Tell Me No Lies

by A. V. Geiger

  She could tell from the way Maury and Clint bantered that they felt absolutely zero guilt. All that laughter covered up a total lack of human emotion underneath. Her stomach rolled. She turned her head, afraid she might throw up, and her hair covered her face.

  Maury shrugged. “It’s too bad. That wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d still be alive if she didn’t have such a stick up her ass.” He tugged on one of his latex gloves, pulling the rubber tight. “What can I say, Tessa? I’m the cleanup crew. Sometimes I gotta get my hands dirty.”

  Tessa didn’t understand. She tossed her head to get the hair out of her eyes. Maury approached the edge of the bed, observing her, with his thumbs tucked into the vest of his pin-striped suit. “You mean…” she whispered. “You? You killed her? It was you?”

  Maury’s smile faded. He glared at her down the bridge of his nose. “See, that’s the difference between you and me, Tessa.”

  “What is? That you’re a murderer?”

  “No. The difference is that you, my dear, are expendable.” As he spoke, he shifted position, settling his weight beside her legs on the edge of the mattress. “Eric doesn’t need you. He can always get another girl. I’m the one he can’t live without. He may not even realize it himself, but I’m the most important person in his life.”

  It didn’t make sense. Tessa couldn’t keep up with Maury’s logic. The look on his face seemed so unlike him. Not the usual Maury with his jolly mask—having fun, cracking jokes.

  Hatred, Tessa realized. That’s what she saw when she looked at him. The pure and simple wish that she would disappear.

  She’d watched that expression cross Maury’s face once before. That day in Eric’s dressing room… She’d expected Maury to start guffawing about Emoji-Gate. Instead, for one fleeting moment, she’d seen that same ugly sneer twist his mouth.

  Was that the real Maury?

  A cold terror swept through her. Tessa kicked her legs, but Maury saw it coming. His hand darted out and grabbed her shin before she could make contact. He cocked his head at Clint, and the bodyguard secured another zip tie around her ankles.

  “Not nice, Tessa.” Maury clicked his tongue. “And not necessary. Be a good girl, please.”

  Tessa’s gaze flitted around the room. It was sparely furnished, aside from the massive California king-size bed. Eric didn’t spend a lot of time here, and it showed. The bedside tables were mostly empty, aside from the large remote that controlled the blinds and the entertainment center. The walls were just as bare. No artwork. Only the wall-mounted flat-screen TV that faced the bed, with a little red light flashing on and off by the power button.

  Tessa’s wrists strained behind her. She could feel the pins and needles in her hands as the plastic cut off her circulation. There was no way she could slip free. Her only hope was to signal for help somehow…

  But how? She didn’t have her phone. Clint had confiscated it in the car on the way over. There was no way she could’ve placed a call anyway…and no way anyone would hear her if she screamed.

  Maury ranted on, but she barely comprehended the words. The sound of his voice went fuzzy, drowned out by the rising volume of her own panicked breathing.

  “…Eric Thorn wouldn’t even exist without me. That’s what you kids don’t seem to understand. I made him. I spent four years manufacturing him out of thin air…”

  Tessa shot a look toward the large picture window, but she knew it was pointless. She wouldn’t be able to signal to a neighbor, even if they hadn’t shut the blinds. This room was designed for privacy and security. No sight lines for paparazzi to capture clandestine pictures of Eric while he slept. The window faced out above a steep overlook with a multimillion-dollar view of the Hollywood Hills. The next house was set far down the slope below, with only its red roof tiles visible.

  “You know what he was before I found him?” Maury’s voice dropped lower. He brought his face close enough that Tessa could smell his breath. Minty, but with a hint of something rotten underneath. “A pencil-necked little pipsqueak with a guitar…”

  Tessa blinked. Behind Maury’s hectoring voice, her ears had registered another sound. She wasn’t imagining that, was she? That gentle swoop-swoop-swoop of a helicopter, growing stronger by the second.

  Was that the police? Searching?

  Maury and Clint had said something earlier… The police were looking for a car. Maybe they knew she was in trouble. Maybe they were out there looking for her now.

  Tessa sat up straighter, concentrating on the sound. She couldn’t give in to the suffocating fear. She’d been in this situation before, and she’d gotten herself out of it. You can do it again, Tessa told herself. When push came to shove, she was strong. And she was smart—a hell of a lot smarter than Maury realized.

  She needed a plan. Her best option right now was to play for time. Keep him talking…

  And pray the police arrived before he grew tired of the sound of his own voice.

  Tessa forced herself to focus on Maury’s face. “…and I took him into my hands, and I molded, and I polished, and I made him into a star. I did that. Not Eric. And definitely not some fangirl he picked up over Twitter.”

  “But I’m not just some fangirl,” she replied, striving to keep her voice calm. “Eric loves me. He’ll kill you when he finds out about this.”

  Maury leaned closer, bringing their faces level. They were eye to eye, and Tessa steeled herself to meet his withering glare. “You know, we could’ve been friends,” he said softly. “We could’ve gotten along dandy. But you just couldn’t share.”

  “I’ve done everything you asked of me,” she whispered.

  He poked her in the shoulder, hard enough to make her flinch. “You wanted him all to yourself. The minute you got your hooks into him, all of a sudden he’s lying to me. Making fake accounts. Running away… You’re the one who put that garbage in his head. After all the time I invested—”

  “I’ll share!” Tessa cut in. “I promise. I’ll go back to Texas. I’ll do whatever you want!”

  Maury’s face went rigid. The mattress groaned as he stood and turned his back. “Clint? Do something, would you? She’s giving me a headache.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  The bodyguard stood in the threshold between the bedroom and master bath. For a moment, he disappeared into the bathroom. Then he reemerged with a roll of duct tape in his hands.

  Tessa sucked in her lips, and her teeth clamped down involuntarily. Not duct tape. Not again. If they gagged her… If she couldn’t even speak…

  Then she’d be completely helpless.

  The tape rasped as Clint unrolled it and grinned across the bed at Maury. Tessa couldn’t believe how badly she’d misjudged him. At the award show in March, she’d felt reassured by Clint’s hulking presence. Eric had ordered him to watch over her. Eric trusted him. But now Tessa saw her mistake. Clint didn’t take orders from Eric. He belonged to Maury. His loyalty had been bought and paid for long ago.

  The sound of the chopper intensified, filling Tessa’s ears. They were so close… And yet, Tessa had the sinking feeling that they wouldn’t get to her in time. She was out of allies. Out of stalling tactics. She only had one move left to her as Clint lumbered toward the bed.

  Tessa squeezed her eyes shut and opened her mouth to scream.

  THE INTERROGATION

  (FRAGMENT 11)

  May 1, 2017, 3:24 p.m.

  Case #75932.394.1

  OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF POLICE INTERVIEW

  —START PAGE 8—

  THORN: Wait a minute. I know where they’re headed!

  INVESTIGATOR: Eric?

  THORN: Tijuana! We were there in-in-in…February! That place on the beach. Maury was there too. That’s got to be it!

  INVESTIGATOR: Eric, take your seat, please.

  THORN: It was called the-the Playa…Playa something or other. Crap! I forget. I can’t think!

  INVESTIGATOR: Easy now. Take a breath.

  THORN: It’s on
my phone. Hold on. Dorian Snapchatted it to me!

  INVESTIGATOR: I’m not sure it’s relevant. We’ve stopped the car at the border.

  THORN: Wait. What the… Where is it? His Snapchat. It’s gone.

  INVESTIGATOR: Snapchat conversations are automatically deleted.

  THORN: No, the whole account is gone. Show you the door… [pause] That’s so weird. Do you think he deleted his account? Before he went to jail?

  INVESTIGATOR: Who went to jail? Are we talking about Blair Duncan again?

  THORN: No! Dorian! Dorian Cromwell!

  INVESTIGATOR: Dorian Cromwell from the boy band? What does he have to do with—

  THORN: Listen to me! I’m telling you, it’s connected. Somehow. Tijuana. Dorian. There’s some kind of conspiracy.

  INVESTIGATOR: Eric—

  THORN: I know I sound paranoid. Just hear me out! Dorian was trying to warn me. About something. Some conspiracy. Something big. He said it went too high up to tell me over cell phones. He was supposed to come meet me in Tijuana, but then… [pause] Where is it? Do I have the username wrong?

  INVESTIGATOR: ShowYouTheDor is a Snapchat username?

  THORN: Yes! Dorian’s private account. Where’s the Snapcode? I thought I saved it to my camera roll.

  INVESTIGATOR: When did this exchange take place?

  THORN: I don’t know. It was right after Dorian gave that press conference. He asked me to get in touch. And then I went on Twitter. And someone…someone tweeted…

  INVESTIGATOR: Eric?

  THORN: Oh my God.

  INVESTIGATOR: Eric, what is it?

  THORN: That’s how he found us. He must have been watching the press conference!

  INVESTIGATOR: Slow down, son. Who found you?

  THORN: All that stuff about Horian Cromuelson… Of course that wasn’t real. That whole conversation was ridiculous. It was just him cracking jokes!

  INVESTIGATOR: You lost me. Who is Horian Cromuelson?

  THORN: It’s a ship name. The Fourth Dimension fandom… Never mind. The point is the account that tweeted his Snapcode to me. I just remembered who it was.

  INVESTIGATOR: Let me guess.

  THORN: He catfished me. I never even talked to Dorian. It was Maury the whole time.

  INVESTIGATOR: Eric, the account that tweeted you the Snapcode. Was it @MrsEricThorn?

  20

  REMOTE CONTROL

  Tessa’s jaw popped as she strained against the duct tape seal. She clamped her eyes closed, concentrating on keeping the nausea at bay.

  At least that dose of phenobarbital had a dampening effect on her morning sickness. She didn’t think she would throw up. Tessa didn’t know what the drug might do to an unborn baby, but she couldn’t think about that now.

  Later. After she got out of this…

  If she got out of this…

  She could hear the laughter in Maury’s voice. “You think Eric’s going to save you? Eric’s a puppet. Talented kid, but not so gifted in the brain department.”

  The queasiness passed. Tessa opened her eyes. Maury had picked up the remote control and aimed it at the big-screen TV.

  “I know all his buttons.” He pressed down with his thumb. The little light on the TV stopped flashing and turned solid red. “It’s a pretty neat trick,” Maury went on. “Just keep planting some new paranoia in his head. I’ve been doing it for years. Years! You know what I’m talking about, Clint.”

  Tessa darted a look at the bodyguard. His face was serious, but she could see his mouth quivering. “The best was that time we snuck the girl onstage at his show.” Clint pitched forward and slapped his knee.

  Maury chuckled. “Seattle? With the fake knife?”

  “Oh man! You got him good with that one, Maury.”

  “One of my finer moments, I’ll admit.” Maury snapped his fingers. “Every news station picked that story up. PR gold mine!”

  Tessa felt her nostrils flare. Did she understand that right? Maury plowed on before she could stop to think.

  “Listen, Tessa. I tried my best with you. I would’ve made you Twitter-famous, if you’d gotten with the program. But it was never enough. You wanted him all to yourself. First, with all that EricThornSucks nonsense.” He let out a loud sniff. “You think I didn’t know about that? You think I don’t monitor every single word that passes through Eric’s phone?”

  Tessa blinked. Eric’s phone…monitored…

  “I should have nipped it in the bud,” Maury continued. “I let that go on way too long. I even let you two have your little fling in Mexico. And you still weren’t satisfied!”

  “Selfish,” Clint contributed.

  Maury nodded in agreement. “That’s what it is. Selfish. Eric has 35 million Twitter followers. I can’t allow him to waste every waking moment on one.”

  “Boss, clock’s ticking.”

  “OK, Tessa,” Maury said. “Time’s up.”

  He fished for something in his pocket. Tessa heard the familiar rattle as he pulled the object free.

  A pill bottle.

  • • •

  Eric stood over the interrogation table with his weight balanced on his fists. He looked down, watching in silence as his knuckles turned milky white.

  Detective Stevens held Eric’s phone. He slid it back across the table as he spoke in a low tone. Eric didn’t hear the detective’s question. He could only hear the crash of his own pulse reverberating inside his skull.

  Maury…

  Eric hadn’t fully trusted Maury for a while now, but he’d obviously underestimated his manager’s capacity for deceit.

  A white-hot rage flashed through him. Eric sank down in his seat. The detective was saying something else, but Eric merely shook his head. His T-shirt clung to his chest, damp with perspiration, like it did after one of his marathon workouts with his trainer.

  Maury… Was Maury behind the workouts too? Three hours a day of cardio and weights? His manager always blamed the record label, and Eric hadn’t questioned it. But could he trust anything that Maury ever told him?

  The door of the interrogation room flung open, interrupting Eric’s thoughts. He looked up to see the second police detective entering the room. The man placed a beat-up black laptop computer on the table. Detective Morales. His ID badge dangled, glinting in the light, as he bent to mutter something in his partner’s ear.

  “What is it?” Eric asked. His voice sounded strange somehow. Muffled. Disembodied. Like time itself had slowed to a standstill, and he was watching this whole scene unfold from somewhere far away.

  Eric remembered that sensation. He’d felt it once before. That time in Seattle… The concert when that girl jumped him onstage, and he felt nothing but disorienting numbness as his worst fear in the universe came true.

  He snapped his head back and forth to clear his mind. Wake up, he chided himself. He pounded both his fists against the table.

  “What is it?” he demanded when the detectives looked up at him. “Tell me!”

  Detective Morales spun the laptop around. “We just saw this. Dispatch picked it up.”

  Eric squinted at the screen. It took him a moment to register what he was seeing. He normally used Twitter on a cell phone. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d logged in over a computer.

  LAPD Communications @911LAPD

  The Official Twitter feed of Communications Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. This is not monitored 24/7. If you have an emergency dial 911.

  FOLLOWING FOLLOWERS

  235 53.7K

  Eric groaned. “Not another Twitter account. Please, for the love of God…”

  He pushed the laptop away, but Detective Stevens stopped him. “Eric, if you want to help find Tessa, then you need to take a look.”

  “Why?” Eric shook his head dully. “What is this? You can tweet 911 now?”

  “It’s not monitored like the phone lines,” Morales told him. “But yes, we do occasionally receive tips—”

  “Wait, did you
get something?” Eric interrupted. “About Tessa? Was it from @MrsEricThorn?”

  He slid into his seat as the detective clicked a link. “No,” Morales said. “Different account. It’s been tweeting at us for the past half hour. Do you recognize this handle?”

  Eric’s eyes followed the cursor to the account name on the screen. His heart stopped beating for a moment as his mind flew backward. Back to the beginning. Back to the day he’d sealed his fate—and Tessa’s too—clicking through the prompts to create a new account.

  Name:

  Username:

  Password:

  Eric clapped his hand over his mouth. The sound of the policeman’s voice faded from his ears. His mind ceased functioning completely, and only a single thought remained, filtering through the haze:

  This must be how it feels to die and then come face-to-face with your own ghost.

  Detective Stevens narrated into the recorder in his slow, steady baritone. “Let the record show that we’re looking at a series of tweets directed at @911LAPD. The tweets originated from a Twitter user listed under the name Taylor. The username on the account is @EricThornSucks.”

  • • •

  Tessa fought the rising tide of dizziness threatening to engulf her senses. She remembered this feeling…spacey, zoning in and out. It had happened last time with Blair. How was it possible that she was back in this position once again?

  It wasn’t like a typical panic attack. She’d blacked out from those before. But this…this was more like static. Gray and fuzzy. A radio station losing its signal. Her mind’s attempt to disconnect from reality when confronted with her worst fears come to life.

  Tessa resisted the feeling. As much as she longed to escape into that nothingness, she needed to stay alert. She bit the inside of her cheek and focused on the pain.

  Maury set the pill bottle down on the bedside table. Tessa turned her head to read the label, but she already knew what it would say:

  PHENOBARBITAL

  “It’s too bad,” Maury said. “Neither of you had to die.”