It took another thirty minutes to pull myself together. As the coffee machine gurgled, I read through emails and texts, checking for client changes, new business inquiries, complaints, or requests. The usual. As I deleted ads for clothes, shoes, rugs I’d never buy, and teasers for vacations I wouldn’t take this year, I came across an email from an unknown address with an empty subject line. Normally, I deleted these immediately, always suspicious of a virus embedded in a link, but it piqued my curiosity. Sort of like a car accident. It wasn’t cool to look, but everyone slowed down and peeked. I’d certainly been vaguely aware of the crowd gathering around my wrecked car in January as I’d slipped in and out of consciousness and, of all things, wondered how many social media feeds I’d ended up on.

I sipped my coffee and opened the email. No link to click on but a simple message:

They are all lying.

No signature. And when I clicked on the email address, I didn’t recognize the sender. I’d received odd emails before from people who confused MIS Images with all types of health facilities. I’d seen my share of requests for medical scans but never anything odd like this. I glanced toward my front door, still locked and chained as I’d left it last night.

They are all lying.

Who was lying? And about what?

I considered hitting “Reply,” but to what end? The sender had not signed their name. I pressed “Delete.” Unsettled, I closed my phone. A door opened and closed in the hallway and was followed by the click of a lock sliding into place.

“Have a nice day, Alan,” I whispered.

I walked to my desk and thumbed through the interviews that Richards had done thirteen years ago. It wasn’t a question of who’d lied, but how many and how often. They’d been teenagers, and fibs, meaning fabrications and untruths, had been par for the course.

But why would they lie to Richards? They’d all known and loved Clare, had stood at her funeral, lost and devastated at the reality of a peer’s death.

They are all lying.

I checked the time. There were more edits to be done today, and I’d promised myself to finally clear the backlog that had grown since my accident. Clients had understood I’d been injured, and they also accepted I possessed the digital files to their weddings and holiday events.

Grabbing my leather jacket, purse, and coffee, I shut my apartment door behind me. As I double-checked the lock, I saw a Post-it Note on my door: “Grab a drink sometime? Alan.”