Page 3 of The Lies We Steal

“Sleeping for the first time in, fuck I don’t even know.” Rook answers.

“Don’t be naive, Rook. Silas doesn’t sleep anymore. When he does, he sees her. We all know that.” Thatcher interjects, reminding us all why we are here in the first place.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimes signaling that midnight has reached us. The weight of his words pilfers into the room. The wrath I’d just tried to release earlier, started to creep back up. I could feel the flames licking my heels, the copper taste in my mouth.

“Speaking of her.” Rook reaches forward, tossing a cream-colored folder onto the table in the middle of all of us. Perks of being the district attorney’s son.

I lean forward, grabbing it up, “You look inside yet?”

He shakes his head, “Wanted to wait until we were together.” Raising up a bit, he reaches into his back pocket grabbing the white pack of cigarettes. Pulling a single one out, raking a hand through his long brown hair.

“Mind?” He asks, referring to the smoke.

“Burn it down for all I care.” I say honestly. Rook leans back in the chair pulling the match from his mouth and lighting it with his fingers, a trick he’d taught himself when we were at summer camp. He lights the end, inhaling deeply a cloud of smoke gathering around his face.

Since I was six years old the only things I’d ever cared about was Rook, Thatcher, and Silas. We’d sworn to protect each other always, even if it meant wreaking havoc on others in the process. Nothing else mattered besides them, to any of us.

You never see one of us without the others, we are the kids that were never made to be good. We were always meant to be crooked and broken.

“We are all aware of what will happen when we start looking into this, correct?” Thatch asks, “There will be blood on all of our hands. Not just the little destruction we’ve done around town all our lives. We won’t be burning down historic churches or playing wicked games. We will be killing someone.”

We should flinch or cringe at the idea of taking someone’s life. But we all knew what each other was capable of.

“It’s their own fault. They should’ve known better than to hurt someone we care about.”

I remember that night. I remember the smell of that house we found her in. Like pig shit and vomit. A trap house where druggies hide out and shoot their liquid gold. I remember what her body look liked, bent and left hopelessly on the filthy ground.

Like an angel who’d gotten lost and found herself in Hell. She didn’t deserve to die there. And Silas didn’t deserve to find her like that.

I could still hear his screams when I shut my eyes. Hours and hours of shouts. A wounded beast whose pain was growing into unfiltered rage. An emotion that coursed through all of us.

“We find out who did it. We end them. And he can move on. He’ll be able to move forward.”

“He won’t move on.” I shake my head, “Even if we find what we are looking for. You don’t move on from something like this.”

I open the folder, revealing the white pages stuck between. The patient's name in black, bold letters that make my jaw twitch. Rosemary Paige Donahue. My eyes scan through the report, all the questions asked. Was the patient’s death expected? No. Was ACLS performed? Yes (By one of my best friends until we pulled him off her, I note). Flipping to the next page I find the drawing of a body from the front and back, but instead of having circles around certain areas like I assumed it would. It was blank.

My eyebrows inch together as I read the coroner’s findings,

No visible signs of trauma or contusions.

So the scratch marks on her hands? The purple circles from the obvious bruising on her arms? I saw those. They were there.

The most significant finding on the autopsy was the presences of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in the patient’s system. After a thorough investigation, it is my conclusion that the amount ingested caused heatstroke in the patient. The core body temperature was raised leading to cardiac arrest which led to death. No foul play was detected.

So the dirt underneath her fingernails, like she’d be clawing at something? That was just a coincidence? The police didn’t investigate further into the fact Rose had never touched drugs up to that point?

There were things that weren’t adding up. That wasn’t sitting right with me.

“Here genius, you read it. Tell me what you think.” I toss the files at Thatcher, watching as he rests his hand on his chin while his eyes scan across the paper.

“No evidence of foul play? No documentation of the bruises or the marks on her skin?” He says out loud and I nod in silent agreement.

“We saw her body. I don’t know about you two, but I’ve got twenty-twenty vision. Rose was not there on her own free will. Nor did she die willingly. She never even went to parties with us, made Si stay home with her all the time. Is Ponderosa Springs really trying to hide the murder of the mayor’s daughter?” Rook comments, taking another puff of his cancer stick. One that I’m about to steal for myself.

Rose, was not only Silas’s girlfriend, she’d become…one of us. Slowly she’d weaseled her way into our group, making herself a friend. We wouldn’t admit it out loud, but we all cared for her like a sister.

Her death was eating at all of us.

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