Al had once told her that liars need to have good memories, and hers was terrible at best. She had got to the point where she couldn’t remember what she said to Harry, and she knew, now that Harry had latched onto Al’s disappearance, it was only a matter of time before he worked it all out.
Before all of it had turned into a mess, Al had told her to tell the truth wherever possible, so that it was less difficult to get tripped up later. That was fine until Al changed the story and nothing like the truth, nor did it have any elements of truth.
She had written the story down and memorised it, but with everything that had happened, particularly to Harry Walthenson, she began forgetting details and then having lost her transcript of events, she was faced with having to go to Al again.
The problem with that idea was, Al had disappeared again, this time for real, he was not at the address he said he would be, nor was he answering his cell phone, it finally registering this morning with an ‘out of order’ message. It only meant one thing; his phone was lost, dead, or cut off.
Whatever the reason, one thing was for certain, he had cut her off.
Talking to Corinne had also been a mistake. That Corinne was no fool, and she already suspected Angela of not telling the whole truth. Angela could see it in her eyes.
And that thing about being Harry’s girlfriend almost made her laugh.
He was nothing like her type.
But, that didn’t explain why she went to get him from the hospital, and worse, bringing him home. That was a mistake, a huge mistake. Luckily she had managed to evade any questions that might cause a serious problem, and even if it was possible she said something she shouldn’t, she could always convince him it was a product of his fertile imagination fuelled by hospital grade drugs.
Asking her if Al was still alive, that had shaken her. The scheme he had devised for an investigator he thought, at best, and rank amateur, had certainly since proved otherwise.
And as for Al, maybe his paranoia that someone was out to get him was true. She had told him that pretending to be dead, with or without witnesses, was a dangerous idea. If she could see through the plot, then she was not surprised Harry managed to as well, despite how long it took for the penny to drop.
Now, she hoped she didn’t have to silence him.
But all the other revelations, those that Al had hinted at, and had come out in the wash, were staggering, particularly that of her father and his involvement in Cathy’s death. So many had kept such a secret for so long.
Angela had always known that Cathy Jones was not Al’s daughter. Cathy had known it herself because she had learned at a very early age that Brightwater was her father, simply because he had told her.
Of course, her mother, Jennifer Jones, had known all along, and kept it to herself, in fact, she had kept her affair with Brightwater very secret for a long time.
Angela’s mother had only learned of its existence by chance, running into her sister in law near Brightwater’s apartment not realising then, the significance of the encounter.
Armed with this knowledge Angela had intended to confront Brightwater, going around to his apartment, only to discover the front door bashed in, and Brightwater lying in a pool of his own blood, dying.
She called an ambulance, knowing it was too late. He had lost too much blood.
She then sat with him and held his hand as she watched the life drain out of him. In the few minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive he had just enough time to tell her the truth finally, about Cathy’s death and those involved in it. It was not necessarily directed at her and sounded like a deathbed confession.
At least now it verified everything she knew about her father’s involvement. And, the other piece of the puzzle, who he thought killed Al’s brother, more the fool her for believing Al when he said he had no interest in revenge, just knowing the truth was enough.
It was time to confront Al; sending him a message by the only other channel she had available to her, to be used in only an absolute emergency, to meet her ‘at the usual place’.
© Charles Heath 2016-2019
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