The Lie
1761 Words
CHAPTER FOUR
THE LIE
Lyra
The first thing I learned at two in the morning
was that supermarket sandwiches lied.
“Freshly made.” I snorted before taking
another bite.
I chewed once.
Twice.
Then I looked down at the sad excuse for
lettuce sticking out the side.
“Freshly made when? Last Tuesday?"
I sighed and reached for my coffee.
Cold.
Of course it was.
“Perfect.” I took another sip anyway. Exactly
how I’d imagined spending my night.”
My laptop screen glowed in the dim
apartment, surrounded by a growing mess of
newspaper clippings, sticky notes and three
empty coffee cups that were beginning to look
judgemental.
Somewhere beneath the chaos sat the folded
note, Belinda had slipped into my hand.
I pulled it out.
I unfolded it for what had to be the fiftieth
time.
“Very dramatic,” I muttered.
“Who writes mysterious notes without a time.”
And why did I have to come alone?
I mean, she did seem harmless.
Her uncle,on the other hand.
Typing away on my laptop, I logged into the
Chronicle’s digital archive first.
If anyone had written about Ashwood Forest
over the last thirty years, there was a good
chance we’d published it.
We had.
There were enough articles to convince me
Ashwood Forest had been making editors
nervous for decades.
Missing hikers.
Illegal logging investigations.
Three different articles about a ghost bride.
Moon cult rumors.
“Okay…” I muttered.
“One of these things is definitely not like the
others.”
“Either this forest is cursed…”
“…or Ashwood has the worst tourism board in
history.”
Rubbing my temples, I sighed, I needed to find
out who the murder victim was, so at least I
could say that I’ve gone somewhere in my
investigation.
I called Hayes, the phone rang, there was no
way he could be asleep by this time. Hayes
was a workaholic like me.
He picked up on the third ring. “Young lady, I
will have you know that if I had a wife, these
late night calls would be completely
unacceptable.”
“Oh Hayes, If you had a wife, she would
probably thank me for keeping you out of the
house.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Hilarious.” I said tapping my pen on my
bottom lip.”
Anyways, I need to know who the murder
victim was and what the Police knows, I’ve
sort of hit a dead end in my investigation.”
“It’s two in the morning, Lyra.”
“Time is a social construct.”
“Go to sleep, Lyra.”
“Sleep and I aren’t really on speaking terms at
the moment.”
“Who was the victim?” I asked again.
I heard the scrape of a chair before Hayes
sighed into the phone.
“All I can say is..”
“Female.”
“Late twenties.”
“No identification yet.”
“Helpful.” I quipped.
“What about the Police’s theory? Thomas?”
“The witness?” he asked with a suspicious tone
in his voice.
“Why? According to what I heard, he said
everything he knew at the crime scene.”
“Just curious.”
“Fine, I have to go, don’t do anything stupid.”
“Fingers crossed.” I ended the call.
“Well…”
“That accomplished absolute nothing.”
I shut off my laptop so I could get some sleep
and grabbed a sleeping pill from my night
stand and swallowed it with the last of my
coffee.
Mixing sleeping pills with cold coffee was
probably a terrible idea.
I did it anyway.
That afternoon, I walked into the cafe where I
was meeting my mom for lunch.
“Lyra!” Mrs Rosa, the owner of the family
owned cafe came to meet me at the door.
She wiped flour off her apron before pulling
me into a hug.
Holding my hands in hers, she smiled sweetly
at me. “I haven’t seen you in a while, how are
you?”
“I’m great, Mrs Rosa.” I said smiling down at
her.
“Turkey sandwich?”
I shook my head. ”If I see another sandwich
today, I might cry.”
“I’ll just wait for my mom to get here.”
“Alright then.” She turned, walking behind the
counter.
Shortly after taking my seat, my mom walked
in.
“Sweetheart, I’m shocked you even accepted
my invitation.” She said before sitting down.
My mother was a beautiful woman, tall and
elegant with her red hair, that I inherited from
her, bouncing all over the place. She had me
young and thinks we should be closer than we
are.
“Mom, I’ve been busy.”
“How busy are you that you can’t come and
see your own mother for dinner. I had to find
an excuse to give poor Ryan.”
“I never agreed for you to invite him to dinner anyway.”
“Take the weekend off.”
I laughed.”To do what?”
“Live.”
I looked down at my coffee.
“You work too much, sweetie, look at Esme, she’s a nurse and she visits all the time.”
“Mom..”
“Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry.
“How are things going with Daniel?” I changed the subject, Daniel was my mom’s boyfriend.
“Oh, Daniel’s Daniel but I have a feeling he’s going to propose.” She looked horrified at that.
“And you don’t want that, is it because of his daughters? Daniel’s a sweet guy”
“No, it’s not because of them, I love his daughters and that will be a bit hypocritical of me, but I like where we are now, and I feel like having another family is going to push you further away from me and I can’t have that, after..” Her voice caught, the smile she’d been wearing all afternoon slipped for just a second.
Taking her hands in mine, I said, “Mom, look at me, it’s been years since whatever happened, happened. I’m not going anywhere, and I want you to be happy, so if Daniel makes you happy then just go for it, I’m going to be okay.”
“Okay, sweetie” she squeezed my hands. “Just promise me, you’ll come by or at least let me come over with some food, you look deadly thin-“
“I promise.”
Mom sat back in her chair with a satisfied smile on her face and began rambling about nobody coming to take her order, I was about to tell her that everyone knows she needed the first 10 minutes to talk to her heart’s content before anything else when something pulled me to look out the window.
Someone stood across the street.
Watching.
I blinked.
My mom said something, so I looked away.
Looking back.
They were still watching.
“Lyra.” Mrs Rosa came to their table.
“Here’s your muffin.”
“I didn’t order one.”
Mrs Rosa smiled.
“Exactly.”
Mum rolled her eyes.
“She babies you.”
I turned my head looking back at her.
“Well, that makes two of you.”
Looking out the window again.
The person was gone.
I sat in my car later with my backpack filled
with my notebook, voice recorder, flashlight,
pepper spray and camera. From the little
interaction, I watched yesterday, if Belinda
wanted to sneak away from her uncle, this
would be the perfect time.
This was exactly how women ended up in true
crime documentaries.
“Woman ignores every obvious warning.”
I sighed and started the engine.
Somewhere deep inside me…
I already knew I was going.
I parked a little way from the old oak. As I
walked, I tried not to think about my fear and
stop myself from turning back.
Curiosity had beaten common sense again.
No Belinda yet.
I checked the time.
10pm.
Great.
I waited, and then-
Leaves crunched.
I spinned around, seeing Belinda sneaking
closer.
She kept looking behind her.
“Did anyone follow you.”
I blinked “No.”
Belinda relaxed only a little.
“Why here?” I asked the question that had been on my mind.
“Uncle never comes this close to the forest.”
“Your uncle lied to the Police.” I said, getting
straight to the point.
She lowered her eyes.
Then quietly “… I know.”
“He said you stayed home.”
She shook her head.
“I was with him.”
Silence.
“We heard something first.”
“Like growling?”
Belinda shook her head again.
She twisted the sleeve of her cardigan between her fingers.
“Talking.”
I froze.
“I couldn’t understand it.”
“But it wasn’t english.”
“I heard voices. One sounded scared.”
“The lady? You mean the victim?”I asked.
Belinda swallowed before nodding.
“…I think so.”
“We ran before we ever saw who was
screaming.”
“Uncle wouldn’t let me go back.”
“The next morning…”
“We found her.”
“Then why did your uncle tell the police something different?”
Belinda didn’t answer immediately.
“Because…
…that night, someone came to our house.”
Goosebumps erupted all over my body.
She explained closing her eyes, as if trying to relive that night.
“Uncle locked every door.
Closed every curtain.
Checked every window
Turned every light off.
He kept saying…
‘If anyone knocks, don’t answer.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No he didn’t come in, but we knew someone
was out there.”
“So why did you decide to tell me?” I asked
her.
“Because, I think you can find out the truth.”
Belinda hesitated before reaching into her backpack and took out…
A silver pendant.
The chain was broken.
Engraved on it -
A crescent moon.
“I took it from the ground.”
“I think it belongs to the woman.”
I took it from her carefully.
I looked at the necklace.
Looking back at Belinda, her eyes were fixed behind me.
“What?”
She didn’t answer.
“Uncle would be looking for me now, please don’t come back.”
Before I could respond, she took off.
And I was left with even more questions than answers.
- Writer
