Whispers of Deception

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

November 19th, 2022

The Harvest Festival

“ W e are in way over our heads here. This has completely gone from slightly normal—albeit insane, to absolutely nuts. We have to go to the police.” Delilah paced back and forth, twisting her hair with her finger, over and over. It was a nervous habit that she had picked up in grade school.

“We can’t?—”

“What other choice do we have, Augustus?” Delilah snapped at him.

“I can’t look at this anymore.” Eleanor pushed away the photograph of McCall and Willow, her voice tight with frustration.

Delilah stared at the picture again before speaking. “We need to take it to the police.” She wasn’t wavering.

Sebastian raised his brow over his coffee cup, his lip curling into a bitter smile. “The police are in the photo, Delilah. What good would it do?”

“We shouldn’t even be looking at this right now. You should’ve taken it to the station as soon as you got it.”

“Maybe we should take it to your dad, Gus,” Eleanor suggested, her voice softer as she looked at him.

Augustus leaned back in his chair, running a tired hand down his face. His eyes clenched shut momentarily, before opening again. “Do you seriously want to explain to any of our parents why someone would even be sending this to us in the first place?” His tone was sharp, and the question hung in the air like a challenge.

The group went silent, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

“Okay, so what do we do?” Eleanor finally broke the silence.

“We confront him,” Augustus said. “He’s been trying to pin Willow’s murder on us for the past month and a half. This entire time it was probably him that killed her in the first place.”

“That’s a huge assumption to make from a photo.” Delilah scoffed, “Do we seriously think that he’s the mystery guy?” She glanced around at her friends. “I mean come on? All we know is that they were together at some point that night. It could’ve been for something entirely different. An accusation like this could ruin someone.”

“You mean in the same way that he’s been trying to ruin us?” Augustus shot back.

“They could’ve just been talking. Why would he have a motive to kill her anyway?” Eleanor added.

Augustus groaned, his head falling back against the chair. “We’re grasping at straws. We’ve got nothing.”

“Maybe Gus is onto something,” Lilia said, finally breaking her silence. She hadn’t spoken a word all morning. “Maybe we do need to confront him, ask him what he was doing with her and why? I’m not saying he’s her secret lover, but he knows something.”

Eleanor looked over at her. “The first thing you say all morning and it’s that? Seriously?”

“What else are we supposed to do?”

“We can’t just waltz into the police station and accuse someone of potentially murdering someone. We have to be strategic about this; we can’t be rash.” Sebastian said, leaning his elbows against his knees.

“The Harvest Festival,” Lilia said, suddenly. “It’s in two days. Everyone in town will be there. It’s public. The police are normally there handing out stickers to kids, that kind of thing. It’s the perfect place.”

Augustus nodded. “So we’ll do it there then.”

“It’s a brilliant idea,” Lilia agreed.

It was a horrible idea.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Eleanor asked, her anxiety evident as they wandered through the bustling crowd at the Harvest Festival.

“Would you calm down?” Lilia rolled her eyes, though her own nerves were frayed. She could feel her stomach churning, on the verge of upchucking her lunch.

They had collectively agreed that a less aggressive approach to speaking with McCall was the best course of action, so it was decided that Eleanor and Lilia were the safest best; they were the least confrontational.

“Stay here,” Lilia told her, glancing around to locate McCall. “I’ll be right back.”

“No, wait. We’re supposed to stick together,” Eleanor called after her, “Lilia!”

The festival was in full swing, the majority of the town in attendance. Booths lined the streets, and concession stands were everywhere. A local band played softly in the background, adding to the atmosphere, while children ran around excitedly, their laughter filling the air. Lilia weaved through the crowd, her eyes panning for McCall. She spotted him near a picnic table, dressed casually, a stark contrast to his usual attire. His hands were shoved into his pockets as he stood beside a woman whose hair cascaded down her back in loose waves.

They were laughing at something, and as McCall moved slightly, Lilia’s gaze fell on the woman’s swollen belly. Her steps faltered. The woman was pregnant. That would mean . . . No, he wouldn’t have. She couldn’t help but wonder if McCall had cheated on his wife with Willow.

He bent down to press a kiss to the woman’s face before moving along the crowd, and Lilia’s face set in determination. She had to find out the truth. She maneuvered through the crowd, keeping her eyes on McCall as he turned toward the porta-potties in a secluded alleyway.

The loud sound of children screaming excitedly filled her ears, followed by the sudden pop of a balloon. She winced, her focus momentarily broken. Shaking her head, she refocused her gaze forward, but McCall was nowhere to be seen.

“Damn it!” she cursed to herself.

“You know,” a voice spoke behind her, causing her to flinch, “following a detective isn’t the smartest move.”

She whirled around to face him. “Detective.”

“Lilia.” He nodded. “Did you need something?”

Well, she thought, here goes nothing.

“What is this?” Lilia held her phone up shakily, the image of him and Willow staring back at him.

His eyes zeroed in on the photo, his jaw tightening. “Where did you get this?”

“It doesn’t matter. What were you doing with Willow Montgomery on the night that she disappeared?”

McCall’s gaze hardened. “You have no right to question me.”

“You have five minutes to answer me before I leak this photo everywhere. Start talking, now.”

He said nothing, his gaze averting.

“Willow got into your car on April 16th, and then two days later, she was missing. You saw her that night and you didn’t tell anyone. You have spent the better half of the last two months pointing fingers and attempting to coerce the public and anyone else who will listen to your lies into thinking that me, and my friends murdered her—that we had some motive to kill her. Why?” Her tone was laced in disgust, her eyes burning with accusation.

“She needed a ride.”

“You’re lying.” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. There’s traffic camera footage of her going to the Smarty Mart in her own car.”

“That’s the truth.” He wouldn’t budge.

“She was in your car!” Lilia shoved the phone closer to his face, her desperation growing. “You were with her after she left the party.”

“I was helping her,” McCall said, his voice steady.

“You’re a liar. Why was she with you?”

“She had gotten another letter. She was trying to leave town,” McCall explained. “She had been receiving letters for months, and they had started up again. She was distraught, so she sought out the police for help. But we couldn’t trace the prints back to anyone.”

Lilia’s phone lowered slightly as she processed his words. “You were trying to help her run away?”

“She needed cash.”

Realization dawned on her, “The backpack that they found in the dumpster.”

“She said that she was going to fill up her tank, and that she was going to go home after that—to get some more clothes, to say her goodbyes, maybe. But she was so shaken, I followed behind her. She said that she would meet me at the hotel after.”

“You were the man that the gas station clerk saw with her.” She ran her fingers through her hair.

“I went with her to the hotel. I made sure she was settled in, and then I left. I don’t know where she went after that. I thought that she had done it and run away. When her father reported her missing, I assumed she had. But when we found her body a few months later, I realized she had never made it out of town.” McCall’s voice was heavy with regret. “Every day since, I’ve kicked myself for leaving her at that hotel.”

“You didn’t kill her,” she whispered.

“I didn’t. She was alive when I left, I swear.”

A thick silence filled the air and her mind raced as she attempted to digest what she had learned. McCall wasn’t the mystery guy, and he hadn’t killed Willow.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, severing the silence. Lilia clenched her eyes shut for a moment, steeling herself before looking down at the screen.

Unknown

Audio file attachment.

Her heart pounded as she frowned, pushing play, and holding the phone up to her ear to hear amid the festival’s noise.

“ We shouldn’t be doing this, Gus. ” Her own voice filled her ears followed by the unmistakable sound of moans.

Her heart plummeted, and she ripped her phone from her ear, staring at the screen in disbelief.

She looked up to see McCall watching her, his expression unreadable. But before he could even say anything, she turned and fled, ignoring his calls and the confused looks of onlookers. She ran, and she ran, the trees blurring into blobs. She couldn’t breathe.

Unknown

Two down, three to go. Stop while you’re ahead, Lilia. Sometimes the truth hurts.