The Truth Will Out Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE Sarah

  CHAPTER TWO Sarah

  CHAPTER THREE Kelly

  CHAPTER FOUR Kelly

  CHAPTER FIVE Sarah

  CHAPTER SIX Sarah

  CHAPTER SEVEN Kelly

  CHAPTER EIGHT Kelly

  CHAPTER NINE Sarah

  CHAPTER TEN Sarah

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Kelly

  CHAPTER TWELVE Kelly

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Sarah

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Sarah

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Kelly

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Kelly

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Sarah and Kelly

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Sarah

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Sarah

  CHAPTER TWENTY Sarah

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Sarah

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Goodbye Kelly

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Hello Sarah

  Thank you

  About the Author

  The Truth Will Out

  Karen J. Mossman

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places and incidents are entirely fictional and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, locations, or incidents is coincidental.

  © 2016 by Karen J. Mossman

  Cover Design by Raven Blackburn

  Formatting by Metamorph Publishing

  Vector from: http://www.freepik.com/free-vector/woman-silhouette-and-yoga-mandala_722303.htm, designed by Freepik

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means- electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles—without the express written permission of the author or publisher.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without by monetary gain, is investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is punishable by up to five (5) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. I’m not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Acknowledgments

  Karina Kantas, I appreciate all your help and support.

  British English is used throughout this book and may cause the spelling to look incorrect to some readers.

  For my daughter, Debbie Huzar

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sarah

  My name is Sarah and my flatmate, Abby, and I were sitting on the floor of our second-floor flat playing jacks and drinking lots of wine.

  Jacks is a game we both played as children. There were ten jacks and a ball small enough to fit in your hand. We’d throw the ball in the air and before it dropped, we’d pick up as many jacks as we could before it bounced again. In the beginning, we were hopeless, but we soon got the hang of it.

  We were having great fun until a brick came smashing through the window.

  Yelling, we jumped to our feet and saw the word bitch scrawled in red on two sides. We looked at each other, startled.

  “Oh, God!” Abby shrieked as I ran to the window and looked out, but couldn’t see anyone.

  “There’s no one there, perhaps it wasn’t meant for us?” I suggested, looking at the glass shards on the carpet.

  “I’m calling the police,” she said, grabbing her phone, her finger poised over the 9.

  “The police, or your dad?” I asked, as her father was one of Manchester’s top Chief Superintendents.

  She hesitated. “I don’t always call him,” she said, punching the 9s into her new Nokia N70.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Yeah, well, not this time, I’ll call him afterward. Oh hello, police, please.”

  I listened as she told them what happened and gathered they would send someone over to see us. She then went through the address book for her dad’s phone number and pressed it.

  He’ll most likely blame me, as he doesn’t like me very much. He has accepted I’m here to stay now, and it irks him he can’t find anything on me. I’m certain he’ll have run a check on my background.

  I suppose I ought to explain some of that. We live on a row of Victorian terraced houses in Urmston, Manchester and I was counting my blessings. Eighteen months ago, I was looking for a new home and I found Abby and this flat. I didn’t expect us to become best friends, but we did. We fitted together if that makes sense. People say we look alike, and the idea of looking like sisters appealed to us.

  Her hair is longer than mine, but it’s the same colour. She likes acting as if she is dumb blonde in the room, but we both know that’s far from the truth.

  She is a scatterbrain who giggles a lot, especially around men, and she is pretty. I’m not only talking about physical looks; she’s good inside and well, I’m not. I don’t like attracting attention to myself because I don’t trust anybody.

  Within half an hour two uniforms arrived and sat on our sofa asking questions. We mostly answered them with I don’t know. They put the brick in a plastic see-through bag, making it seem a very important bit of evidence, except it was a brick.

  “What about that guy you dated who kept sending chocolates?” I said, looking at Abby.

  “Gorgeous Graham?”

  That was our nickname for the dork. He was always fawning over her and trying to buy her affection with gifts. Abby wasn’t fooled and saw right through him, but she couldn’t resist the attention. He was nice looking, but it stopped there.

  Gorgeous Graham was possessive; he thought he owned her after one date. She saw him a couple of times, but it was casual.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” she said. “Besides, we hardly know each other.”

  They were listening and nodding and reminded me of robots programmed to do a specific task without any human elements.

  “His full name?” asked robot A. “We’ll run checks on any names you can give us.” I imagined him feeding pages of his notebook into a machine. Ticker tape would then come out the other side.

  “Graham Laverne,” Abby said, as robot B made a note in his pad.

  “Contact details?”

  Abby gave them to him.

  “Is there anyone else who would do this?” Robot A said, looking at me.

  “No,” I said. “Nobody.”

  “What about Slimy Simon?” Abby asked.

  I don’t know why she insisted on calling him that. Well, I do. She doesn’t like overly tactile people, and he was certainly one, especially when he was trying to make a point. It didn’t bother me, but I could see by her body language she didn’t like it.

  “Why would he?” I asked.

  The robots were looking at us like cats watching table tennis.

  “His name?” A said, again.

  “Simon Feline,” I said, expecting him to pick up on the name, but robots don’t, do they? These guys were a barrel of fun. I don’t think they smiled once. Bloody coppers, I don’t like them. “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” I told them. I wanted to say meowing instead of barking, but they wouldn’t have got the joke. Nothing would lighten up these guys.

  “Why?” They both said at the same time and then looked at each other. B asked, “Why are we looking up the wrong tree?”

  I mentally shook my head. They should be on the stage.

  “Because this is aggressive,” I said in a patient tone. “Someone is out to scare us, or it was a mistake and not really meant for us.”

  Even I didn’t believe that.

 
; “Who lives downstairs?” Robot A asked.

  In my attempt to defer them, I walked right into it instead. “An old lady.” She was gentle, sweet, and deaf, which, I had to admit, was sometimes a bonus. No one is going to call her a bitch and throw a brick through her window.

  There was just a second of silence, enough for me to feel stupid.

  “Contact for Simon Feline?”

  I sighed. He still kept a straight face. Wasn’t this fun?

  After another 10 minutes of stupid questions, they picked up the bag containing the brick, and we led them out the door and to the landing.

  “Someone’ll come and board up the window, and a glazier will call tomorrow. No need for you to do anything.”

  “What about the glass?” Abby asked as they went downstairs. “Can we clear it up?”

  “Yes, but watch your fingers,” B said as he followed A out of the front door.

  Abby and I looked at each other and burst into laughter. “Glass is dangerous,” I said to her with a grin. “Don’t you know that?”

  “Oh no!” She spoke in a dramatic way. “I might hurt myself.”

  We went back inside laughing and when we saw the jacks on the floor and the nearby glass, we felt sober.

  “Great,” Abby said, stuffing the jacks in the bag. “Who the hell hates us? I mean, who would do something like this? I’ve not pissed anyone off, and I’m sure you haven’t.”

  “Who do I know?” I said, shrugging as I went behind the breakfast bar into the kitchen cupboard for a dustpan and brush.

  “What about your yoga people?” She asked as I returned to get as much up as I could.

  “There isn’t anyone.”

  “Perhaps it was someone having a joke?” But I could see she didn’t believe that either.

  I emptied the glass in the bin and then vacuumed. Abby washed the glasses, put the half-empty bottle of wine in the fridge and looked at the gaping hole in the window. She shivered and went to the sofa and plumped up the cushions where the robots had sat. I put the vacuum cleaner away.

  “I’m going to bed to read awhile. I can’t look at that window without it giving me the chills. Will you stay up for when the man comes?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, with a sigh. What should have been a nice evening suddenly wasn’t as Abby got freaked out easily. The last thing I wanted was her going into a panic or stressing out.

  As I sat down and turned on the television, I realised how protective I was towards her. It was good looking after someone else’s needs instead of always my own.

  Flicking through the channels, I found it hard to accept it was 2005 already. It sounds strange, but I never thought I would live this long. My life was always going one way. I never dreamed I could turn it around, but I had, and I was fiercely protective of it and everything in it.

  Within half an hour, a man arrived and fitted a new pane of glass instead of just boarding it up. I hadn’t relished looking at a piece of wood either.

  I went to bed then and reluctantly dreamt of the past.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sarah

  Over the next few days, everything returned to normal. We weren’t aware of anything out of the ordinary – and importantly the Soop, didn’t come to the flat. That was always a bonus. When he did, it was as if he was watching me and knew my secrets, but of course, that was absurd, no one did.

  Abby went to see him and he told her to be extra vigilant. He’ll have blamed me and I hope she said something on my behalf. I would look out for both of us. We didn’t need his help.

  “I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said, plopping down on the sofa.

  “What can’t you stop thinking of?” I asked innocently.

  “The brick, what else?”

  “Oh that,” I said for her benefit. “I’d forgotten about it.”

  “How can you forget?” She asked, as I handed her a mug of tea and sat down.

  “What’s the point in worrying about it? You know what stress does?”

  “I’m a stress head, you know that.”

  “And I’m trying to teach you not to be. Have you been using those breathing techniques I showed you?”

  “They don’t always work, last time I got hiccups,” said Abby, and I blurted into my drink. She grinned. “Well, it’s true, I did. I’m not as good at it as you are.”

  I wondered what made her as nervous as she was. I would ask her when she was less stressed out.

  “Keep practising that’s all,” I told her. “I use it and it works.”

  “You never get stressed, though.”

  “I do, but I breathe it away.”

  “Except blood.”

  “Don’t go there,” I said, making a face and sipping my tea.

  Abby laughed. “I’ve never seen you in a flap before. That was so funny.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  Last week, I was walking barefoot as I often do and I caught my toe on something. It bled, and it’s the only thing I carry from the past. I hate the sight of blood. It freaks me out. I was going to faint and Abby thought I was joking. I had to sit down, as she only believed me when she saw how white I’d gone.

  “It was a tiny scratch,” she said.

  “It wasn’t that small.”

  “Sarah, it was.”

  I laughed because I’m good at laughing at myself. “Put the telly on; let’s see if there’s anything we can watch.”

  After flicking through the channels, we settled on Shameless, a drama about the Gallagher family. It was based in Stretford, which was a mile or so from here. They didn’t have jobs, and it made me realise how I’d not had a proper job like Abby does. I’d never gone out to work apart from a casual one in a bar and that wasn’t normal hours like she does.

  Abby worked for a well-known insurance company and I taught yoga locally twice a week. I’m very proud of my diploma as I worked hard to get it, and against all odds too.

  Office workers would come in during their lunch hour to learn techniques for coping with stress in the workplace. Then my evening class was open to anyone for an hour of yoga poses. The income wasn’t great, so I supplemented it with writing articles about yoga. I’ve also sold the odd short story, which of course, has yoga in it. Yoga literally saved my life.

  Sarah Whitaker is the person I have become, and I like her – except for the blonde hair. I much prefer my natural dark colour. Besides, it’s a pain having to get the roots done regularly.

  The following day, I walked down the leafy Urmston Lane on my way to the lunchtime class. The bus was approaching, and I put out my hand to stop it. I was so busy watching it I didn’t see someone appear in front of me with a camera phone, and flashed it in my face. He disappeared just as quickly, and I got on the bus.

  That was worrying. Why would someone do that? I tried to put it out of my mind as I needed to stay in the present, but the past had a habit of creeping in when I least expected it.

  I wanted to tell Abby, but didn’t want to worry her. Maybe it was just someone playing with their new phone as they take photographs. I never thought we’d be able to do that. Who would have put cameras and phones together?

  As it was, I didn’t get a chance to mention it.

  I was sorting out clothes in my room when Abby let out a yelp followed by a cry. I shot out and the sight that greeted me was horrific.

  She was holding a letter in one hand, and the other was covered in blood, which was dripping from the tips of her fingers like a ghastly horror story.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” She was shrieking. “It’s cut my hand!”

  I didn’t know what it was. I held onto the wall trying not to look at the cascade of red dripping to the floor in big blobs and pooling near her feet.

  The next thing I remember is Abby leaning over me, her hand covered by a tea towel. “Sarah! Sarah!”

  I’d fainted. “Call an ambulance,” I croaked, getting to my feet with the support of the wall. Not for me, for her.

  She thrust
the phone at me instead and I tapped in 999 as she held her arm in the air to stop the bleeding.

  “You’ll have to phone my dad, too.”

  “Oh God,” I groaned. I didn’t feel well.

  Finding the address book, I scrolled down to Dad, not Soop, as was my first instinct.

  I was in a panic; worried the blood might start seeping through the tea towel. I tried not to look at the floor where it pooled.

  When he answered, he assumed I was Abby, and I blurted it out. For some strange reason, the episode with the camera phone came out too.

  Abby looked at me startled. “What? This is getting weirder. What is going on?” Her face turned pale, and I hoped she wasn’t going to either faint herself or hyperventilate.

  “I can hear the ambulance,” I told the Soop and looked at Abby before she did anything.

  “I’ll meet you at the hospital,” he said hanging up.

  “He’ll meet us there,” I relayed.

  I leaned on the wall as the hallway swayed. Abby sank to the floor with her arm raised.

  I didn’t want to go near the door because of the blood, which was stupid because how else would the ambulance people get in?

  “Open the bloody door!” Abby said, reading my mind.

  “No pun intended,” I mumbled, trying to make light of my stupidity. It fell flat.

  The downstairs buzzer rang, and I pressed it to let them inside. As I opened our front door and stepped back, I slipped. It was the only piece of laminate we had, separating it from lounge, forming a hallway. Blood streaked across the floor, under my feet, and I did an acrobatic act to stay upright. That was right before I threw up. It was a farce except no one was laughing.

  We arrived at the hospital, and the antiseptic smell was churning up thoughts I didn’t want to remember, so I forced them away. As we went into a cubicle, Abby was crying. I felt tearful, but she had justification, so I blinked mine away.

  “I want my dad,” she cried.

  “He’ll be here any minute,” I said, placing my hand her arm. “Just let them take care of you, Abs.”