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“Not exactly.”
“What’s the matter? Did those two bitches contact you about something?”
Leave it to my sister to jump to that conclusion. Ever since she learned about the way Graham’s family treated me, she despised them.
“No. Though, I’m wondering if I would have preferred that to have happened instead of this,” I murmured.
There was barely a moment of silence before she replied, “That doesn’t make me feel good at all. Now you have to make me stop guessing, because I can’t even begin to come up with what could have possibly happened so bad that would make you ever want to have any communication with those two again.”
“First, you have to promise me you aren’t going to sayanything to anyone about this,” I begged. “I desperately need your advice on what to do about something.”
“I’m a little offended that you think you’d ever need to ask me to make that promise,” she returned.
“Once I tell you, you’ll understand why I’m requesting it.”
My sister hesitated, and I had a feeling it was because she knew just how serious this conversation was about to get. “I promise,” she finally said, her voice just a touch over a whisper and filled with concern.
I inhaled deeply and let out a sigh before I revealed, “Three days ago, I decided to start unpacking some boxes here in the apartment. The first one I opened had Graham’s cell phone in it. I powered up the phone, thinking I was going to find some photos or videos of the two of us together that I didn’t have on my phone.”
“Oh, Lamise,” Jolene murmured. “Tell me you haven’t been in tears for the last three days reminiscing over the time you two spent together.”
“I wish I could, Jo. The last time his camera was used was on the day he died, and he used it to record a video he wanted me to see,” I informed her.
“Really? What did he say?”
I swallowed hard. It was one thing to know what I knew and to replay all the thoughts I had about it inside my head, and it was something else entirely to have to admit it out loud to somebody, even somebody I trusted implicitly, like my sister.
“He knew he was going to die,” I rasped.
“What?”
“I think Graham was murdered.”
“I… what… are you… I don’t understand.”
That made two of us. Granted, our confusion was fortwo very different reasons at this point—me wondering why Graham didn’t find a way to communicate with me precisely what was going on that morning before he left for his run with Henry, for starters, and Jolene likely not fully wrapping her mind around the words I’d just shared.
“He left me a voicemail that he started by saying that if I was watching the video, it was likely he was already dead,” I explained.
“How would he know that? Was it taken after he was bitten by the snake?” she asked.
If only that had been the case.
“No, Jolene. Graham recorded the video that morning while he was still in his car, well before he was bitten by a snake. I don’t—” I paused for a moment, trying to pull myself together. I hadn’t managed to do that when I forced myself to continue. “He was so afraid. He knew he was going to die, and his only concern was leaving me with something to help me understand what happened to him and to warn me.”
By the time I finished speaking, I was a mess of tears and overwhelming sadness. “Warn you? Warn you about what?”
I went on to tell my sister about more of the details in Graham’s video message to me. I shared how he revealed there had been a mix-up at the dog park that led to him doing something he wasn’t proud of to protect me, but beyond that, I didn’t know any specifics about what happened or what he’d done.
“Oh my God,” she rasped. “What are you going to do, Lamise?”
“That’s why I called you. I’ve been thinking about this for three days now, and I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m thinking, going to the police is the best place to start,” my sister declared.
“I had a feeling you were going to say that.”
“You can’t just do nothing. What other option do you have?”
