The Lies That Bind

4: Old Habits

You're being blackmailed.

It was comical, really, how quickly Cooper had cut through to the heart of her hellish existence.

Blackmail. Calla considered the word as she reclined on the couch, her head propped on her favorite pillow, a glass of wine in her hand, while Cooper hovered over the coffee table, memorizing the four little words that had ruined her life.

I know your secret.

"The email was just the beginning," she started, staring at her muddled reflection in the wine. She told him, then, about the summer before their freshman year—the long, agonizing procession of days spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering when the bright new future she'd dreamed about so fervently might come to a screeching halt. But the days passed. And passed. And passed. Until eventually, the note in her graduation cap—buried in a box beneath her bed, an old trick she'd picked up from her overly curious neighbor—faded into the background. Empty threats. Forgotten promises.

A foolish hope.

"And then, about a week after I moved into the dorms, I got a phone call from an unknown number." Calla grimaced as the tale drew to its inevitable end. "I didn't think anything of it. But whoever it was, they kept calling. So I finally answered."

She remembered that day in vivid detail. The sun on the back of her neck as she paused on the sidewalk a block from her new dorm, surrounded by suburban lawns and the distant drone of moving trucks. Her voice had been a flat line when she'd asked, "Who is this?"

A digitized voice, neither male nor female, had answered: "I know your secret."

She'd almost hung up, right there on the sidewalk—had contemplated it for the better half of a minute, when the voice spoke again. "This can go one of two ways," they'd told her. "You can hang up the phone and earn yourself a lifetime in prison, or..."

"Or?" she'd prompted, head full of white noise.

"Or you can do exactly as I say."

Calla had stood there in stoic silence, frozen to the spot. Caught between panic and a tidal wave of helpless fury.

She felt the echo of that fury now, even after two years. The anger had never left her. A part of her wondered if it ever would, or if her life would always be this—dancing around the kernel of wrath that roosted inside her chest, a blaze that might rise up at any instant and consume her.

Cooper joined her on the couch, careful to avoid her feet. "Go on."

Calla heaved a sigh. "There isn't much more to the story." Cooper looked at her as though he very much doubted that. She took another sip of wine. "Whoever it is, they've taken great pains to cover their tracks. The email address, the phone number. None of it can be traced. And when they call, their voice—it's distorted beyond recognition. No tone. No accent. Nothing."

"So they just..." He spread his hands, at a loss. "Help me out here. I'm trying to figure out how this started, but I need you to fill in the blanks."

Calla tapped a finger against the edge of her glass. "When I agreed to their terms—their terms that weren't really terms, obviously, but more of a do what I say or I'll turn this lovely video of you murdering an innocent girl over to the police..." She trailed off at his exasperated look. "Well, I was under the impression it would be a...a one-and-done sort of job. Like, I just had to do this one, awful thing to avoid this other awful thing. Easy."

"Of course," Cooper agreed sarcastically. He'd left his glass of wine in the kitchen, a decision he now seemed to regret. His fingers skimmed over the tops of his knees, restless. "Because that's always how things go for us. No muss, no fuss."