Listen for the Lie

by Amy Tintera

I sit up slowly. I’m in his bed, naked, because after having sex on the couch he pulled me into his bedroom and we had sex in here too.

“Do you usually sleep with the murder suspect of your podcast?”

“The suspect in season one was a man.” “Is that a no?” “It’s a no.” He sounds amused. “Do you usually forget the condom?” “No. Uh, I’m sorry about that, I don’t—” “It’s fine, that’s my fault too. I have birth control covered, I was just sort of hoping you hadn’t been raw-doggin’ it all over Los Angeles.”

Savvy appears next to me, both feet up on the dash, blue toenail polish chipped. She flashes me a grin. “Want to know a secret?” I nod.

“I killed a dude and I’m not sorry. He fucking deserved it.”

“Wait, you…” I trailed off, my breath catching in my throat. She lowered her gaze from mine and nodded, once. I stared at her, my heart in my throat. “Seriously?” “Yes.”

killed a dude and I’m not sorry. He fucking deserved

“Who was he? What did he do to you?” “Troy. An asshole I met in a bar who thought he could put his hands on me. He was wrong.” She flashed me a dark grin. “Jesus, Savvy—” “I’m fine.” “Did you go to the police? It was self-defense, right?” “The police.” She snorted. “No. I think the self-defense argument would have looked a little thin, given how many times I stabbed him.” “How—how many times did you stab him?” My voice was a whisper. “Maybe a few more times than was strictly necessary. Plus a couple more for good luck.”

know about Troy.”

She slides into her car seat, gathering her skirt up so it won’t get caught in the door. “I don’t know who that is.” I grab the door before she can shut it. “The man Savvy killed.” Her head snaps to me, her face draining of color. She stares at me for a minute. “Get in the car.”

Anyway. He was talking and talking, and he said, “I should have protected her better.”

And I was like, “You mean after the

murder?” Because I knew that he’d sent her to her parents after and felt guilty about it. And he was like, “No, that night. I should have protected her better.” I was like, “What do you mean? You weren’t there, right? Do you mean you should have left the wedding with her?” I was fishing for information, because Matt never talked about that night. And I could see him have this, like, moment of clarity where he realized what he said, and his face just turned bright red. And he muttered somethi...

“Savvy is dead, Matt,” I’d choked out. “Our shit doesn’t matter right now.” “It will matter to the police. Don’t make me tell them about what we did to each other, okay? Don’t make me tell them.”

“Lucy, just … don’t, okay?” “Just tell me, Matt. You owe it to me.” He sighs, running a hand down his face. “It was Nina. Nina Garcia.”

“She’s still sleeping with Matt.”

“Their connection is drinking. They’re both drunks.”

Emmett’s eyes catch something behind me, and his smile fades. He slowly drops my hand.

I turn. Keaton Harper is walking—stumbling, really—across the room toward me.

“You really don’t remember that night, do you?” he asks quietly. “I think about the way the knife went into his throat every night,” she whispers in my ear. “It’s like my own personal lullaby.” “No,” I say.

“Fuck.”

“What?” Grandma asks. “The internet figured out that I’m Eva Knightley.”

“I know you two were like BFFs in high school, but I swear to god, that woman is such a stuck-up bitch,” Savvy rudely declares in my head. I’d pushed back a little on that one. Told her that Nina came off as aloof sometimes, but she was actually very nice.

wedding that night, and I decided I was going to go over there and make a scene so that you would know I was sleeping with Matt. He’d been talking big about leaving you, and I was going to force the issue. I went over there and waited.” “What happened when he got there?”

Lucy likely didn’t mean to kill Savvy, and my theory is that the shock of what she’d done caused a mental breakdown that completely erased the memory. I look up to see Ben standing over me, holding the glass of whiskey out to me.

There’s a knife on the counter, where he was cutting limes. I imagine grabbing it and sticking it in his chest. In and out, in and out. “Fucking Exorcist style!” Savvy shouts gleefully. The lamp in the corner is heavy enough to do some damage against his head. The pen near my fingers could probably go in his throat, if I put some muscle behind it. Or I could just put a pillow over his head while he’s sleeping tonight. “Bo-ring,” Savvy sings. “Lucy.” Ben leans forward, peering at me. “What are you thinking about, when you do that?” I snap. “I’m thinking about killing you,” I say.

“Like intrusive thoughts,” I say. “I can’t stop them. I pick a weapon, and I imagine killing people.” “You pick a weapon.” He speaks slowly. “Whatever’s around. I get creative.” His lips twitch. Maybe in amusement, maybe in fear. I don’t know which one I’m rooting for. “Which weapon did you choose in here?” “The glass first.” I point to it. “That wouldn’t kill you, though. So, the knife.” I touch my own throat. “Then the lamp.” “The lamp?”

“I’d bash it against your head.” “I think it’s too heavy for you to get enough momentum to do that.” “I’m not always realistic.” “Sure.” “And suffocating you with a pillow. Later. When you’re asleep.” His neutral expression cracks with that one. He takes in a slow breath. “That one’s realistic,” he says, his voice strained.

“Maybe not. You could wake up and fight me off.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Maybe.” “Depends on how long it takes you to wake up,” I say. “And how strong you are.” He’s staring at me with a look I can’t identify, until he ...

stand and walk to him. I hike up my dress as I lower onto his lap, straddling him. I put both my hands around his neck. “Or I could just strangle you right now.” He meets my gaze. His breathing is ragged. I take one hand off his neck to unzip his pants. I move my underwear to one side. He sucks in a breath as I raise my hips, and then lower them so he slides inside me. I put both hands around his neck again, squeezing tighter this time. I lean closer, my lips against his ear. “You took Paige’s key back. How long do you think it would be until they discovered your body?” He makes a strangled noise. ...

exonerate? People would remember you forever. The guy who solved the case, but he got killed while fucking the murderer.” I lean back to look at him. His chin is tilted back, his face red. “Tighter, tighter!” Savvy cheers. Ben’s body jerks, another strangled noise escaping from his throat. He goes still. I slowly let go of his neck. He lets out a whoosh of air. His gaze doesn’t leave the ceiling for several seconds as he breathes heavily. He finally meets my gaze, his f...

She blows out a breath. “Okay. Good. That’s all that matters. They can’t charge you unless he uncovers something new.” I open my mouth to ask her why she’s always been so convinced I did it. I haven’t asked in years, and when I did, I bitterly

“Nice! Right next to the bar. Best seat in the house.” I freeze. I can see Colin standing in front of me in his rumpled suit, grinning as he points to the bar. Savvy, already holding a glass of wine, stands on her toes and kisses his cheek.

I can feel the brick against my back suddenly. I can smell fresh paint as lips press into mine. One of the straps of my dress has slipped down, and there’s a hand on my breast. I kiss him again. It’s a man. I can still feel the way he smashed his lips into mine. “Lucy,” Ben says. “Lucy,” Savvy said sharply.

“What?” he says. “You remember why you were out here?” One thing’s for sure. The guy wasn’t Matt. And whoever it was, he hasn’t bothered telling anyone. “No,” I say. “I don’t remember.” Matt cocks an eyebrow. He knows I’m lying.

“I was kissing someone out there,” I say. I turn my attention back to Matt. His jaw twitches, like it always does when he’s angry. His mouth is set in a hard line.

“I remember being out there, and kissing him, but I can’t see his face. But I remember Savvy interrupting us, and she looked kind of pissed.”

Matt’s eyebrows shoot up. “Pissed?” “Yeah. She looked mad, and I think we must have left after that, because she said, Let’s go.” “Must have been Colin,” Matt says. “No, there’s no way,”

Matt leans forward and kisses me, and I kiss him back, despite the frantic beating of my heart. I want to knee him in the balls, but I force myself to sink into this for a moment. I need to be twenty-four again, in this house, feeling everything I felt the night that Savvy died. I don’t want to push

away anymore. If I can remember what it’s like to be that fucked-up twenty-four-year-old again, maybe I can remember everything.

“What happened to you? Lucy, what happened to you?”

“Jesus, is that your blood?”

Something in my hand. I can almost feel it. It’s wet and rough and— “Whose blood is that?” “Lucy, no.”

“Let’s kill…” My brain was short-circuiting. I could hear Savvy in my head, on a loop as I stood in front of my frantic husband. Fat raindrops hit my skin, landing on my eyelashes and blurring Matt’s face. “What?” Matt dropped his hands from my face in shock. “You killed someone?” “Deserved it,” I muttered. “We had a plan.” “Jesus Christ.” He took a step back, his horrified expression intensifying. “Savvy tried to…” “To what? Lucy, what did Savvy try to do?”

“I don’t know what went on between you two out there in the woods, but I know that you did what you had to do,” he says firmly. “I am so sorry that I got there too late and I couldn’t protect you.” “Why did you…” I can’t get words out. Tears stream down my cheeks. “Why didn’t you call the police? When you saw me that night? Why did they find me the next morning…?”

But I grabbed that tree branch first and I took it to the trunk of my car, because I knew it would be harder for them to convict you without a murder weapon. I drove it down to the main road and dropped it in a dumpster behind a bar.

draw a ragged breath. The way he’s describing the violence in our marriage—the violence he started, the violence that only ever left me with serious injuries—doesn’t seem right.

“I’m not fucking you hours after you tried to drown me in the bathtub.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. I didn’t try to drown you.”

I could still feel his hand around my neck, holding me under the water as I struggled and splashed. He’d laughed when I came up sputtering after he finally let me go.

“Did Matt tell you I killed her?” He turns off the water. When he looks up at me, it’s not in surprise. Matt clearly already told him this conversation was coming. “Yes.” “When?”