A cold weight pressed into my chest and wouldn't let go. I couldn't wait any longer. I called Lewis.
The phone rang twice before his voice came through — rough, stripped bare of everything he usually kept carefully in place. "Riley."
I tried to speak, but the words broke apart before they reached my mouth, dissolving before I could shape them into anything useful. "Dad, he…"
His silence said everything before he did. The kind of silence that had already been sitting with the answer long enough to have begun making its peace with it.
"He's gone."
The phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor.
