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“Rhys is not the deceitful one. He didn’t take those girls. And as for what you did see in the mine shaft, there is more to the story.”
We walked back to the elevator getting in. The doors closed. “You’ve changed him,” Keir said as we headed down. “For the better. He needs someone like you in his life.” He leaned in close to my ear. “Someone strong.”
The doors opened for the newsroom floor, and I started to get out. He took hold of my shoulder. “You will have our protection, lass. Whether you want it or not. We protect our own.”
I hurried out, returned to my cubicle, and slumped down in my chair, shaking. Two cryptic and strange meetings in one day. Tomorrow couldn’t get here soon enough.
I was sitting on the Tube heading back to my flat, replaying both conversations in my head repeatedly when I focused on one word.
Deceit.
The inclination or practice of misleading others through lies or trickery.
It was the answer to the riddle.
In shadows cast, treachery breeds.
By serpent’s tongue, betrayal feeds.
A bond of trust, now frayed and torn,
whose end shall come with twilight’s mourn.
Deceit breeds treachery. It feeds betrayal, and it breaks the bonds of trust.
If Freya Jenkins accused someone of being deceitful, then the question was who?
Rhys was the obvious answer.
He lied to me about many things. His identity. Threatening Richard Granger. The fact he is a monster.
But Freya also kept saying this wasn’t about Rhys.
Keir Wilson also insisted he was innocent.
The Tube stopped, and I got off at the exit, walking back to my flat.
I was having trouble getting Rhys’ demon face out of my mind and the weight of my heart’s pain. Hearing his voice calming and reassuring me while I was trying to escape the mine in the midst of all the water and mud was in complete discordance with the terror I felt when I looked at him. Plus, there was the backpack. Bryn’s backpack.
It had to be Rhys.
When I got home, I tore all the pages from my notebook and spread them out on my bed so I could look at them as a whole.
I made a list of all the key players. Rhys Hughes, Mary Howell, Anwen Bowen, Bryn Lloyd. Sian Lewis, Bryn’s boyfriend. Megan Pritchard, the counselor, and Maureen Davies.
It wasn’t the list of names that struck me as odd. It was how few names were on the list.
As an investigative journalist, I should have interviewed so many more people. But, I was stopped from speaking to the victim’s family by two people. DC Havard and DCS Davies. Were they afraid I was going to find something out?
I scanned my notes, finding what I was looking for. DC Havard was the officer who found the note Bryn left caught between the nightstand and bed. He could have planted it there the next morning.
My stomach tightened. I plugged his name into my computer and hit the search button. Several articles popped up. I clicked on the first one, entitled Young Police Constable is Honored for his Heroic Actions. There was a picture of a young PC Havard receiving a certificate from then DCI Davies. I quickly scanned the article. It stated that Havard, upon arriving on a routine call in Newham, London, found the building on fire and rushed in and saved two women and a cat before the fire department arrived. The article wasn’t anything special, but the fact the two men worked together in Newham made me wonder. I studied the picture again, my eyes coming to one particular spot. It was taken at the station in Newham, and behind both men was a conspiracy board. I enlarged the picture, focusing on that specific section. A picture of a young female was at the top, and above it was the word missing.
I looked at the date of the article. It was from three years ago. Searching the newspapers online for that time period, I came across an article on a girl who had gone missing from a local high school. I found a follow-up article the next week with an update on the case. It was determined the girl had run away, and the case was closed.
I felt sick to my stomach.
I picked up my phone and called Sam.
