Tell Me No Lies

by A. V. Geiger

  Neither of you?

  “I didn’t bring her to LA to kill her. OK sure, maybe I slipped her a little something to loosen her up. But it’s not my fault she fell down and bashed her head in.”

  Maury rambled on, talking to himself more than her. Tessa struggled to keep up. Was he talking about Dr. Regan? Was that how she had died?

  “I just needed the good doctor’s help,” Maury said. “It was your mother’s idea.”

  Tessa’s head snapped round to look at him.

  “That got your attention.” Maury cracked a grin. “We had a nice heart-to-heart, Tessa. Your mother and I agreed this was not a healthy lifestyle for someone with your disposition.”

  Tessa felt another wave of nausea at the look of mock-concern on his face.

  His eyes hardened. “I tried to get rid of you the nice way. I swear, if you had half a brain, you would’ve gotten the message.”

  “That’s true,” Clint added from his side of the room. “I thought for sure we’d seen the last of her after the YouTube Awards. I mean, what kind of ‘publicist’”—he made air quotes with his hands—“gets anxiety attacks from being out in public?”

  Maury rolled his eyes. “Any reasonable person would’ve left.”

  “But she’s in love,” Clint said with a snort. “You saw the pics, boss.”

  “I took the pics, Clint.”

  The bodyguard pointed a finger in Maury’s direction. “I swear, you missed your calling. You should’ve been a pap.”

  Tessa’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of them. Maury had taken those pictures in the hotel room that night? But then…Blair…

  Her head was spinning. She could’ve sworn that Blair was involved.

  Her eyes went round, examining Maury’s face. For a moment, he stared back, and then he mimicked her incredulous expression.

  Clint rewarded him with a hoot of laughter. “Look at her. She still doesn’t get it!”

  Maury shook his head. “Should I explain?”

  “Nah. What’s the point? Just finish the job. Tick-tock.”

  Maury glanced at his watch, and Tessa knew she’d run out of time. Even if she could somehow keep them talking, she hadn’t heard the helicopters outside for quite a while. They must not have been looking for her after all. Surely, they would’ve searched Eric’s house.

  “Grab me a pen and paper, would you?” Maury said to Clint. “I need it for the note.” He opened the pill bottle and poured the contents out onto the bedside table. Tessa could hear Maury counting the tablets under his breath.

  “Five…ten…fifteen…twenty…twenty-five… Should be plenty, right?”

  Tessa’s blood turned to ice inside her veins. She knew what he planned to do with all those pills.

  He couldn’t… There had to be a way…

  There was only one hope, she realized. One piece of information that had never passed over any cellular network. One tidbit of data that Maury, with all his surveillance, couldn’t have possibly intercepted.

  She had to tell him. He couldn’t force her to swallow anything without removing the gag. That would be her chance. She just needed him to take off the duct tape.

  Tessa allowed her weight to slump backward against the headboard, and her eyes fluttered closed. She heard Clint’s heavy footfalls on the carpeting. “Done already?”

  “Not yet,” Maury replied. “I think she fainted.”

  Tessa willed herself to keep completely still. She pulled in one last deep breath through her nose. The duct tape tore at her skin as Maury peeled it back, but she didn’t react to the pain. She didn’t move a muscle until her lips were free.

  Her eyes popped open, and she sat up straight. “Wait!” she panted. “Don’t do it. There’s something you don’t know!”

  Maury loomed before her with a handful of pills cupped in his palm. His breath freshener had worn off. Tessa could smell the rancid air that escaped his lungs—the unmistakable aroma of his putrefying core. “Let me guess. Eric loves you? He wrote a song about you?”

  “Yes,” Tessa replied. She willed her voice to remain steady—to reflect a firm resolve that she didn’t quite possess.

  “Trust me, Snowflake, he’ll get over it. You’re not that special.”

  Maury sneered, but Tessa met it with a smug look of her own. “Maybe I’m not,” she told him. “But I’m not the only one you’re killing.”

  Her eyes sank to her belly, and Maury followed her gaze. His knowing smirk faded, and Tessa almost could have laughed as comprehension flashed across his face. Maury Gilroy, the master manipulator, outmaneuvered in the end by something so predictable. So hopelessly clichéd. Two typical teenagers, a bed, and a faulty condom.

  “Eight weeks and three days,” she confirmed when he lifted his eyes at last. “I’m pregnant.”

  THE INTERROGATION

  (FRAGMENT 12)

  May 1, 2017, 3:24 p.m.

  Case #75932.394.1

  OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF POLICE INTERVIEW

  —START PAGE 9—

  INVESTIGATOR: 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.

  THORN: What the hell? That account was deactivated.

  INVESTIGATOR 2: You’re familiar with this Twitter account?

  THORN: The FBI shut it down after Tessa murdered me.

  INVESTIGATOR: It appears that it’s been reactivated.

  THORN: How?

  INVESTIGATOR 2: Once the FBI took it off the hold list, anyone with a password could have—

  THORN: The password was “password.” I never changed it.

  INVESTIGATOR: Who else knew that password?

  THORN: Me. Tessa. The Midland Texas Police Department. And Blair.

  INVESTIGATOR: Blair Duncan?

  THORN: Yes. This is the account I was telling you about. The one he hacked before!

  INVESTIGATOR: Interesting. Eric, I’m going to read these tweets into the record, and I want you to tell me if anything jumps out at you. These tweets commenced approximately twenty minutes ago at 4:29 p.m. The first one reads, and I quote: “@911LAPD Crime in progress. Send police to 83 Kirkwood Drive in Hollywood! Hurry!”

  THORN: Wait a minute. That’s my house. That’s my address!

  INVESTIGATOR: We’re aware of that. We have units responding.

  THORN: You’re just responding now? Someone sent this twenty minutes ago!

  INVESTIGATOR 2: As I said, the @911LAPD Twitter account isn’t monitored in real time. The dispatcher happened to notice—

  THORN: What else did they say?

  INVESTIGATOR: The tweets continue every few seconds. There are quite a few of them. I’ll read the most relevant ones into the record as I scroll through. Time stamp 4:33 p.m., and I quote: “@911LAPD Tessa Hart has been taken to 83 Kirkwood Drive in Hollywood. She’s with two men. The big one just tied her up.”

  THORN: Two? Two men?

  INVESTIGATOR: Time stamp 4:35 p.m., and I quote: “@911LAPD It’s a short guy in a navy pin-striped suit and a HUGE one in gray pants with a black blazer. They’re both laughing.”

  THORN: That’s Maury and Clint!

  INVESTIGATOR: Clint?

  THORN: Clinton Darrow.

  INVESTIGATOR: The football player?

  THORN: Retired. He’s my bodyguard now. Maury hired him last year for extra protection.

  INVESTIGATOR: OK. I’m continuing with the messages. Time stamp 4:36 p.m., and I quote: “@911LAPD They’re talking about some woman being dead. The sound isn’t very good.” Time stamp 4:36 p.m.: “@911LAPD I think the short one just said he did it.” Time stamp 4:37 p.m.: “@911LAPD He just told Tessa that someone has to take the fall.”

  THORN: Maury. Maury did it. He’s framing her!

  INVESTIGATOR: Time stamp 4:37 p.m.: “@911LAPD She’s screaming. TESSA’S SCREAMING FOR HELP. POLICE! WHERE ARE YOU? PLEASE HELP HER.”

/>   THORN: Oh my God.

  INVESTIGATOR: Time stamp 4:38 p.m.: “@911LAPD The big one just gagged her with duct tape.”

  THORN: Please tell me this is a hoax. Please tell me this isn’t real.

  INVESTIGATOR: Time stamp 4:39 p.m.: “@911LAPD The big one left the room. I can’t see what he’s doing. The short one is playing with the TV remote.” Time stamp 4:40 p.m.: “@911LAPD HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE? IS ANYONE READING THIS?”

  THORN: That one was ten minutes ago. Did someone go to the house?

  INVESTIGATOR: Hold on. I’ll ask dispatch for an update.

  THORN: What else? What else does it say?

  INVESTIGATOR: Roger that.

  THORN: Can I see the laptop?

  INVESTIGATOR: [unintelligible]

  THORN: No. No, no, no. It just says he lost the video feed. Maury turned it off somehow.

  INVESTIGATOR: I see. Which hospital?

  THORN: What? Tessa? Did they find her?

  INVESTIGATOR: I’ll tell him. Over and out.

  THORN: Tell me!

  INVESTIGATOR: Eric, I think you better sit down.

  THORN: Just tell me! Is she OK? What happened to her?

  INVESTIGATOR: Officers responded to 83 Kirkwood Drive in Hollywood at approximately 4:49 p.m. Ms. Hart was found unresponsive in the upstairs bedroom. She appears to have ingested a large dose of phenobarbital.

  THORN: No.

  INVESTIGATOR: She left an apparent suicide note on the bedside writing pad that stated, and I quote: “Tell Eric I’m sorry. Good-bye.”

  THORN: What? No, that was fake. They forced her. Please, please tell me she’s not—

  INVESTIGATOR: She’s been rushed to Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

  THORN: She’s alive though? Is she going to be OK?

  INVESTIGATOR: She’s in the ambulance now. They’re doing everything they can.

  21

  SAY SOMETHING

  Tessa floated in the darkness, her head swimming with disjointed thoughts. She remembered that there was something she needed to do. Something important. Something she needed to tell someone… But what? Her mind wasn’t working properly. From somewhere far away, she could hear a voice, but she couldn’t understand what it was saying.

  “Tessa…”

  Her head began to throb. She moaned low in her throat.

  “Tessa, can you hear me?”

  Who was that? Why wouldn’t he let her sleep? Her limbs felt like she’d been weighted down with rocks. Like she was sinking. Slowly. Down, down, down through the depths of a bottomless ocean. So deep that she might never return to the surface. The weight of the water so heavy that it took a monumental effort to draw a single breath. But the weight felt strangely comforting, even as it crushed her. It would be so easy to let go. Stop breathing. Stop trying. Stop fighting and be at peace…

  But she could hear his voice, calling her back.

  Eric. That was Eric’s voice. The pressure of Eric’s palm squeezing her hand.

  “Tessa, please wake up. Please. Please don’t go…”

  There was something else desperately important. Something she needed to tell him.

  • • •

  Eric sat at Tessa’s bedside and stared into her face. She looked so peaceful. It was hard to believe that she was fighting for her life. He willed her to show some sign that she could hear him.

  The nurses had removed the network of wires that had cocooned her last night. No more tube down her throat. She still had an IV poking out of her arm, but she looked fully human again. They’d filled her stomach with charcoal to soak up most of the drug before it hit her bloodstream. The doctor had seemed pleased when he’d emerged into the waiting room this morning.

  “Vital signs look good… Kidney function intact…”

  Eric had tuned most of it out until the doctor said the words that he’d been waiting for all night.

  “You can see her now.”

  He’d taken up his vigil at her bedside two hours ago. So far, she hadn’t responded. With each passing minute, Eric felt his worry grow. He spoke to her again, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep. “Tessa, I love you. Please open your eyes. That’s all you have to do. Just open your eyes.”

  What if the doctor was wrong? What if they’d missed something? Eric couldn’t escape the thought that she might never answer him. She might stay like this, unconscious—or slip away for good.

  He would never forgive himself if that happened. It was all his fault. Everything bad that had ever happened to her, he’d done to her himself. He’d put her in harm’s way, not once but twice. He led Blair to her doorstep through his carelessness last winter… And he’d left her vulnerable to an even more insidious predator this time around.

  Maury. The worst kind of enemy. The kind that smiled like a friend.

  How had he not seen it sooner? His manager had been double-dealing the whole time. It blew Eric’s mind when he thought of all the privacy lapses over the years. Pictures that mysteriously went viral…songs that popped up on SoundCloud before the official release…

  Eric had always blamed the paparazzi and the fans, but he’d missed the truth staring him in the face. It was all Maury. The pictures in the Daily Mail were merely the latest example. His manager had acted like he supported Eric’s relationship with Tessa—but the whole time, he was secretly undermining them. Leaking pictures. Putting Tessa in the public eye. Playing on all her fears.

  Eric saw the truth now. Maury wanted Tessa gone. Eric had finally found a girl he could trust, and his manager couldn’t stand it. Some girl who couldn’t be bought? Who had more influence over Eric than Maury himself? No way. He’d done everything in his power to drive Tessa away.

  Eric jammed his hands in his armpits to stop them from shaking. The more he thought about it, the deeper the betrayal went. But was Maury really capable of murder?

  Impossible.

  And yet the evidence lay before his eyes. Tessa. So pale. So fragile. Barely hanging on to life by the slenderest of threads. Maury was the one who had put her in that hospital bed. And there was nothing Eric could do about it but sit here and whisper words that she probably couldn’t hear.

  “Tessa, please. There’s so much I need to tell you. Please wake up so I can tell you.”

  She was lucky to be alive. Once she swallowed the pills, it was a race against time to empty her stomach. If the paramedics had arrived five minutes later, it would have been too late.

  Eric pressed his eyes closed and wiped a weary hand across his lids. He hadn’t slept at all last night. She had still been in the ER when he’d arrived. He’d only snatched a glimpse of her hooked up to all the machines before they whisked her out of sight. He’d sat in the waiting room for hours, with no news on her condition. It was midnight before he’d finally gotten some secondhand information. Tessa’s mother had flown in, and the doctors had addressed their updates to her. Eric hoped he’d done the right thing by notifying her. He wasn’t exactly sure where things stood between Tessa and her mother, but it didn’t matter anymore. It all seemed so trivial.

  As if on cue, the door of the hospital room creaked open. Mrs. Hart shuffled in, carrying a cup of coffee and a box of Krispy Kremes. Eric studied her in silence. She looked like Tessa, with the same heart-shaped face and almond eyes, although Tessa didn’t have those bags beneath hers—or that sullen set to her mouth.

  Then again, Eric thought, he probably didn’t look his best either after the hellish night he’d had.

  Mrs. Hart set the doughnuts down with a thud, addressing him over her shoulder. “Why are you still here?”

  Eric looked up, startled, and his long side-swept bangs fell in his eyes. He pushed them back behind his ear. “Tessa needs me.”

  “She needs you like a hole in the head.” Mrs. Hart pointed a finger toward the door. “Go. You’ve done enough.”

  Eric opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. He couldn’t argue. Tessa’s mother had a point. Tessa would still be safe at home in Texas,
if @EricThornSucks had never tweeted his way into her life.

  But he couldn’t abandon her now. He skidded his chair a half inch closer to Tessa’s bed. “Mrs. Hart, I just want to say… I want you to know that I care about your daughter. Very much. I’m so sorry this happened to her. This is all my fault.”

  She turned away and went to the window, pulling open the blinds with a jerk. “You’re right. This is your fault.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The window looked out over a parking lot, with the sun-drenched mansions of Beverly Hills rising in the distance. “She never should have been here. She wasn’t well. She needed treatment. I tried to get through to her. I tried to tell her…” She set down her coffee and buried her face in her hands.

  Eric frowned. “No, she was doing better.”

  “You call that better?” She lifted her eyes toward the bed. “She was off the rails. And you encouraged her! Social media consultant…” She shook her head. “I knew she spent too much time online, but it wasn’t an addiction until you people hired her.”

  Eric’s mouth dropped open. Addiction? “Wait. Hold up a sec—”

  Mrs. Hart rattled on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Internet addiction… I should have seen it sooner. It was bad enough when she stayed holed up in her room on Twitter all day long.”

  “Because she was being stalked!”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  Eric rose halfway from his chair, leaning toward her. He didn’t know which misunderstanding to clear up first. “Mrs. Hart, don’t you know? She was being stalked the whole time.”

  “Maybe that’s what she said, but you can’t take the word of an addict.”

  “No!” Eric argued. “Listen to me. I saw him with my own eyes.” He gripped the arms of his chair and stared at her intently, waiting for her to return his gaze. “Blair is one hundred percent real. Tessa might have been too afraid to talk to you about it, but she’s not… Hell, she barely even goes near Twitter anymore! It makes her anxious. She has an anxiety disorder, not an Internet addiction.”

  He could see from the tiny tic in her cheek that his words had come as a shock. Suddenly, the whole rift between Tessa and her mother made more sense. Tessa had never confided about Blair—or about her relationship with Eric either, apparently. No wonder her mother thought she needed that Chalet Santé place.