Seven Lies (ARC)
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different people each and every day. I was thinking that those days—
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the big days— are the junctures that define a life: when you gain some-
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one, when you lose someone. I felt giddy at the new possibilities, the
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shape of my life in that moment, this new person who existed for me.
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I had left home very early and hadn’t opened the blinds, and so it
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was dark when I stepped into my flat. I immediately noticed the red
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button flashing on my phone, a message waiting. I felt along the wall for 22
the light switch.
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I had plugged the landline back into the socket a few weeks earlier
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and discovered every single one of the messages that had been lingering
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there. I’d listened to a few: voices that seemed to speak from another
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world, from months earlier, when our newborn wasn’t yet born. But then
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the messages began to ask questions— about Jonathan, about Charles—
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and so I deleted them all.
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I pressed my finger to the blinking triangle.
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“ One— new message,” said an automated female voice. “ Received—
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today— at ten— twenty- three— p.m.”
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“Hello,” said another woman’s voice, a human voice. It echoed through
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my hallway, ricocheting off the walls, a booming, elongated “Oh.” “I
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thought you’d like to know,” she said, and her voice was low and sort of
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husky, “that I’ve been looking into everything: everything you’ve said and 05
everything that’s happened. And I’ve been finding things too. I knew
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there was a story— I know that there is— and I’m going to get there even-07
tually. I’ll find it, you know.”
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She was slurring, her consonants weak, her vowels long and drawled,
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letters rolling together, as though she’d been drinking heavily all day. I 10
looked at my watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock.
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“So, whatever,” she said. “I know you were there for over an hour. I
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read the police report: waiting, you said. D’you know that the neighbor
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in the flat below reckons she might have heard someone shouting? Ear-
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lier in the day, she said, but shouting all the same. That’s strange, I
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reckon. Because he died straightaway, right? Which doesn’t leave a
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whole lot of time for screaming. And it’s more than that, isn’t it? That
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time you stayed there. Why spend such a long time in someone else’s
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home? And the week before. Just a walk in the rain? I don’t think so.
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There’s something, isn’t there? We both know that there is. There’s no
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need to call back.”
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“You have— no— new messages,” said the automated voice, robotic
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and monotonous.
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The steady joy that had filled me throughout the afternoon turned
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instantly, curdling like milk.
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What had the neighbor heard? I walked into the kitchen and I
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turned on the tap. It splashed cold against my hand.
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Who lived in the flat below? I took off my coat and I hung it on the
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back of the stool tucked beneath the breakfast bar.
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Was he loud in the hours that came after his fall? I turned on the
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radio and twisted the dial to turn up the volume. The room was en-
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gulfed in some song, some tune that meant nothing to me.
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That would undermine his time of death.
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I turned on the television. I’d lost the remote control a few months
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earlier and so I used the buttons at the side of the screen to increase
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the sound.
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I sat on the sofa. An urgent panic was inflating itself inside of me,
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and my chest and my breath felt tight. She was getting closer; I could
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almost feel her behind me, in the tickle of my hair against the back of
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my neck and the rub of my clothes on my shoulders. I felt jittery, my
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body protesting the jump from joy to terror. It felt like there was some-
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thing submerged within me and, desperate to expel it, I roared into the
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cacophony: the water, the music, the voices.
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And then I sat silent.
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I felt a little better then: cleaner, fresher, lighter too.
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I stood up and I turned off the tap and I turned off the radio and I
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turned off the television, and then I sat back down.
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I needed to focus.
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I told myself to stay calm.
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So someone had heard something.
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It wasn’t ideal.
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But perhaps it wasn’t a catastrophe.
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Because everyone who’s ever lived near others knows that people
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are loud, often very loud. And those few dozen apartments squeezed
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into a mansion house always felt very dense to me. We could all hear
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the babies crying, and the mothers shushing, and the music playing,
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and the dinner party laughter, and the washing machine vibrating
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wildly against the floor, and the doors slamming, and the stomping feet,
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and the ringing of an alarm clock or a telephone. We could all hear the
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insults creeping louder and louder, the generic grievances, the “you
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don’t listens” and the “if you weren’t always naggings” and the “why
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don’t you at least try to see it from my perspectives.”
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It wasn’t impossible that someone had heard him screaming. But it
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didn’t matter. There was no tangible evidence that he didn’t die in-
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stantly. The scream of a falling man could quite easily be the squeal of
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a child playing or the rage of a disgruntled teen. The roar of his frustra-02<
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tion, those pangs of anger, could comfortably be the clash of an over-
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wrought couple, married too young and too long.
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None of it was new. None of it was noteworthy.
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None of her small discoveries had the power to effect any sort of
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change. Her evidence was circumstantial at best and would probably be
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deemed irrelevant. And so I wound down the last of my panic, piece by
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piece, taking it apart and dismissing each section in turn.
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But the bigger issue— and the one that clearly needed addressing,
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that couldn’t be unpicked quite so easily— was her indomitable persis-
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tence. I needed to get rid of her, to find a way to silence her. I needed to 12
ensure that she wouldn’ t— couldn’ t— find anything further, that she
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could never have anything that might threaten my friendship.
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I rifled through my kitchen cupboards, looking for something to eat.
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It had been a very long day and I was feeling a little fraught and I had a 16
headache that existed somewhere beyond my forehead, in the space in
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front of my face. I discovered a few slices of bread in the bottom of a
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bag. I picked off the mold and I toasted them— all four of them. I
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smeared them with butter, thick and yellow, and I watched as it melted
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translucent. I was in control; I could stay in control. I squeezed honey
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onto the top of each slice and I tilted the toast to spread it across the 22
surface. Against the toast, speckled brown, the gold was rich and it
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made me think of Marnie.
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I took my bread to bed and I ate it carefully, channeling Emma, cau-
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tious of crumbs. I sent a message to Peter, explaining my absence that
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day, and he replied congratulating me almost immediately. It made me
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excited, reignited a little of that joy that I, too, was deserving of con-28
gratulations.
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I turned off the light and in the glow from my phone scrolled
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through some new photographs of Valerie. She’d uploaded a photo-
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graph of her and her flatmate holding lurid cocktails in a bustling res-
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taurant, another of the sun setting beyond her balcony. There was an
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incredible video of her and five others dancing in a round. The caption
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beneath revealed that they were preparing for a performance later in
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the year, in the summer.
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I set my alarm for the following morning and I told myself to be
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happy, to be brave, to be unafraid. Because I was going to find a way to
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end this.
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Chapter Thirty- Three
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I returned to the hospital early the following day, excited to see Mar-
nie, excited to see Audrey. I asked for them at the entrance to the
maternity wing and was directed to a ward at the other end of the cor-
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ridor. I went toward bed seven, as instructed, and discovered that it was 16
hidden behind a thin blue curtain. I found a break in the fabric and I
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opened it slightly and I spoke into the gap.
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“Hello?” I said.
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“Come on in,” she replied.
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Marnie was sitting up in bed, blankets twisted around her legs and
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her red hair gathered on the top of her head. She was wearing a pale
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blue hospital gown and she looked beautiful, her skin puffy and soft,
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her eyes fresh and bright.
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“Morning,” I said. I perched at the foot of the bed, the mattress de-
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flating beneath me.
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“Who is it’s come to visit us?” Marnie sang, looking not at me but at
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the baby bent across her chest, her voice high- pitched and tinny. She
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twisted Audrey toward me, so that I could see the creases in her little
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cheeks, the folds from sleep, and her lips opening and closing. “Who’s
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this?” Marnie squeaked.
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“Morning, Audrey,” I said.
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“Hello, Auntie Jane,” said Marnie, still shrill.
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“How did you sleep?” I asked.
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“Not much,” she said. “But that’s fine; it’s all fine.”
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She smiled and folded the baby back against her body, nimbly, never
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releasing her head and yet rotating her gracefully.
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“And how are you feeling?” I asked.
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“So- so,” she replied. “Sore, but that’s to be expected. And I’m happy.
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I feel good.”
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“And this little one’s doing well?” I asked, holding my hand out and
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letting my fingers hover a few inches away from the baby.
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“She’s perfect,” Marnie replied.
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“I know,” I said.
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“Oh,” she said, “and I meant to tell you this— it’s a bit odd— but
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before I forget: I had a message from that journalist. You know the one?
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The one from before? She left it last night.”
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I wonder what my face looked like in that moment. I know that my
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hand stayed frozen in front of me. I felt bile building at the back of my 17
throat, and I inadvertently retched and had to turn it into a hiccup so
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as not to look suspicious.
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“You heard from her?” I asked.
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“She left me a message,�
� Marnie replied.
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“She left me one too,” I said.
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The ward felt suddenly far too cold. The hairs on my arms stood
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erect beneath my cardigan. I clenched my teeth together to prevent
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them from chattering. But Marnie barely noticed the change in me. She
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was concentrating instead on Audrey, whose white cotton hat had
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slipped down over her eyes.
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“What did she want?” I asked. I felt nauseated not only somewhere
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in my head and in my stomach, but in my bones and my muscles, too.
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It was like waves were swelling through every layer of tissue within
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my body.
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“I don’t know,” she replied, still trying to press the hat onto Audrey’s
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head.
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“What do you mean?” I asked.
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“You know,” she said, “I don’t really want to think about her. She
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isn’t a nice woman, and I have plenty of nice things in my life now. I
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don’t need to allow her that space in my brain.”
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“Did you call her back?” I asked.
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She looked up at me. “I didn’t even notice the message until this
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morning,” she said. “I thought it was my mother actually. I don’t think
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I’d have listened to it otherwise.”
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“And?” I insisted.
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Marnie lifted the hat from Audrey’s head and scrunched it inside
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her fist. “Her head’s too small,” she said.
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“Marnie,” I snapped. “Will you look at me? What did she say? In her
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message? Has she found anything? Is she still looking into us?”
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“Jesus, Jane.” She threw the cotton hat toward me, and it caught in
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the air and settled between us on the blue bedspread.
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“What?” I asked. “Don’t you want to know if she’s going to be writ-
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ing about us again? I don’t want to be on that bloody website, not after
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last time. Do you? Doesn’t that matter to you at all?”
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“You need to calm down,” she said. “This isn’t the place. And
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why do you care so much about it anyway? What does it matter if a
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journalist investigates us? She can waste her own time all she wants.
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She’s not going to find anything, so what’s it to us how she spends
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