188 Three

"Except Ali's not dead. She's still alive…"

Huh?

A pin-drop silence hung in the room for several moments. The sound of the clock that ticked in staccato on the far side of the wall seemed to be amplified as the silence stretched into minutes. Both Fredek and Ivan looked at the Ritz King with a flummoxed expression on their faces.

"W-what did you say?"

Of course, Ivan had to ask that. He just couldn't process the earlier words that were said were true. If it was a joke, this was the right time to call it. But Alistair was serious.

"I said, Ali is still alive."

The second time around that it was said didn't make it any better. In truth, it only made things all the more confusing.

"What do you mean?"

Ivan's baritone came out blunt which almost sounded like a growl. It wasn't all the time that the Ritz King tried to make a joke out of him, but it had happened before. So, he was still waiting for Alistair to say it was such.