Listen for the Lie (23 page)

Paige discovering us in bed together seems to have had no effect on Ben, because he invites me over again that night, and I've stopped pretending that I'm going to start making good choices.

I glance around for her when I walk into his hotel room. We're alone.

“I took Paige's key back,” he says, walking into the kitchen. Two cups with ice sit on the counter, waiting for him to pour liquid in.

“You know that just tells her we're still sleeping together.”

“I'm aware. Paige doesn't get an opinion on my dating life.”

“Ben, I don't think
dating
is the word for this.”

He pauses with the whiskey bottle hovering over a glass, raising an eyebrow at me. “Everything okay with the books? Your books, I mean?”

“There's either going to be a spike in sales, or it's going to ruin my entire career. I'm excited to find out.”

He winces, but doesn't apologize.

If I had any self-respect, I'd leave. I would not have sex with the man who is using my life and the murder of my friend for ad dollars on his podcast.

My self-respect is apparently lacking, because I walk over to the living room and sit down on the couch. There are papers and a laptop on the table.

My own name catches my eye, and I lean forward, turning the
paper so I can see. It's an outline for an episode. Mom's name is on it, as is Nina's. Ben's written a few lines of what he plans to say in neat, clear handwriting, and one catches my eye.

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.

“You think I did it.” It's not a question.

His eyes skip from me to the paper. I can't tell whether he meant for me to see it. He's usually so good about cleaning up the evidence when I'm around.

“It's just one of a few possible endings,” he says.

I take the glass from him. It's heavy. It wouldn't kill him if I smashed it against his head, but it'd hurt like hell.

I slide the paper to the side, so I can see the ones behind it. He was telling the truth—it is just one possible ending. He's written notes for Matt having killed her, and an ending where there's no clear resolution.

But only mine is detailed. The others have two to three lines written out. Mine is an entire page.

“You think I did it,” I say again.

I don't know why I'm disappointed. I never thought he was on my side.

Or maybe that's a lie.

He sits down in the chair across the table and leans forward, putting his glass down. “I haven't come to any firm conclusions.”

“Ben—”

“I'm still working on it.” He pauses. “That was my original ending, before you got here and agreed to talk to me.”

I take a long swig of my drink. It burns as it goes down. I put the glass on the table, too hard, and some of it sloshes onto my podcast future, smearing his perfect letters.

“And you've changed your mind now?” I ask.

He hesitates. “My mind wasn't made up before. It's less made up now.”

I guess that's really all I can hope for at this point.

“You aren't telling me the truth about everything, though,” he says, cocking an eyebrow. “We both know that.”

I just stare at him, because he's not wrong. Maybe I don't blame him for doubting me.

“And not just about your marriage to Matt,” he says. “There are other things. Your interview airs tomorrow. I don't want to believe you did it, Lucy, but I still have questions you seem either unwilling or unable to answer.”

I cock my head, watching as he takes a sip of his drink. The silence stretches between us, proving his point about my unwillingness to answer his questions. A less guilty person would rush to clarify things for him.

“If you think there's a chance I did it, aren't you're worried I'll kill you too?”

Something sparks in his eyes. “Not really, no.”

“Not
really
?” I drain my drink, which is a terrible idea. No one needs to be drunk right now. Certainly not me. “This isn't, like, part of the podcast, is it? You're going to end it by telling everyone how we slept together?”

“God, no, that makes me look awful.”

“Oh, it makes
you
look awful.” I laugh, without humor.

“And I wouldn't do that to you,” he adds with sincerity. I'm still not sure I believe him.

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.

Listen for the Lie Podcast with Ben Owens

EPISODE 7—“THE TRUTH ABOUT LUCY”

The first time I met Lucy Chase was at the Plumpton diner. I was waiting for her. She was clearly surprised to see me.

Her grandmother had set this up. I'd offered to go over to her house, let Lucy meet us there, but she said the diner would be better.

Beverly:
         Let's not ambush her at my house. The diner is public; she'll have the option to just flip you off and get back in her car, if she wants.

She didn't do that. In fact, she came right over and sat down and was … well, I wouldn't say she was
friendly,
exactly. But she wasn't hostile, which was what I'd been expecting.

I was nervous the first time we met, and I think she could tell. I didn't think I was going to be, but when she walked into the diner, she just wasn't what I was expecting.

She looked mostly the same as she did in the pictures. Her features are a little sharper now, and she smiles more than all the photos that circulated online would suggest, but I easily recognized her the moment she walked in.

It was her presence that I think I wasn't expecting. She's tall, and she walks into a room like she knows everyone is looking at her. That's how she walked into the diner. Like she knew people were going to stare, and she didn't care.

I have no idea if she actually cares that people always stare at her. I imagine they always have, given how she looks, but it certainly must be different now.

It's hard to know what Lucy is thinking about this—or anything—because she is very, very guarded. She often takes a couple seconds to answer questions, like she's rehearsing the answer in her head first.

She hasn't done a single interview, ever. She didn't speak to the press immediately after Savannah's death, and she certainly didn't speak to them after people in Plumpton started to pin the murder on her. I know for a fact that many journalists have reached out to her over the past five years, hoping to do a piece on her and Savannah, and her response was
always no. Or it was simply silence. I reached out to her repeatedly, for months, and got no response.

I don't know why she changed her mind. Beverly says it's simply because she asked her to.

But here it is. Lucy Chase's version of events, for the first time.

Ben:
               You look extremely suspicious.

Lucy:
              I think my face is just showing how I always feel about you, Ben.

I want to jump in here to note that Lucy is extremely sarcastic, and comes off as flip at times, even about serious things.

But what she just said is true—she is clearly always suspicious of me. Of everyone, I think, but most definitely of me.

Ben:
               You've been back in Plumpton now for what? A week?

Lucy:
             Yeah.

Ben:
               How is it?

Lucy:
             Terrible.

Ben:
               Why is that?

Lucy:
             It's hot. And everyone here thinks I killed my friend. Actually, I guess everyone
everywhere
thinks I killed Savvy now, but people actually recognize me out on the street here.

Ben:
               Will you take us through that day? Everything you remember?

Lucy:
             Yeah. It was a Saturday, and I woke up early because Matt was in a bad mood. He was stomping around, making a bunch of noise.

Ben:
               Do you remember what he was mad about?

Lucy:
             No. It was probably something small. Matt was always mad about something.

Ben:
               Did you fight?

Lucy:
             Not really, no. Matt and I weren't really ever getting along at that point, so there was just always some low-level hostility. But we weren't yelling at each other or anything that day.

Anyway, I didn't do much that day before the wedding. Just hung out, watched some TV, cleaned the house a little. And then we left for the wedding around five. And that's it. Those are all the memories I have of that night.

Ben:
               Colin said that you originally claimed to have a memory of arriving and walking into the wedding, but you later realized it was wrong.

Lucy:
             I created a memory around information that other people told me.

Ben:
               Has that happened again since?

Lucy:
             No. I specifically stopped trying to remember because of that.

Ben:
               You stopped?

Lucy:
             Yeah. I can't trust my own memory, apparently.

Ben:
               What's the next thing that you do remember, after leaving for the wedding with Matt?

Lucy:
             Walking down the side of the road. That guy in the truck asking me if I was okay.

Ben:
               Where were you going? Do you know?

Lucy:
             I think I thought I was going to meet Savvy at her car? I remember looking at the guy and thinking, “What's he talking about, I'm just going to the car with Savvy.”

Ben:
               Did you realize you had blood on you?

Lucy:
             I thought it was dirt. I kept looking down and wondering why I was so dirty.

Ben:
               What was your reaction when they told you it was Savannah's blood?

Lucy:
             I became hysterical. They had to sedate me.

Ben:
               Did you know she was dead at that point?

Lucy:
             I think they had told me, but it wasn't sticking. I didn't believe them.

Ben:
               Because of the head injury or …

Lucy:
             It didn't make sense. To me, I'd just been leaving the house with Matt. It felt like five minutes ago, not twelve hours.

Ben:
               The police came to question you right away?

Lucy:
             It was a few hours. Technically they tried to ask me questions out on the road, but I wasn't making any sense. I just kept saying, “Where's Savvy? Where's Savvy?” Which, I always thought …

Ben:
               You always thought?

Lucy:
             Well, at that point I wasn't fully aware of where I was or
what I was doing, because of the blow to the head. If I'd killed her, why would I be asking where she was? Wouldn't I have said something like “I hurt her,” or “I'm sorry”? Since I wasn't fully conscious? Something that indicated what I'd done? I don't know. Maybe that's just something I tell myself to feel better.

Ben:
               To feel better, like to convince yourself you didn't kill her?

Lucy:
             Yep.

Ben:
               Because you don't know for sure?

Lucy:
             I can't know for sure. I don't remember that night. I know that I loved Savvy and I can't imagine ever hurting her, but everyone is so convinced that I did it. It's hard not to be like, well, what if I did snap? What if I had a psychotic break? Do people know when they have a psychotic break?

Ben:
               I … don't know.

Lucy:
             It was rhetorical, Ben.

[
laughter
]

Ben:
               How do you explain the scratches on your arm and your skin under Savannah's fingernails? The bruises on her arm that match the shape of your fingers?

Lucy:
             I can't. I don't remember.

Ben:
               Had the two of you ever gotten into a violent altercation before?

Lucy:
             Of course not.

Ben:
               But you had been in a violent altercation before. With Ross. Was there anyone else?

Lucy:
             Nope, just him. I still maintain that he deserved it.

Ben:
               What about Savannah? Do you know if she had ever been in a fight or any kind of altercation?

Lucy:
             Not that I know of. Can't really imagine it, honestly. Savvy was a really sweet, levelheaded person. I mean, you've heard it from lots of people on this podcast. Everyone loved her. She never could have hurt anyone.