Page 88 of An Academy for Liars

“We worked with local law enforcement to communicate a story about Ian’s remains being discovered in an abandoned building.” Alec spoke through a mouthful of toast and eggs. He had a disturbing way of mashing together the contents of his entire plate, so that it was almost impossible to distinguish any one component. “You know the story: strung-out junkie stumbles down an elevator shaft, where he’s found rotting and crushed days later. Given the gruesome nature of his death, we strongly advised his mother against viewing his remains. She heeded that advice, and Ian was cremated in Savannah. Then his ashes were delivered to his family. I don’t think there was a funeral. They seem like private people.”

Lennon swiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

“I find it difficult to believe that you’d come all the way up the coast, with eight men accompanying you, just to antagonize Lennon about a man who’s already dead.” Dante cast a hard glance across the table at Alec. “Why are you really here?”

Alec turned now on Dante, flashed a dazzling smile. Lennon had never noticed before, but behind all of his tattoos, she saw what was an entirely classic, almost eerily symmetrical, face. Strong nose, full lips, straight white teeth. “You didn’t think I would miss your birthday, did you?”

Lennon looked to Dante, surprised that he hadn’t told her, but his gaze was set very firmly on Alec. Alec leaned out of his chair to reachfor his briefcase and removed a gift, wrapped in plain brown paper, tied off with a bit of twine.

“What is this?” Dante asked.

“Open it for yourself and see.”

Dante was clearly reluctant, but he took the package and tore off the paper. Inside a small shadow-box frame was a pinned moth.

“A birthday gift,” said Alec, beaming. “From the vice-chancellor.”

Dante set the moth on the table. He’d spared it no more than a passing glance, and yet he seemed…shaken. Something in the set of his mouth, a small crack in his composure. “Lennon, can you give me a moment to speak with Alec alone?”

She nodded, retreated to the guest bedroom. But not before she heard Alec ask a question that froze her blood: “Does she know what you are?”

“Alec—”

“I’m just wondering,” he said. “I mean, honestly, I thought it was something you two could bond over. You know, given everything with Ian. Who better to support her through this than you?”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“Am I?” A harsh laugh from Alec. “You do know that you’re going to have to tell her eventually. One day, she’ll have to see you as you are. You worried about that?”

“Outside. Now,” said Dante, in a whisper so low Lennon barely heard it.

There was the groan of the patio door opening, followed by footsteps as they left the house. Lennon retreated back to the guest bedroom, shutting the door. Through the window she saw the two of them, pacing along the narrow strip of beach. Dante with his hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the sand, more listening and nodding than contributing. Alec, though, was animated. Eyes alight, talking so fast that Lennoncouldn’t read his lips, even though she tried hard. Occasionally, he would fling out an arm and gesture back to the house, and Lennon—startled—would drag the curtains shut so she wouldn’t be caught spying.

This lasted for the better part of an hour, and then it was over. Alec leaving with the other men, in dark cars with tinted windows. Lennon emerged from the guest bedroom and raced to the front of the house to watch them all drive away. When she returned to the living room, she found Dante sitting on the couch, his back to her. On the coffee table in front of him was the pinned moth in the shadow box. Dante wasn’t looking at it, though, or much of anything, really. But from the deep crease that cut between his eyebrows, she could tell he was thinking hard.

“You didn’t tell me it was your birthday.”

When she spoke, Dante stirred, startled almost, as if she’d shaken him awake. He clapped his hands together, nodded, and stood up. “I’m going to talk to Eileen and see if I can make sense of all of this stuff with Alec.”

“Do you think she’ll even be willing to speak with you, given what happened?”

Dante had a way of simply stepping around questions he didn’t want to answer, and he did this now, as he walked to the foyer, took his keys off the hook where they hung. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t open the door for anyone,” he said, and was gone.

Startled by this abrupt departure, Lennon returned to the living room, sat down on the couch where Dante had been just moments before. She picked up the shadow box, squinted through the glass at the moth within. It was large and brownish with spots that looked like eyes on its wings. In most of the taxidermy that Lennon had seen, the pins were carefully placed, so as to appear invisible. But the brass nails that secured this moth were thick and conspicuous, as if the person who’d placed them had wanted them to be seen.

While Dante was gone, Lennon pulled together a birthday cake, more to distract herself than out of any real altruism. Alec’s visit haunted her as she assembled the cake, following the instructions written in one of Dante’s cookbooks. As she mixed the batter and whipped up a bowlful of buttercream, she kept replaying Alec’s words, wondering at what he’d been alluding to and if she could find a tactful way to ask Dante about it, without revealing that she’d been eavesdropping. Claude’s drunken accusations were easy to dismiss. But it was harder to brush off Alec, whose statements, while more lucid, were still so like Claude’s both in tone and conviction.

When the cake was baked and frosted, Lennon settled herself in the living room to watch TV, hoping to keep her mind occupied. The pinned moth was on the table in front of her, and she picked it up again, this time flipping it over to discover a small, open envelope affixed to the backing of the frame.

Lennon knew she shouldn’t pry but couldn’t resist.

Within the envelope was a small white card on Drayton letterhead, the paper faintly scented with the smell of what Lennon knew to be magnolias, just past the peak of their bloom.

The card read:

My Dearest Dante,

This moth reminded me of you. I know that this has not been an easy summer. But I so appreciate the work that you do.

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