Dark Lies (ch1 & ch2) - EDITED!

Dawn rose over Port-au-Prince as I stood on the terraced roof of the medical centre and took in my surroundings below. Rows of white tents were dotted around the vast dry fields, shining against the rising sun, and the air was filled with the cheerful voices of children as they chased each other around the camp. A warm breeze whistled towards me, blowing a light brown curl to my face. I reached and put it back behind my ear with a smile. To an outsider I’d seem completely out of place; a twenty-three year-old American girl overlooking a displacement camp in a recently earthquake ravaged nation. The truth, however, was that I had never felt more at home. It was a country that was broken and shattered, yet there was no place on earth I would rather be. Haiti was the fresh start that I had so desperately craved, a way of moving on with my life after last summer. A way of ending the nightmares. 

 A loud beeping sound coming from the alarm on my watch snapped me from my reverie. Looking down at the dial I realised it was time for my early morning shift at the vaccination clinic. Turning away from the scenery, I hurried back inside the centre just in time to see a familiar face enter the office. He was in his mid-twenties; tall and thin, with an attractive face and a cropped mess of chestnut coloured hair.

“Hey, Seth,” I smiled, as he closed the door behind him. Seth and I had both studied paediatrics at the University of California, but we didn’t become friends until we both came to Haiti looking for a fresh start. Like me, Seth worked at the children’s vaccination clinic in Part-au-Prince, but while I was still a trainee paediatric nurse, he was now a junior paediatric doctor. “Good shift?” I asked.

“It was alright,” he replied. Judging by the tired look in his hazel eyes, he had just finished his graveyard shift at the clinic, but instead of heading upstairs catch up on some sleep, he headed straight for his desk and turned on the laptop.

“Really?” I asked him with a raised brow.

 “Yup, really.” His fingers frantically tapped at the keyboard and his eyes were glued to the screen. “The Lakers played against the Celtics last night and there’s no way I’m hitting the sack without finding out who won.”

 I shook my head in dismay before pulling on a fresh pair of blue scrubs. “Well, good luck with that. You know how bad the wireless is round here ...”

“Oh, don’t you worry; I’ll get it to work even if it takes me the rest of the day. By the way, you’re admirer dropped by last night,” he smirked.

“For the last time, he’s not my admirer,” I retorted, half rolling my eyes in embarrassment. I knew exactly who Seth was talking about; the young soldier from the U.S Military who had recently developed a habit of gawking at me whenever he dropped by our clinic to deliver blood. I had hoped that his behaviour would go unnoticed. Unfortunately, the ever-so-observant Seth had quickly caught on, and he and the rest of our team had been taunting me relentlessly ever since.

“You know … you should really just do the poor boy a favour and tell him that you’re not interested.”

“I can’t do that. It might hurt his feelings.”

It was Seth’s turn to shake his head this time. “You and your damn morals,” he chuckled before pausing to think for a moment. “Alright, fine. I’ll tell you what, seeing as I’m such a good friend an’ all … I’ll tell him that I’m your boyfriend.”

I threw him a sceptical look as I began pinning my long curls back into a loose bun. “How do I know you’re not just saying that? For all I know you’ll go up to him and tell him that I asked him out or something ...”

Seth chuckled heartily. “I won’t. I promise – scouts honour.”

Just then there came a knock at the door.

“Uh oh, that’s probably him again,” Seth teased.

“Will you stop?” I hissed in a whispered tone, hitting him lightly on the arm on my way to the door. I was sure that it would be Marie standing on the other side. As team leader of the paediatric ward, it was her responsibility to make sure that all junior nurses make it to their shifts on time. However, when I opened the door, I found that it wasn’t Marie at all, instead it was Patricia, a young Haitian woman who I shared my shift with at the clinic.

“I know I’m late,” I said, before she could.

“Don’t worry about that, Alice. There’s a call for you.” She held out a cell phone and I took it with slight confusion.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s your mother.”

My earlier confusion immediately turned to concern. Swallowing, I waited until Patricia was gone before holding the phone to my ear and speaking down the line.

“Hello?” I waited but there was no response. “Hello, mom, are you there?” I tried louder.

“Alice, darling,” her voice crackled slightly due to the bad reception. “Alice, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I can hear you, mom,” I replied, wondering why on earth she was calling me in the first place. We hadn’t spoken since I left home last summer, and, truth be told, I hadn’t expected her to ever call me ever again.

“Honey, you need to come home. I’m sending you a ticket, OK?”

I let out a sigh and rubbed the side of my temples. I should’ve known that that was why she’d called. “Mom, we’ve been through this already, I’m not –”

“You don’t understand, Alice, you need to come home – right now.”

For some reason the urgency her voice sent a wave of anxiety through my body.

“Mom, has … has something happened?” I asked.

At first she didn’t answer. Several painful seconds of silence passed, stirring panic within me as different scenarios flashed through my mind.

“Mom, please!” I said down the line, clutching the phone desperately to my ear. Sensing the obvious panic in my voice, Seth got to his feet and peered over at me with a concerned frown.

“Everything alright?” he asked nervously, but I couldn’t hear him.

“Mom, tell me what happened!” I repeated down the line.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry you had to find out like this,” she finally answered, “but your friend, Tiffany, she … she was killed yesterday …”

In that moment I felt my heart stop, everything, even time, seemed to have stood still.

“I-I don’t understand …” I felt my voice breaking as I struggled to believe what I was hearing. There was a suffocating tightness in my chest. My knees began to feel weak and I found myself clutching at the door for support. “How did …”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, tears brimming, “What … what happened?”

“There was a car accident. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt …”

My back hit the wall and I broke down. There were no words to describe the utter despair that tore through me. A sudden upsurge of memories and stabs of regret compounded me as I sank down towards the floor. My breath came out in gasps and heavy sobs wracked my body until I felt as though my heart would explode. Seth ran over and grabbed hold of me.

“Alice, what’s the matter? Al –”

But his voice still wouldn’t reach my ears. All I could hear was my mom down the line … 

“You need to come home, Alice. You need to come home.”

Chapter 2 - Homecoming

Los Angeles County, California

I stepped out into a busy LAX airport, my carry-on luggage in tow, and made my way out of the Arrivals terminal. As much as I tried, I hadn’t managed to get much sleep on the plane. Whenever I closed my eyes I saw Tiffany’s sweet and happy face staring back at me causing thick tears to stream down my cheeks. And then there were the memories … memories of countless sleepovers, house parties, and drunken nights out in Vegas that replayed over and over again in my mind. To think that they were all that I had left of my best friend caused a paralysing pain that I could not describe. I never even had the chance to say goodbye, and now the next time I would see her she would be in her casket ready to be buried into the earth.

Even the thought was enough to send a shiver through my heart. I couldn’t allow myself to think about it. The very image brought with it an overwhelming tidal wave of emotions that I could not handle at once. Before I could break down again, I swallowed my tears and wheeled my luggage further down the terminal, passing happily reunited families and chauffeurs holding name cards on my way. One chauffer in particular stood out from all the rest. He was short and unusually pale with beady looking eyes that were wide with alert. But it wasn’t his appearance that caught my attention. As I approached closer I realised the card he was holding in his hands. On it was written ‘Alice Wilson’.

I closed my eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. I should’ve known that my mom would send her driver to pick me up, even after I remembered specifically asking her not to.

“Miss Alice Wilson?” asked the chauffer as I stopped in front of him.

“Yes, that’s me,” I muttered back. A part of me wanted to just ignore him altogether and call a cab like I had planned to, but I was too emotionally drained to make a fuss. Instead, I let him take my luggage and followed him out to the limousine.

Before I knew it, I was seated and the chauffer turned on the ignition, pulled out of the parking lot and set off. If I was grateful for anything it was that the journey was completely silent. The last thing I wanted to do was to get into small-talk with the driver. With a tired sigh, I leaned my head against the window, staring at the towering palm trees lining the wide roads and the shiny windowed boutiques of Rodeo Drive. Los Angeles County, the home of the rich and famous – they called it the city of angels, but I knew the truth. Behind the façade of wealthy mansions and lavish parties lay a much darker side.

“We’re here, Miss Wilson,” the driver’s voice broke my train of thought and I looked up just in time to see the limo come to a stop in front of towering wrought-iron gates – the gates of hell, I remembered calling them as I watched it swing open inwardly to allow us entry. Looming imperiously before me was Wilson Manor. Built out of light brown stone and partly covered in moss, the three hundred year-old estate was as picturesque as any mansion in LA. As we drove closer, I spotted my mom, dressed in all-black and looking as beautiful as ever, standing at the entrance ready to greet me.

I swallowed at the thought. There was a reason why I had left home a year ago, a reason why I had left behind my life, my family and my best-friend, and I knew that as soon as I stepped out of this limousine I would be reminded why. When we finally stopped, the driver stepped out to open the door for me. I didn’t get out straight away. A part of me wanted to just stay in the vehicle altogether. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a long deep breath. [I was here for Tiffany]. Several seconds passed before I finally opened my eyes again. Straightening my blazer, I took one last calming breath and stepped out. I felt the gravel crunch under my flats and before I could even take a step forward, my mom was calling my name.

“Alice!” she breathed, her heels clicking against the stone steps as she hurried towards me. I only had to look at the look of pure relief on her face to know what was going to happen. In the next few moments my mother was going to act as though nothing had ever happened between us. In the next few moments she was going to play the role of a loving mother and I the loving daughter. It was a role that I had learnt to master after what had happened last year.

Distant memories of a stifling hot summer night flooded back into my mind almost immediately. My mom, sat in her

armchair by the roaring fireplace, her legs crossed with a glass of sherry in her hand, and me, stood by the doorway of the lounge, face pale, legs trembling, with vomit on my shirt, and tears streaming down my cheeks.

       “Mom, I’m scared …”

       She said nothing. Instead, she took a small sip from her glass.

       “Mom, say something, please!” I beg. “What am I going to do? MOM!”

       “Nothing,” she finally says firmly. “You will do nothing. I’ll take care of it.”

The memory shattered from my thoughts as I felt her embrace me into a tight hug. “Oh, my beautiful darling let me look at you …” She released me from her grip and looked me over. I was sure that I looked anything but beautiful after the journey I had just had, nevertheless she placed an affectionate hand on my cheek and smiled. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re here. Welcome home.”

Despite my reservations, I smiled back, it was awkward and fake but it was a smile nonetheless. However, it soon vanished when two other people, a man and a woman, came down the stone steps to join us. The first to grab my attention was the man. He was middle-aged, tall and thin, with a permanent frown on his forehead. He was dressed in a crisp, expensive-looking three-piece suit and the manner in which he walked, with his shoulders back and his chest held high, suggested arrogance and authority.

The woman beside him looked equally as pompous.

Noticing the direction of my gaze, my mom’s smile widened. “Alice, you remember, Richard, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I responded. I could not forget my step-father even if I tried. He was one of the most powerful and frightening men in LA who owned half the county thanks to his real-estate business. Shortly after my father’s death, he had somehow wormed his way into our lives and, after dating my mom for only a few short months, he decided to marry her.

As Richard stopped before us I noticed that his previously receding hairline was now peppered with grey and white. Either old age was starting to creep up on him, or the reality of being married to a woman like my mother was beginning to take its toll. I had a feeling it was the latter.

He put both his hands stiffly into his pockets and his thin lips curled upwards into a slight smirk. “Welcome home, Alice,” he greeted, his tone almost as dull and business-like as his suit. His piercing grey eyes surveyed me from head to toe before he continued, “I don’t think you’ve met my mother …”

“I haven’t, no,” I responded, glancing back at the woman who stood beside him. She was quite short and stout with a heart shaped face that was covered with wrinkles despite the obvious evidence of Botox.

“Pleased to meet you, darling,” she greeted. She had her son’s piercing eyes and just as Richard had done before her, she seemed to be surveying me with them, before adding, “I am, so sorry for your loss. I know Tiffany was your friend.”

I didn’t know what to make of such a gesture coming from an old woman who showed as much expression as a concrete slab. I politely thanked her anyway before turning back to my mom. “Where’s Spence?” I asked.

“Yes, about that …” she paused for a moment before showing me a guilty smile, “I’m afraid your brother has decided to go over to a friend’s for the day. I tried to tell him that you would’ve liked for him to be by your side during the service, but …” she stopped right there, however, I knew what she was going to say next. My little brother was still clearly mad at me for leaving home, and knowing Spence’s stubbornness, his anger would not be assuaged easily.

As if sensing my thoughts, my mom took my hand in hers and smiled. “Come, we should make our way to the Haughton’s. The service will be starting soon.”

I felt the lump return in my throat once more, but this time I found that I couldn’t swallow it down. As I was ushered back into the limousine, the realisation of where I was heading sent heartbroken sobs clogging at my throat. Bleary eyed, I held down my tears and closed my eyes. I didn’t believe in a god. Too much had happened over the years for me to think that there was some higher being watching over me. But at that moment, I found myself calling his name over and over again in my head, asking him … begging him for the strength to get through what was to come.