The Mute and the Liar Page 5

  “So are you planning on telling me what’s going on yet?” Nick calls over his shoulder. Jayce doesn’t look up from the notepad, and continues writing furiously, his pen never leaving the page.

  “What is there to say? I’m getting rid of Lauren, getting revenge for Steve, and scaring the crap out of this girl, all at the same time. Three stones with one bird.”

  “Three birds with one stone,” Nick corrects.

  “Whatever. The point is, a bird somewhere is not going to know what hit it.

  “This is ridiculous. You can't just steal people,” Nick states the obvious “Come on; let’s just take her home. We’ll explain everything, and you’ll say how sorry you are, and we can clear up this whole mess.”

  Hope seems to spark up once more. Nick doesn’t seem like a bad person, after all. Maybe he’ll help me. But obviously Jayce doesn’t seem to think that’s such a good idea, and snarls: “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll go to the police and tell them what really happened to Marty.”

  This seems a convincing enough threat because Nick quickly shuts up.

  Great - there goes my hope again. I was so close to being free that time. What did Jayce mean by that? Why did it silence Nick and make him completely give up on that idea?

  Jayce knows my home phone number. He knows I want to be a detective. How much exactly does he know about me? He could know about... no. Don't think about that.

  “Kaylie was really worried about you, you know,” Nick pipes up again.

  “She knocked on our door four times today. I kept telling her you weren’t in, but she wouldn’t listen, and just came back again a few hours later. She said she thought the police had taken you away.”

  “Mmm,” is all Jayce unenthusiastically replies. He continues scribbling.

  “Why don’t you just… just give her a chance? She’s a lovely girl-”

  “She knows I’m not interested. Girls aren’t really my… thing.” “Neither are boys.”

  “No,” Jayce agrees.

  “Jayce. What are you doing? You can’t just take what you want. What do you actually want? What are you hoping to gain from any of this? It’s unpredictable people like you that end up behind bars. You take what you like, and you like what you like, but you don’t know what you like.”

  “Maybe that’s because I’ve never ‘liked’ anything.”

  “Oh yeah. It’s all about the impulse with you, isn’t it? You just dive head first into the gulf of danger. What made you do this? It's crazy. You just don’t think. You’re just reckless and stupid,” Nick spits, repulsed. He says all of this so breathlessly and confidently. It seems he has been thinking up this little speech for a while.

  Jayce finally stops writing and looks up.

  “You are calling me reckless and stupid? At least I’m not a mu-” “Jayce!”

  A deathly silence fills the air. Jayce’s eyes remain fixed to the back of Nick’s head, whilst Nick leans over the wheel. I can almost feel the anger radiating between them.

  Curiosity has always been my biggest flaw. I’m just genuinely interested in what’s happening and why. It’s one of the reasons I like solving mysteries. So this has got me intrigued. All I know is that whatever Nick has done, whatever he is hiding, Jayce is holding it against him.

  I've got so many questions, and they crash through my mind like hailstones.

  Nick continues driving in silence, his fists clenching the steering wheel, so hard that I think he might be making dents in it. Well, considering the state the car is already in, I suppose a few dents in the steering wheel might actually be an improvement.

  *****

  “Hey, Alicia. Wake up. Here.” Something is being pushed into my hands. Struggling slightly, my eyes flicker open, and for a moment my surroundings startle me. I establish I am inside a car, although it takes me a few seconds to register what I am doing there.

  And what I am leaning against.

  I hurtle awake, propelling myself away from him, almost clinging to the car door.

  “It looked fun, so I gave it a go. How did I do?” I look down, and see he has given me the notepad he was writing in. He has skipped a few pages, where he has written some rough notes. The page at the top is crammed with handwriting so messy it could be mistaken for those scribbles you make when you’re checking to see if a pen works.

  28th February 2011

  Crime: At 6:30 AM on the 15th February, Antoinette Harper, a 27-year-old athlete from Sheffield, went for a morning jog around the city centre, because she’s one of them obsessive health freaks. Anyway, before she reached St. Phillip’s Road, CCTV camera caught her being attacked by an unidentified cloaked figure and abducted. Ha, sound familiar, Alicia? Well, sort of. Anyway, she was found alive two days ago but with serious leg injuries.

  Interesting Details: They say the attacker was a guy because of his stature, (no, he was a guy because beating up innocent joggers is a manly thing to do) and has a slight limp. Also, he kept her alive? What’s the point of kidnapping someone if you’re just going to let them go?

  Jayce’s Answer: I’m no expert on running, but I don’t think those leg injuries are going to do her career many favours. I did a bit of Googling on my phone, and I think she was attacked by her ex, Tyrone Clarence. He used to be an athlete too, but got into trouble with some drug dealers and got beaten up one day. It left him with a permanent limp, which forced him to quit his job. My guess is, he couldn’t stand watching her doing everything he loved, so he thought that by attacking and injuring her, she would have to leave her job, but by keeping her alive, they could get back together. See? There are people in this world that are more insane than I am.

  Verdict: Isn’t it obvious, Alicia? HARPER FELL IN LOVE WITH A LIAR. Pray to God you don’t do the same.

  Chapter Eight

  10:32 PM

  Sorry if my writing is all shaky. We’re still in the car. We have been driving for about two hours. There has been no conversation, only the odd swearword escaping from Nick’s mouth to curse a particularly bad driver.

  At first I looked out of the window for a bit, but I got bored of seeing nothing but lights, trees and cars.

  I crane my head to look out of the window, but it’s already been hours since the last of the sun dipped away, leaving only inky black above. There are no stars because of all the streetlights. I might have been disappointed, but for some reason, seeing the empty black sky calms me. I imagine all these problems, everything that has happened today, just slowly floating into the sky and slipping into the blackness.

  So now I am talking nonsense. Well, I already knew insanity would kick in sooner or later from all of this. It was only a matter of time.

  I’m still trying to decipher Jayce’s message. There’s got to be some kind of meaning. There has to be a reason. He cannot just twist the only thing I’ve loved doing and throw it right back in my face. Is this all just a way to scare me? To convince me to jump from the cliff of sanity?

  I have to get away from here.

  I don’t even want to run away now. I just want to breathe in fresh air. I just want to know that outside the world is still the same, and that I am still trapped under the same sky.

  How could my life change this fast, this sudden? This morning, my only concern was walking to school without bumping into Mrs Dane’s carnivorous, demon-possessed cat.

  Come on. There’s got to be something I can do. You know, you could always…

  No. It will never work. But I want to go outside.

  It’s a long shot.

  You might as well give it a try.

  I need the toilet.

  Okay. Hopefully this will work. It’s a chance in a million, but at least it’s still a chance.

  I am now shoving that message in Jayce’s face. He seems a bit shocked, or just pleasantly surprised. Probably because he never thought I was actually going to try and make contact with him. For a moment there is hope, but then he goes and runs over all my dreams with a bulldozer. />
  “No. That’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  “What does she want?” asks Nick, peering into the rear-view mirror. “Ladies’ room.”

  “If she needs to go, I’ll take her. We’re approaching a service station now.”

  “Nick,” Jayce sighs. “Obviously your pea-sized brain is too small to register the fact that this is clearly a trap. She’s obviously going to ask someone for help, use their mobile phone, call the police and put us in prison and give herself a big old pat on the back.”

  “Congratulations. She probably wasn’t thinking of doing anything, and now you’ve just given her a load of ideas,” Nick grumbles, and I smile to myself. He’s absolutely right.

  “She’s not going and that’s final,” Jayce states, with the air of a stubborn toddler.

  This is ridiculous. Why am I being forbidden to go to the toilet? What is with these people? Do they want me to pee on the car seat? Not only that, but I’m also incredibly hungry. I should’ve taken some of the lettuce when I had the chance.

  I lift up this notebook, and almost smile at the confusion on Jayce’s face, and even more so at the pleasant smack that chimes when I whack it over his head.

  “Stop hitting me! First with a cactus, now this?” I look up at him with big, innocent brown eyes, and his serious expression softens. “Fine. But if you even try to disappear, I will see to it that everyone you have ever known disappears as well.”

  Relief tidal-waves over me. I don’t want to escape. I know he will try and stop me, no matter what I do. I just want fresh air, and to feel stable ground beneath my feet.

  One question has been clambering up my skin, like frost on a window. What if he knows what I did? I am so worried about all the things he seems to know about me. He can’t know everything. It’s impossible; there is just no way it could happen.

  But what if he knows…

  No. No one knows that. Don’t be stupid. But what if he does?

  I push that nagging, negative voice into a cobwebbed corner in my mind.

  Nick drives into the car park of the next service station. He parks and gets out first, and holds the door open for me. I thought Jayce was going to come with us to keep an eye on me, but he does not move, instead checking something on his phone, presumably his texts.

  I think I’d better take this notebook too. I don’t want Jayce reading it again.

  As I am about to shut the door of the car, he suddenly looks up at me and shouts: “wait!”

  My heart starts racing. I wonder if he is having second thoughts. I have to get outside. I have to at least taste reality, even for a second. His eyes pierce deep into mine, but there is something vacant about them, as though someone has switched off a light inside.

  “I… I never had a lizard called Demetrius,” he solemnly tells me, never looking away from me. It takes a while for his words to sink in, and for a few moments I am left staring at him blankly, confused about what he means. “I wanted to. But my mother wouldn’t let me.”

  He looks at me for a little while longer, something almost like pain glimmering in his eyes. Then, like a passing raincloud, the moment is gone before I even realised it was there, and his attention flickers back to his phone.

  So that means he lied? He lied to me about having a pet lizard? Who the Hell lies about having a pet lizard?

  Deciding to just ignore him, I turn and follow Nick into the service station. When the car is well out of sight, Nick leans in close and gently murmurs in my ear.

  “Okay, don’t worry. Everything is under control. I am going to get you out of this mess as soon as possible.”

  He smiles at me, but I don’t think I heard him right. It just doesn’t make sense, as though he has said the words backwards. He knows nothing about me. Why would he try and help me? I decide I probably didn’t hear him.

  He strides inside, whilst I hobble behind him trying to keep up. He leads me into the café area, where a few travellers sip coffee in a futile attempt to stay awake. The smell of it intoxicates the small room, and the soft whirring of classical music and tired murmuring lull the place to sleep. There is the odd clatter of cutlery, the muffled sounds of distant traffic, and the mumbling of people on the television screen in front of us, talking about things that don’t matter.

  Nothing feels real: the people around us are just mannequins and the ceiling is just the lid of a jar.

  We stand with our backs to a wall plastered with posters of tourist attractions and people flashing big cheesy grins.

  Nick stuffs a hand in his pocket and passes me his mobile phone.

  For a moment, I just stare at it incredulously. Full of disbelief, I only realise he is trying to help me when he smiles at me reassuringly. Slowly, it dawns on me that he actually is trying to help me.

  Happiness suddenly erupts inside me. My eyes widen, and the world around suddenly seems brighter, as though peppered with lights from a disco ball.

  This is amazing! He is trying to help me! Nick pushes the phone into my hands.

  “Call the police, your father, anyone. Tell them we are headed to Lorelai Manor in the south of Bath. Then we’re going to go back in the car like nothing happened, and hopefully, when we arrive at Kit’s house, the police will already be there.”

  I quickly dial the number to my home phone. I clear my throat, not knowing how I am going to start talking. I haven’t spoken in so long. I’m not sure I even remember how it works. I suppose I’ll just have to close my eyes and hope for the best.

  It rings three times, but when it is picked up, I do not hear the familiar sound of my father’s voice. Instead, to my horror, I hear the slow, drawling voice of a young girl.

  “Hello, you have reached the Lewis residence. This is Kaylie Merrick speaking,” she pauses for a moment, and then continues speaking as slowly as possible. She has quite a low-pitched voice, and when she elongates every letter like this, it sounds like she is moving in slow motion. “Unfortunately, Detective Chief Inspector Lewis is currently unavailable right now. Would this be Nicholas Monroe by any chance?”

  Having heard this, he quickly snatches the phone from my hand. “Kaylie?” he yells, drawing attention to us. “What the hell are you doing?” Kaylie. That name sounds familiar. Oh yeah, she was the girl Jayce and Nick were discussing in the car earlier. But she’s in my home. One of Jayce’s friends is in my home!

  “Yay, it is you, Nicky! Check that out: I was actually right! Jayce told me you would be ringing sometime soon, but I didn’t realise it would be this soon! I mean like, seriously, we’ve only just walked through the front door!”

  “Kaylie? What is going on? Where is Alicia’s father?”

  “I already told you; he’s unavailable. He’s a very busy man you know.” She pauses and lowers her voice, so I have to lean right in to hear her. “And right now, his hands are tied.”

  That sentence echoes around me. Something has happened to Father. This just gets even worse!

  And isn’t this the girl Nick called 'lovely?'

  “Whatever is going on, you have to stop it right now. He is a dangerous man. He’s a policeman for God’s sake! Why are you doing this? I know you’re better than this!” Loud music started thumping on the other end of the line.

  “Jory! Turn it down! I am trying to be threatening!”

  Kaylie moves away from the phone. After a pause and the muffled sound of arguing, she returns again. “Sorry about that. Anyway, is that girl with you? Were you trying to help her escape? How sweet… This isn't like you at all. Why are you being a softie all of a sudden? What happened to old Nick?”

  “Stop it.” His reply hurtles out of his mouth fast and lifeless.

  “Is this some form of redemption?” she continues, stretching every letter like chewing gum. “Have you seen the light? … Do you think that for some messed up reason, taking pity on one girl might make God actually forgive you?”

  “Just stop it,” he demands, trying to keep his wavering voice steady. His face has slipp
ed into the colour of ash. I look at his hands and notice that they are shaking.

  “See, I’ve never really associated you with soppiness… Anger, sure. You’ve nailed that one hands down,” she pauses again, and I can almost hear her smirk. “You gave Marty exactly what he deserved, didn't you?”

  “Stop it! Stop it! Just stop it!” he screams, and throws the phone on the floor. He breaks into a run and slams out of the front doors, leaving me behind.

  I realise the phone hasn’t broken, and that she is still talking. Cautiously, I bend down, pick up the phone and lift it to my ear.

  “Not so fond of the truth, are we Nick? God, you’re just like your cousin. You would cut out the tongue of every person walking this Earth if it meant not having to hear it. Anyway, don’t do anything stupid. I’m sure that girl doesn’t want any harm to come to her father. Don’t bother him again; Jayce has given him a task to do.” I think she is about to put the phone down, when she hurriedly adds: “Oh, and Nick? Watch your step.”

  And with that, the phone clicks off.

  I have to get home. Father is in danger and Jayce is forcing him to kill someone. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening!

  I have to call the police! I start dialing the number and run out of the back door leading to the back of the car park, hoping it will keep me out of sight. I’m just trying to do anything I can so Jayce won’t find me as I make the call.

  In my haste, I crash straight into someone standing on the other side. That person says something in a disappointed tone, and suddenly ice slithers through my veins.

  “Once again with all the predictability. Once again with all the running and the escaping and the stupidity. You’re getting annoying.”

  How is he possibly doing this? How does he know my every move?