Tell Me Every Lie

by P J Stanley

  Emily’s trembling hand wrapped around the doorknob and turned. The wooden door creaked open as she stared down at the large puddle building up along the base of the door. She peered into the bathroom before fully opening the door. Emily reached forward, flipping the light switch on as she heard the water running louder and louder. The light filled the tiny bathroom as Emily stared down at the soaked tile floor. Her eyes lifted, settling on the bathtub ahead, the black shower curtain closed. Not knowing what she might find, she hesitated, trying to summon the courage to look behind that curtain. Taking a deep breath, she tugged at the edge of the curtain.

  “AH!” Emily screamed as she stared down at the horrific scene in front of her. The tub was filled to the brim with bloody water. The small trickles of red slowly curled over the edge, trickling down the white sides of the tub. Professor Alden’s head was resting against the edge of the bathtub, his hands floating on the surface, two large gashes slashed across both of his wrists. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Emily cried out as she backed away from the bathtub and ran out of the flooded bathroom.

  motive

  Emily’s eyes stared down at the top of the metal table in the interrogation room as Sheriff Alan Ross sat down across from her. The image of Professor Alden’s body still swirled in her memory, the blood seeping from his wrists and the cold, blank expression on his face as his open eyes stared back at her. It was like a movie she couldn’t turn off, reverberating on a continual loop.

  “He confessed,” Sheriff Ross said, cutting through the silence. Emily glanced up from the table, staring back at the sheriff blankly.

  “What?”

  “There was a note on the bathroom counter. He said that he killed Blair and that he couldn’t live with the guilt; he couldn’t live with what he had done,” Sheriff Ross said.

  “I knew it.” Emily sighed, shaking her head as she buried her face into her hands. “All this time, I knew it.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to see that. I know you’ve been through a lot.”

  “When I saw him, I knew.” Emily nodded. When I saw him in that tub, I knew that’s why he did it. Blair was such a sweet girl and she didn’t deserve what happened to her, but he did. I hope he burns in hell and I hope he feels every ounce of pain that she felt.”

  “We found her purse stashed under his bed. Of course, you can have it back if you’d like.” Sheriff Ross nodded.

  “That’s all I have left, isn’t it? A purse,” Emily said as she tilted her head back, her teary eyes staring up at the blinding fluorescent light above.

  “You were a good mother, Miss Keller.” Sheriff Ross nodded. “Don’t ever second guess that. I know that Blair is gone, and I know you’d give anything to have her back. But now you have closure.”

  “There won’t ever be closure,” Emily said, shaking her head. “He took everything from me. He stole everything from me, Sheriff. I’ll never be able to watch her walk down the aisle or watch her graduate college. I won’t ever know what happened to my grandbaby.”

  “We put out a report for the baby. I know, it’s a long shot but we’re trying. We’re going to try and find her, Miss Keller.”

  “That’s what you said about Blair.”

  ***

  Emily stared back at the black purse on the kitchen table. This was all she had left of Blair.

  A purse.

  Emily picked it up and held it to her nose, inhaling the sweet smell of coconut. It still smelled just like her, as if she’d just dropped it on the table. Emily’s lips trembled as she turned the purse upside down, emptying all of the contents on the table. Emily combed through the items: a tube of lipstick, a makeup bag, and an abundance of pens and receipts. She was a receipt hoarder just like her mom. Emily smiled as she reached forward, grabbing the small black wallet. She pulled the wallet open, staring down at Blair’s driver's license staring back at her, her smiling face beaming back at the camera. Emily closed her eyes. Warm tears ran down her cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry, baby.” Emily sniffled. “I’m so sorry,” Emily cried as she ran her finger along the slick surface of the license inside. She looked in the money slot of the wallet: several hundred-dollar bills inside. “My God,” Emily said as she pulled the large wad of hundreds out, sifting through them.

  Nine-hundred dollars.

  Where the hell did she get this kind of money? Why was it in her purse and not in her account? Emily set the bills on the table in front of her and looked back in the money slot. She found a single receipt and pulled it out. She smoothed out the small, crinkled receipt on the wooden surface of the table.

  It was a deposit receipt.

  From the Elwood Regional Bank.

  Emily’s eyes drifted down the receipt to see the deposit amount at the very bottom:

  $10,000

  “What in the hell?” Emily asked, her eyebrows rising as she shook her head to herself. She reached forward and grabbed her cellphone from the table, then dialed the phone number at the top of the receipt.

  “Hello, thank you for calling Elwood Regional Bank! This is Cheryl! How can I assist you today?” a chipper woman said on the line.

  “Yes, this is Blair Bradley,” Emily lied as she stared at the receipt in front of her. “I just needed to check a couple of weird transactions on my account.”

  “All right, for security purposes, can you please tell me the last four digits of your social?”

  “Yes, it’s—” She had to retrieve Blair’s social security card from behind her driver’s license. “Eight, three, eight, eight.”

  “All right, thank you so much for that, Miss Bradley. Now, how may I assist you today?”

  “Yes, I noticed in my account that I have a ten-thousand-dollar deposit. Can you tell me my current balance?”

  “Yes, ma’am, your current balance is fifteen-thousand thirty-one dollars and forty-seven cents.”

  Emily’s eyed widened as she nearly dropped the phone. How the hell did Blair get her hands on this kind of money? What exactly was she up to?

  “All right, thank you,” Emily said. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, I recently made a deposit for ten thousand. I have numerous clients, so I just wanted to double-check and see whose check that was. I apologize, I’m just double-checking my records and need to be sure,” Emily lied.

  “Of course, ma’am. We actually keep a photocopy of all checks. I’ve got it up right here.”

  “That’s amazing.” Emily nodded. “Can you tell me who wrote it?”

  game over

  “I still can’t believe it was that professor,” Kate McCallister said as she shook her head to herself, staring back at Emily from across her kitchen table.

  “I know, it’s just so crazy. I mean, I guess I can sleep soundly now knowing that the person who did it is dead.” Emily nodded.

  “I just want you to know that we are here for you. No matter what has happened between us, you know that I’m always around. You know our door is always open.” Kate smiled as she reached across the table and grabbed Emily’s hand.

  “Is that what you told Blair?” Emily asked, her eyes burning into Kate. Kate slowly pulled her hand away from Emily’s as she sat up in her chair.

  “What?”

  “Why did you deposit ten-thousand dollars into my daughter’s account, Kate?” Emily asked as she shook her head.

  “I guess you found out.” Kate nodded. “This isn’t how I wanted this to go.”

  “Not how you wanted what to go, exactly?” Emily asked.

  “Blair reached out to me and asked me for help. She said that Mitch was running behind on her tuition payment and that she was at risk of being kicked out. I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d just be pissed.”

  “I guess that’s a reasonable response,” Emily said as she leaned back into her chair. “Or—”

  “Or what?” Kate asked as her leg bounced nervously beneath her kitchen table.

  “Or it was hush money,” Emily said.

  “Hush money
for what exactly?”

  “You knew what happened between her and Greg, didn’t you?” Emily asked.

  “Are we really going to do this again, Emily?” Kate growled.

  “You knew and you had to shut her up, didn’t you? So, you paid for her silence.”

  “Emily, don’t do this. Don’t start throwing these accusations around again,” Kate said, pointing her finger at Emily.

  “They’re not accusations, they’re facts,” Emily said as she stood up. “Did you know about the baby?”

  “I can’t do this right now. I want you to leave,” Kate growled as she stood up and spun around, making her way toward the kitchen island across from the table as she rubbed her large baby bump with her hand.

  “Why? Because you know the truth; you’ve known the truth this whole God damn time, haven’t you?” Emily said as she followed behind Kate.

  “Don’t talk to me about the fucking truth!” Kate snapped as she spun around, her chest inches from Emily’s.

  “Her baby is in this house right now, isn’t she?” Emily growled as she inched toward Kate.

  “I said get out of my damn house!” Kate screamed as she threw her hands forward, slamming them into Emily’s chest. Emily stumbled back as her back slammed against the kitchen island behind her. Her eyes darted forward to see a kitchen knife resting on the edge of the counter. Emily’s hand darted forward and grabbed it. She spun around and stabbed the knife forward.

  As the blade stabbed into Kate’s baby bump.

  “Ah!” Kate cried out as she stared down at the knife in her stomach, Emily’s hand still clutching the handle.

  “No blood,” Emily said, pulling the knife out, the blade clean. Kate’s jaw tightened as she shook her head to herself.

  “Mothers will do anything it takes to protect their family.” Kate smirked as she lifted her white maternity blouse to reveal a padded silicone wrap sticking to her tiny, toned stomach. Kate reached around to her back, pulling the Velcro free as she dropped the fake baby bump silicone mold to the floor. “And as a wife, we will do anything it takes to protect our husbands.”

  “Yeah, including murder?” Emily snapped in disgust.

  “I didn’t want any of this to happen, Emily. Greg came clean to me about what happened that night. He told me it was a one-time thing, that it was just a drunken mistake. We worked it out.” Kate nodded, inching toward Emily as the knife trembled in her hands. “But then your daughter shows up on our doorstep and tells me that he raped her, that he forced himself on her.”

  “And you didn’t believe her?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter what I believe, Emily. What mattered is what other people would think. She blackmailed us. She said if we didn’t pay her off, then she’d tell everyone what really happened. So, we did just that, as long as she agreed to keep the entire thing a secret and as long as she would let us keep it.”

  “And that’s where this fake trip to Greece came into play? How smart of you,” Emily snapped.

  “Well, she had the baby, and let’s just say … had a change of heart. She came here and said she wasn’t going to give us the baby; she wasn’t going to give us Greg’s own child. She said she didn’t want the money and that she was going to expose Greg. She threatened to tell everyone what a sick bastard he was.”

  “You knew, Kate! You knew what he had done to her!”

  “I knew what I had to do to protect my family, Emily!” Kate screamed. “For all I know, the little bitch was lying! She ended up just like you, Emily, relying on everyone else to get her out of her sticky situations!”

  “So what? You kill her? You keep the baby and pretend that none of this ever happened?”

  “That was the plan. Cue the fake pregnancy belly.” Kate smirked as she kicked the padded silicone mold across the floor. “No one was going to raise that baby but us; and no one was going to take Greg away from me, from his son, and from our daughter. The professor was the perfect scapegoat. Greg said he barely put up a fight. Your girl sure knew how to pick the strong ones.” Kate smiled.

  “So, you let the predator walk free and you take out the victim? How sick and disgusting are you, Kate? How can you be so God damn blind? You killed my daughter!” Emily cried as tears streamed down her face. Emily’s grip tightened on the knife in her hand. She was ready. She was burning to strike.

  “I didn’t see it that way,” Kate said. “I killed a whore; I killed a stupid girl who couldn’t keep her thin, little legs closed.”

  “Well, the secret’s out now. I guess little Eli will have to grow up without his dad after all,” Emily snarled.

  “He still has his mother.” Kate smiled wickedly, her eyebrows arching.

  “Not for long,” Emily growled as she raised the knife into the air and charged, rushing right toward Kate. Emily stabbed the knife down as Kate leaped to the right, missing the blade by mere inches. The tip of the shimmering blade stabbed into the top of the island counter. Kate reached to her right, her hand wrapping around the handle of a small pot on the stove. Emily ripped the knife from the wooden countertop as she glanced back to see Kate, swinging the pot toward her. The bottom of the pot smashed into the right side of Emily’s head as she fell back, slamming on the wooden floor as the knife slid across the kitchen.

  “Ah! Fuck!” Emily cried out as she felt the pain radiate through her skull and down the side of her neck. Emily glanced up as Kate rushed toward her, raising the pot into the air, ready to strike. Emily then shoved her feet forward, slamming the bottoms of her shoes into Kate’s stomach.

  “Ah!” Kate cried out in agony as she tumbled back, slamming against the island counter behind her. Emily turned on her hands and knees as she spotted the knife a few feet away, just beneath the kitchen table. She crawled forward, making her way toward the knife.

  Just a few more feet.

  Emily pressed her stomach against the floor as she crawled under the table. Her right hand shot forward, grabbing the handle of the butcher knife as she felt Kate’s hands tighten around her ankles from behind. Kate ran backwards, dragging Emily from under the table and across the kitchen floor. Kate leaped forward, slamming on Emily as she straddled her, pinning her down against the cold, wooden surface of the floor. Emily stabbed the knife forward as Kate’s hand wrapped around her wrist, pressing the knife away from her. Kate pinned both of Emily’s wrists against the floor as she stared down at her, her teeth grinding as her dark eyes burned into her below.

  “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” Kate growled as Emily threw her right knee up, slamming it between the center of Kate’s legs. “Ah!” Kate cried out as Emily slammed her hands forward, smashing them into Kate’s breasts. Kate tumbled back, slamming on the floor a few feet away. Emily rose to her feet, clenching the knife. Emily sped forward as Kate stood, rushing around the center island as she snatched a dirty meat mallet from the kitchen sink.

  Kate spun around, swinging it toward Emily as she ducked, the mallet swinging through the air. The tip of the mallet smashed into the glass cabinet doors beside Emily. The glass shattered through the air as the sharp, pointy pieces clattered to the floor, the pieces of glass surrounding them. Emily stabbed the knife forward as Kate raised her left hand into the air. The blade stabbed into the center of Kate’s palm and out through the top of her hand.

  “Ah! Fuck!” Kate screamed. Kate then threw her head forward, slamming her forehead into Emily’s face. Emily cried out as she stumbled back, slamming on the glass-covered floor. “God damn it!” Kate screamed as she grabbed the handle of the knife sticking out of her hand and pulled it out. Blood trickled from her left hand, covering the floor. Emily turned and snatched a large shard of glass from beside her. She raised the shard and stabbed Kate’s bare right foot. “AH!” Kate screamed as Emily twisted the shard of glass into Kate’s tender flesh, the jagged shard shredding and slicing through her foot and into the wooden floor. Kate then kicked her left foot forward, smashing it into Emily’s nose.

 
“Ah!” Emily cried out as she felt her nose snap and twist, the bone, broken. Kate leaned down and grabbed the shard sticking out from her foot. Kate ground her teeth and closed her eyes, ripping the shard out from the top of her foot. “Fuck!” Kate screamed as blood pooled from beneath her foot and across the glass-covered floor. Kate sped forward, limping on her good foot toward the foyer doorway a few feet away. Emily’s hands reached up, wrapping around the edge of the island counter as she watched Kate rush into the foyer.

  She was making a run for it.

  She wasn’t leaving this house.

  Not tonight.

  Not unless she leaves in a body bag. Emily rushed forward and through the foyer doorway as she glanced to her right to see Kate turning the deadbolt open. She was almost out. She was going to escape! Kate started opening the door just as Emily lunged forward, grabbing a chunk of Kate’s long, black hair.

  “Someone help!” Kate cried out as Emily dragged her back and threw her. Kate landed on her back on the floor a few feet from the staircase as Emily spun around, slamming the front door shut and turning the deadbolt. Kate quickly spun on all fours and started crawling up the stairs, making her way up toward the second level. Emily ran forward and wrapped her hands around Kate’s ankles, dragging her back down. Kate’s nails clawed and scraped into the wooden steps as she jerked her left ankle free from Emily’s grasp and threw it back, kicking Emily in the chest. Emily fell back, slamming on the floor as Kate limped up, rushing up the staircase and out of sight.

  Emily sped forward, rushing up the staircase as she followed the bloody footprints up to the second level. Emily rushed into the dark second level hallway of the McCallister house as she stared down at the bloody footprint stains in the white carpet. Emily clutched the knife in her right hand as she inched down the hallway, following the bloody trail in front of her. She rounded the corner to see the footprint disappear beneath a closed door.