The Truth in My Lies

by Ivy Smoak

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her ages.”

  "How long has it been? Has she been to your current house?"

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Um…yes, I think she's been here. It must have been a year ago or so.”

  “Okay. Then she’s not the one impersonating Dr. Nash. I’m going to stop by and pick up a few of the other files to run for fingerprints. Maybe we can still figure out who the imposter is. Or find somewhere your husband slipped up and left his prints.”

  I eyed the boxes of files in the corner. “Ben, I’ll bring them to you, okay? Give me a few minutes to finish up here.”

  “I’ll see you soon…”

  I hung up the phone while he was still trying to talk to me. My whole body felt numb. My vision was turning red. The gawkers had gathered in the doorway and were gawking at me in true gawker fashion. Stupid gawky gawkers. “I have to get going,” I said without even looking at them. “If you ladies don’t mind letting yourselves out.”

  “Was that Ben Jones?” Charlotte asked. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”

  “Well, that’s because we’re having an affair.” Maybe that would make her leave.

  Charlotte gasped.

  “Now can you please leave?” My voice was calm, but my mind was zooming. I felt like I was going to faint. I needed to find the picture of Maria Gonzalez. I needed to make sure.

  “What was that about fingerprints?” Rosie asked. “What’s going on? If you and your husband are having issues, Phoenix and I know a great couples’ therapist."

  “You have to leave.” My voice came out in a whisper this time. They blurred in front of me. I walked past them back into the kitchen and grabbed my glass of wine.

  Phoenix cleared her throat. “If you want to talk about it…”

  “Please just go.” My memories were wrong. But the image was as clear as day. That picture was of Maria Gonzalez. I remembered something that didn’t make any sense. I downed the rest of the wine and grabbed one of the other glasses off the table.

  “You need to go!” I screamed when they didn’t move. “Get out of my house.” I threw the wine glass against the wall.

  Charlotte dove to the floor and covered her head. “I knew you were crazy!” she yelled as she scrambled towards the hall.

  “Me? I’m the crazy one?” I threw another glass. It shattered right behind Charlotte’s feet. “You don’t even know me! You never bothered to try!” I threw another glass.

  All the women ran for the front door. They didn’t know me. I placed my hand on the wall as I chased them out. The whole house was spinning. I didn’t even know me. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.” I was choking on sobs. I heard the slam of the front door and my knees buckled beneath me.

  The image of Maria Gonzalez was all I could see. But the memories were wrong. They had to be. The years of pills had messed with my head. I dug my fingers into my scalp. The pain in my skull was unbearable. I screamed at the top of my lungs. “You’re messing with my head!” I yelled into the empty house. It was directed at my husband, but I knew he wasn’t there.

  I was all alone with the thoughts tumbling around in my head. Mashing together in illogical ways. I wasn’t allowed to work. I wasn’t even supposed to leave the house. So how could Maria Gonzalez have worked for me?

  Chapter 47

  The crunching of the leaves was driving me insane. Almost as much as the clock ticking down in my head.

  Something had gone terribly wrong with my brain. Incomprehensible flashes of memories screeched through my mind. Nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. Everything was garbled together and flipped upside-down, careening off the edge of reason.

  I felt a raindrop land on my forehead. I looked up past the trees to the darkening sky. It felt like the storm clouds were fusing with my brain.

  The proof is in the images.

  Dr. Nash’s words turned over and over in my head. What proof? They were just pictures. Pictures proved nothing. I knew that better than anyone else.

  I didn’t know where the box was. I had turned in so many circles the other day that I couldn’t possibly find it. But my feet seemed to remember. Like they had walked this path hundreds of times.

  I stared at the ground. No, my feet didn’t remember. There was an actual worn path in the dirt. The leaves were matted down, and not just from the rain. Someone had definitely walked this same path through the woods over and over again. And recently. I turned around. If I squinted, I thought I could see my house in the distance. The path led directly to my backyard. How had I missed that the other day?

  My husband must have been coming out here. That explained it. My vision blurred as I turned back to the path. It’s him. It all went back to him.

  But you knew Maria Gonzalez. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to erase the pain searing through my forehead.

  I saw the mound of dirt to the side of the path up ahead. I ran as fast as I could and started digging.

  I lifted off the lid and sifted through the pictures. Tons of them. Mostly of my injuries, but there were pictures of other women too. Gashes, bruises, pain in their eyes. They had all been terribly hurt. Their stories swirled around in my brain, colliding with everything else that made no sense. Had my husband killed these women? Had he told me about them?

  No. He hadn’t hurt them. I shook the thought away. How could I know that? He had hurt me. What would have stopped him from killing these women?

  I found the image of Maria Gonzalez. I could hear her laughter. I could hear her sobs. It didn’t feel like I had heard stories of her. It felt like I had known her. That maybe we’d been friends. But that wasn’t possible.

  The proof is in the images.

  “What proof?!” My words echoed around me. I thought I heard a crunch of leaves and lifted my head. But there was nothing. Nothing except for the path that continued farther into the forest. It hadn’t been leading to the box.

  These pictures meant nothing to me. They were proof that my husband abused me. But the other women? I had no idea what he'd done to them. The fact that their names came easily to my lips was disconcerting. My husband had clearly told me what he had done to them. Told me their names. So why couldn’t I remember? I could help save them if they were still alive. Remember, Adeline.

  Berating myself wasn’t helping. I slammed the lid of the box back on and tucked it under my arm. My husband had walked this path countless times. Finding where it leads might give me answers.

  The box felt heavy in my arms, weighed down by secrets I didn’t understand. My ankle throbbed with each step I took. I was exhausted and soaked when my feet reached the end of the path.

  But it wasn’t really an end. It just…stopped. Right in the middle of the woods. I turned around. I could no longer see my house or any houses from my neighborhood. There was nothing anywhere. Just a dead end.

  I wanted to scream. I had been so scared of these stupid woods. If I had ventured out here sooner, maybe I would have found what I needed. Maybe my brain wouldn’t hurt.

  I kicked some leaves and heard the snapping of twigs. The ground was covered in leaves and sticks. But there was a pattern of sticks. Every few inches one stuck up out of the fall foliage. I dropped to my knees and pushed some of the leaves aside. A tiny cross made of twigs stuck out of the ground.

  I pushed more leaves aside to reveal another cross. It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. There were so many of them. It was a mini graveyard. The thought churned my stomach.

  20 murders. Wasn’t that what Ben had said? That the serial killer had murdered 20 people? I scanned the crosses. So why were there 27 crosses?

  I thought about the women in the pictures. Please don’t have hurt them. I dug into the dirt in front of one of the crosses, but there was nothing there. I tried another. And another. Damn it!

  I knocked some of the crosses over into the dirt. I lifted up and threw a few of them as far as I
could. I was about to scream when my phone started buzzing in my pocket.

  I pulled it out, smearing mud across the screen. It was Ben. How long had I been out here? He wanted the files. But I needed more time. I needed answers. Talking to him would buy me that time.

  “Hey, Ben,” I said as calmly as I could muster.

  “Addy, your husband will be home soon. Let me come grab the files real quick.”

  I looked down at my watch. I still had an hour until my husband arrived home. My eyes darted around the woods. I had to be missing something. I began to dig where the first cross had been.

  “The girls and I are just finishing up. I’ll be there in 30 minutes. ”

  “We don’t have 30 minutes. We agreed that you wouldn’t be home when he got there. We need to get you to a safe location.”

  I ran over to the last cross and started digging. My fingers hit something hard. Jackpot.

  “It’s the last time I’ve ever going to see them,” I said. “I just need a few more minutes.”

  “You really must be drunk. You hate these women.”

  “Hate is such a strong word.” I pulled out a box that was similar to the first and lifted off the lid.

  “Come over now. I’ve already contacted the local authorities. They’re bringing him in for questioning as soon as his car pulls in. You don’t need to be there for this. It’s over, Addy.”

  I picked up one of the many passports that were in the box. I opened it up and there was a sticky note with my name on it. What the hell? I lifted the sticky note. An image of me stared back at me. But it wasn’t me. The woman’s name was Jennifer Clarke. How was that possible? It looked just like me. Had someone doctored my passport?

  “Addy?”

  I grabbed another passport. The name on the sticky note didn’t match the name inside the passport again. But the picture in this passport didn’t resemble me. It looked like one of the women from my box of pictures. Again, it felt like I knew her. Like we'd used to be friends.

  “Addy?”

  I grabbed another passport. This sticky note said Juanita Howe. I lifted it off and stared at the passport image of Maria Gonzalez. “Does the name Juanita Howe mean anything to you?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “Ben, I think that my husband was giving the victims’ wives and girlfriends new identities. I found this box…” I let my voice trail off.

  The letters from Dr. Nash had warned me not to tell anyone. I suddenly felt dizzy. And the women had been hurt. I had pictures of them in pain. Why would my husband help them when all he had ever done was hurt me?

  “A box of what?” Ben asked.

  I knew I could trust him. I had already determined that. So why was I hesitating? The stories rolled around in my head. But they were just stories. Planted there by my husband. I never left the house. I didn’t have any friends.

  “A box of passports,” I said. “And there’s a sticky note with each one that doesn’t match the name on the passport. Maria Gonzalez’s passport is one of them. The name on the corresponding sticky note is Juanita Howe.” I could hear him typing something on a computer.

  “You think that Juanita Howe is her new identity?” he asked.

  I looked around at the few remaining crosses. It was like a graveyard. Like old identities came to rest here. I thought back to the passport of Jennifer Clarke. I think I’d remember being someone else. But this wasn’t about me. This was about helping these women. “Yes, I think it’s definitely possible. You said all the women were missing. Maybe you can’t find them because they changed their names.” I opened and closed more passports, looking for any other names that seemed familiar. There was another letter at the bottom of the box, but I had no desire to open it. Dr. Nash was insane. Her words meant nothing to me. I was never the crazy one. She was.

  “I found a hit on Juanita Howe’s location,” Ben said. “She’s actually still in the Bronx. I’m going to make a call to bring her in for questioning. She can probably identify your husband. Maybe the Dr. Nash impersonator too.”

  “That’s great.” I continued sifting through the passports until my hand froze. There was a sticky note that read Jennifer Clarke. Which meant Jennifer Clarke had a different identity before she became Jennifer Clarke. My hands started shaking as I lifted up the sticky note. Even though I knew all of it was nonsense. Whatever it said was a lie. Because I was me. I was Adeline Bell.

  The pain in my head returned.

  “Ben, I’ll be over soon, okay?” I hung up before he had a chance to answer.

  The woman staring back at me was me. But the name beside it was Katrina Nash. Dr. Katrina Nash.

  Chapter 48

  I’m being set up. It was the only logical conclusion. My husband is framing me for murder. I threw Dr. Nash’s passport back into the mud and picked up another. And another. And another. All the names swirled around in my head.

  I stopped when I opened a passport without a sticky note attached. Tears started running down my cheeks. It was my father. I remembered his face. His voice. His eyes. I had his eyes. He had no new identity. Because I had killed him.

  I could barely breathe. The memories flying through my mind screeched to a halt. My stomach churned. I leaned over and threw up into the hole I'd just dug. God. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

  I could still hear my husband’s words. I could still feel the weight of the gun in my hand.

  But there was no time to be swallowed by grief. I knew what I had done. And I knew perfectly well that any sane person wouldn’t have been pressured into pulling the trigger. I was about to close the passport when I noticed the last name. Bell. His name was Richard Bell. What?

  The side of my face twitched. Bell? My maiden name was Evans like my mother’s. I was Adeline Evans before I married my husband. And my husband’s last name was Bell. Adeline Bell. I threw the passport down and rummaged through the remaining ones until I found the one I was looking for. One with a sticky note for Katrina Nash. I lifted it up. Adeline Thompson?

  I shook my head. No. I was never Adeline Thompson. No, no, no. It was nonsense. All the passports were nonsense. I threw it on the ground. I’d have to tell Ben to call off his search for Juanita Howe. There was no way that person was really her. Just like Jennifer Clarke wasn’t me. And Dr. Nash wasn’t me. And Adeline Thompson wasn’t me. But I couldn’t stop lifting up the passports. Scanning the sticky notes and names. Tossing the ones I had searched into the mud.

  Until I found my husband’s. Montgomery Thompson. What a pretentious name. It was the stupidest name in the history of names.

  No. That wasn’t his name. He was… I pinched the bridge of my nose. His name is… My mind was coming up blank. My husband’s name is… I pinched the bridge of my nose harder. What the hell is my husband’s name? My hand started shaking, slipping off my nose. Well his last name was Bell, that much I was sure of. Because my last name was Bell. I had married him and taken his last name. These passports were lies. All of them lies. But the cruelty in his eyes was captured in the image perfectly. And his handsome features and flawless smile that had tricked me all those years ago.

  Montgomery Thompson. The name flipped around in my mind until suddenly it settled. It was coming back to me now. I had been Adeline Thompson. Had been. I had been all these people. I had been running for so long. It hit me like a wave, just like Dr. Nash had warned. Like I had warned.

  And I wasn’t at all surprised that there was no sticky note for him. My dear husband was dead. I had killed him four years ago. I smiled. His blood had felt like the rain falling down on me now. Except it was hot and sticky when it splattered on my face. But still cleansing. Still freeing. I laughed into the emptiness, a laugh I didn’t recognize.

  No. I dropped the passport onto the ground. No, he was alive. He’d be home soon. He was going to jail for killing all those people. He was a monster. He deserved to die. But I hadn’t killed him! And his name is…damnit what the hell is his name?!

  I
felt the trigger beneath my finger. I could see my father in front of me. My husband’s words running through my head. And I pulled it. Twice.

  No. Once. I had pulled it once. No, you turned and you…

  Stop it. I was losing my mind. I lifted up the second to last passport. It was mine before I got married. When I was Adeline Evans. When I thought I needed a man to save me. I threw it in the mud.

  There was one last one. I lifted it up. Adeline Bell. There was no sticky note. 27 crosses. 27 passports.

  Adeline Evans. Adeline Thompson. Katrina Nash. Jennifer Clarke. My father, Richard Bell. And my lovely husband, Montgomery Thompson.

  26 murders. And then there was Adeline Bell. But I’m still alive! It felt like my mind was zigzagging in every direction. I’m still breathing. My husband was still breathing. And he was trying to make me think I was insane.

  I lifted up the letter at the bottom of the box. No. I would not fall for my husband’s tricks. I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t have these past lives. And I certainly hadn’t killed the twenty women in that box. I would have remembered killing them. Because I was haunted every day by my father’s death. I remembered it like it happened yesterday. I’d remember taking another life. And I certainly would have remembered killing my husband because I so desperately wanted to.

  I felt his blood splatter against my face again. And the leaves crunch beneath me. And the weight of his body.

  No. I didn’t remember that. It didn’t even align with my first memory of killing him. I was imagining it. I was imagining everything. And even if I had shot him, it didn’t mean I killed him. Obviously I hadn’t killed him. I’d been trying to get away from him for years. He had been hurting me for years. I’d remember if he was dead.

  I needed to get all of this to Ben. He’d help me. He was the only one that would believe me. I threw all the passports back into the box and placed the letter on top before closing the lid. I picked up the box of passports and the box of pictures and stood up.

  I was about to run back to the house, but turned back. Something made me stomp on the little crosses that remained, burying them beneath the leaves. I wasn’t sure what made me do it. I was tampering with evidence. I smashed the last one. Stop it. I took a step back. What was wrong with me? The ache in my head returned.