I,” he says. “But I was with Lindsay for ten years. I know her handwriting.”
I gulp as he pulls out an envelope.
“This is it,” he says. “The cops saw it after Lindsay died. I gave it to them, but I never read it. They gave it back to me in the envelope.”
“They didn’t keep it as evidence?” I ask.
“Why would they? No charges were filed. It was ruled a suicide. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. Dead kid, devastated mother, suicide note at the scene. I would have been the only likely suspect, and I had an alibi. I was at work.”
“Doing what?”
His face reddens. “I may not be able to do surgery, but I’m still a damned doctor, Angie.”
He’s flustered, and I don’t blame him.
Still, though…
He stands up, paces. “I was meeting with the dean of the medical school. We were discussing a few courses I could teach. Lindsay hadn’t been back to work since Julia’s death, and there was no end in sight to her depression. One of us had to work.”
I don’t want to ask about any life insurance they had on Julia. But Jason did just say he was debt free. Did he really have to work that close to his daughter’s death?
Or was he trying to escape?
I can’t blame him if that was the case.
He hands me the envelope, his fingers trembling. I take it from him gently, open the flap, and pull out a single sheet of stationery. There’s a faint scent to it, lingering like the ghost of a memory.
The handwriting on the page is a delicate scrawl, neat and androgynous. The words are heartbreaking.
Jason, I’m sorry, but I can’t carry this weight any longer. Losing her shattered me in ways I can’t put into words. I’ve tried to be strong—for you, for us—but the pain is relentless, and I can’t see a way forward.
Please know this isn’t your fault. You gave me everything, but I’ve lost myself in the void she left behind. I hope you find peace someday, even if I couldn’t.
I’ll love you forever. See you on the other side, babe.
Lindsay
I feel a lump in my throat, a burning sensation behind my eyes. I didn’t know Lindsay, but I feel her despair.
But…something is nibbling at the back of my neck.
Something about this does seem fabricated. I take a closer look.
“Are you okay?” Jason asks.
I nod, unable to trust my voice.
The handwriting on the suicide note is neater. Too neat. No personality, no little quirks. Just line after line of careful, practiced strokes.
“There’s no…flourish,” I say. “No heartbeat in it.” I point to the diary entry.
“Lindsay’s letters have this wild loop, like here—see the y in actually?
That long, curly tail? She did that with her g’s too.
Like in forget. They swoop. Like rollercoasters.
As opposed to this.” I gesture to the note.
“The y’s end in short little hooks, almost like someone’s trying not to take up too much space.
And the spacing—Lindsay’s words are close together, almost messy.
But on the note, the words are evenly spaced, almost mathematically.
Too perfect. Except the slight slant. And the way the lines curl up toward the end of each sentence. ”
Jason’s jaw tightens. “But what if a detective says that maybe she just wrote differently because she was upset?”
I bite my lip. “They could try to make that argument. But you don’t just become someone else, change your handwriting, even in your darkest moments.
” I return to the diary. “Look at the i’s, too.
Lindsay dotted them high. And sometimes with little circles.
Quirky. Playful. But here?” I slide a finger over the note.
“Tiny dots. Always perfectly centered. Like it came out of a textbook.”
Jason doesn’t respond, but his shoulders tense, and he clenches his hands into fists.
“And look at how she wrote your name.” I lean in. “In the diary, she writes Jason with a tilt. The J curves forward, like she’s leaning into it. Like she’s a little girl doodling Mrs. Jason Lansing in a loopy script. But in the note, the J stands straight up. Like a stranger wrote it.”
Jason grabs the note. “I’m sorry, but I can’t carry this weight…” His voice cracks. “She never talked like that.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Even the tone is off. It’s too measured.
I didn’t know Lindsay, of course, but it’s clear that she was full of life.
In the diary, she talks about your eyes being like the velvet lining of a jewelry box.
” I grin at that. “An accurate description, by the way. But Jason, the woman who wrote this is someone who feels things. Who burns a little too bright.” I take a deep breath in.
“If I’m being honest, the note doesn’t sound like someone falling apart. It sounds like someone pretending to.”
Jason bows his head and covers his eyes with one hand. The note slips from his fingers and flutters to the floor.
But I don’t bend down to pick it up. I just place my hand on his shoulder, rub it gently.
“You lost your wife, Jason. Right after you lost your daughter. I don’t think I’ll ever find the words to tell you how sorry I am that you had to go through such a thing.
” I close the journal and slide it across the table to him.
“But the woman who wrote in this journal definitely didn’t write that note. ”
He lifts his head up. “So it’s indeed possible that she didn’t kill herself.”
“Unless she had someone else write the note for her. But who would do that? Any friend close enough to be trusted with such a grave task would surely try to talk her out of it.”
He frowns. “Well, I guess that narrows it down. Or broadens it, depending on how you look at it.”
I nod, my mind racing as I try to piece it all together. “Jason,” I say slowly. “While we’re on the subject, did Lindsay have any friends or colleagues who were close to her? Someone who might know something about this?”
He frowns, sits back down on the bed. “We lost touch with most of our friends after Julia was born. It was just too difficult to have much of a social life with both of us working and a small child to take care of.” He sighs.
“And then…after she died, I lost contact with them altogether. People reached out, of course, but I turned them all away.”
I feel the pain through his words. I hate that he has to relive all of this.
“Anyone else? Maybe a friend of hers from before she met you?”
He rubs his temple. “There was her childhood friend, Rebecca. They were inseparable until college. But after that they drifted apart.”
“Rebecca…” I echo the name. “Someone named Becca wrote on the Facebook memorial. Was that her?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“Did Lindsay ever mention what Rebecca’s last name was?”
He rakes his fingers though his hair. “She may have. I honestly don’t recall. Fuck, Angie…”
“Are you okay?” I ask.
What a stupid question. Of course he’s not okay.
“I’m just tired.” He runs a hand over his face. His gorgeous eyes are bloodshot, and dark circles have formed under them. “I’m tired of the questions, the uncertainty. I just want to know what happened.”
I grab his hand. “We’ll find out, Jason. I promise.”
He gives a weak nod. “Rebecca… I’ll see if I can find anything about her in Lindsay’s stuff.”
“The old boyfriend too,” I say. “Ronny Burgundy. Weird that both Ronny and Rebecca start with R. Like R. Lyon.”
“There’s that,” he says, his voice weary. “It could be a coincidence, but it’s worth looking into.”
What I don’t mention is the other R I’m concerned about.
Ralph.
Ralph, who told me about Jason being led away.
Ralph, who saw us kissing.
And Ralph…
Was he behind the anonymous email to HR about Jason and me?
Something’s not right here.