Page 178 of The Spider & the Storm

I shook my head in some pathetic attempt to shake every one of my thoughts and questions away because not a single one of them mattered. Nothing in life slammed a door shut quite like death did, and regardless of what I might or might not believe about an afterlife or whatever came next, there was nothing I could do about itnow. Questioning and regretting changed nothing, and whether I liked it or not, it was something I'd just have to force myself to accept. I knew this. I was smart enough—mature enough—to acknowledge it, but, holy fuck, that didn't mean I didn't hate it.

Slowly, I began to nod as a weak, trembling sigh whispered past my lips. “Okay,” I said quietly. “Thanks. For telling me.”

“I'm sorry it had to be me,” Soldier said, that hint of anger returning to his voice. “Those fuckers over there … I don't know why they wouldn't have called you. I just—”

“They wouldn't have known where to find me,” I cut him off, shame dripping from every word. “I changed my number, my address. All they had was my name, and they probably didn't care enough to look it up.”

Stormy looked at Soldier then, and through the corner of my eye, I could see the curiosity creasing her brow. “What about his body?” she asked him. “What do they do when a prisoner dies?”

“They send them to the police coroner, and they contact their family, but …” His eyes met mine, and he grimaced apologetically. “If they don't have someone to call, I guess they just …” He shrugged in lieu of an answer, one I would've preferred not to hear.

Still, I wondered.

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Um … end of September,” Soldier said quickly, as if pulling from a recent memory, and that startled me. “Yeah, it wasn't long ago. It was literally right before we went up to Salem to visit you,” he added, looking to Stormy.

“Huh,” I muttered, nodding as a thought crossed my mind.

Then, I grabbed my phone.

***

“Sir, all inmate deaths are handled by the local police department,” the woman on the phone told me.

I paced from one end of the guest room to the other as I nodded. “I see. And, um … can you tell me how, uh, long ago he was killed?”

“Are you the inmate's next of kin?”

“I'm his brother.”

“You should have received notification—”

“I-I didn't … I wasn't …” I pinched the bridge of my nose and released a breath through puffed cheeks, trying to gather what was left of my patience and sanity. “I've been away for a-a while, and I didn't, um … hear about what had happened until just now, so—”

“I see. What did you say the inmate's name was?”

Was. My stomach churned sickeningly. “L-Lucas Corbin.”

The clacking of keys filled the silence as I waited for her to give me the official date of death. I braced myself, aware that Luke's demise was about to become real, final. The other side of the dash on an epitaph.

“September 29.”

The air left my lungs as my eyes filled with a fresh, hot batch of tears. “His birthday had just passed,” I whispered into the phone, as if this lady, this cold stranger, truly cared.

“I see that,” she replied, implying with her tone that maybe she actually did hold some genuine sympathy.

“He was forty-two,” I muttered, quickly doing the math.

Forever forty-two.

“I'm very sorry for your loss.”

I swallowed and nodded as I sat on the edge of the bed. “Yeah,” I whispered, barely audible. “Thanks.”

“I can give you the local police department's number if you want to try giving them a call.”

“That'd be great. Let me just grab a pen.”

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