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I never would have thought that Matt and Lex would make such a formidable team. They were polar opposites. Lex is one of those anti-government radicals that are convinced that every politician is either corrupt or has some dirty little secret they’re hiding from the public, usually under a happy family man pretense. She’s either lived in Hawthorne so long that an overwhelming amount of suspicion seeped into her brain or she’s rebelling against her father, who was a state senator indicted for accepting bribes.
Matt’s life goal is to become a politician, working his way up to a Maryland representative, just like his great grandfather. He certainly is ambitious and power thirsty enough to get there too. Lex has the adamant belief that having too much power goes to your head and in Matt’s case, she’s right. Just winning the presidential election at school inflated his ego, which was already considerably big. He talked the secretary into giving him a pad of blank slips saying he might need to pull student council members out of class in case of an emergency meeting. His spiel was obvious bullshit, but I guess the secretary choose to feign ignorance because she handed them over. Let’s face it; she was putty in his hands, especially after he flashed her his Crest commercial worthy smile. I’d witnessed it all from my chair at the far end of the office. He didn’t seem to notice me. This was when he opted for pretending I didn’t exist. Being stuck in a car with him for four days made me wish he never stopped.
He used his slips for two purposes: pulling his girlfriend of the week out of class so they could make out in the maintenance closet and pulling Lex out of class when they needed to discuss their “investigation”. His words, not mine. He also claimed that he was with Lex at the time of the murders.
“Matt, I saw you with those girls right before they died. How do you explain that?”
He looked so guilty that I figured I caught him in a lie. I figured wrong. “Anna, I ditched them to catch up with Lex. It’s my fault all three of them are dead. If I never would have left them alone they would be alive right now.”
“Three?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow. There were only supposed to be two murders as far as anyone knew, or at least as far as the police knew, apparently. He gave me a sideway glance from the driver’s seat before turning his attention back to rode.
“Didn’t I tell you? The real murderer has been leaving me little presents. His last one was a note that gave a detailed description of how he murdered Delilah, this girl I was seeing.” He briefly described the note, his facing turning green when he told me the note said that the murderer broke every major bone in the poor girl's body with the blunt end of a hammer.
“Why didn't you tell the police?”
“That’s exactly what he wanted me to do. If I told the police I’d be hanging the rope for my own execution. I guess he figured I’d be stupid enough to do that and it would be like an insurance policy that I’d be found guilty and would be out of the way. Lex and I were so close to solving the case before my girlfriends started turning up dead. He’s trying to set me up.” Normally, I would have snickered when he said case, but talking about murders knocked the sarcasm and humor right out of me.
“Well, I’m in.” I declared.
Matt refused to take his eyes off the road, but I still saw them widen in surprise. “What?” he asked.
“I want to help solve the case.” I air-quoted case, but my heart wasn’t in it. I just wanted to help prove the guy I still loved innocence and put the bastard responsible for my mom’s death and framing Matt behind bars. It had to be the same guy, didn’t it?
Matt looked like there was an internal conflict going on inside his head, but he finally agreed to let me help. Probably because he was afraid I’d try to find my mother’s killer on my own, which was exactly my plan if he had said no.
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