Full Moon Fiancé

Secrets and Lies

Diana made a soft noise of exertion as she worked to lower the ladder silently. Colder air immediately filtered down toward her, along with the slight scent of disuse and dust. The wood creaked beneath her feet as she made her way up the ladder and into the darkness above.

Her eyes took a moment to adjust. There was only one small window built into the sloping roof of the section of the attic she was in, which was unfinished storage. The area was large, but represented only about a third of the entire third floor. The rest of the area was finished spaces, including a game room and another guest bedroom. It was toward the game room that Diana headed. The game room had a small crawl hatch into the storage space, so she was able to sneak out. She stood and dusted off her pants looking around. The room was the same as it always had been, with light green walls that looked even more pretty pastel in the sunlight that streamed through the windows, which seemed especially large after the dim light of the storage area.

She took a moment to glance around and listen. The familiar large, nearly theater sized television on one wall was the same as always, as were the walls lined with board games and video games. A billiards table was on the opposite side of the room and next to it was the door out onto the third floor landing.

Diana opened the door extremely slowly, taking care to listen and peer gently around it to ensure that she was alone. She had a plan, but in an old house like the Westerly mansion, every step risked a telltale creak of the planks of wood that would tell the whole house where she was.

Joshua and Diana had made a game of it, like Hide and Seek, when they were children. She was glad for it now, because she was able to tiptoe quietly toward one of the staircases in the house without alerting anyone.

As she neared the staircase, she heard the faint sound of voices. It sounded like the Westerlys were still standing in the kitchen. Lyria knew that James and Trevor would not be able to see her from their positions next to her door, if they were still there, but the staircase she had chosen would let out right into the main hall on the first floor. She wouldn’t be directly visible from the kitchen, but she would have to hope that no other staff was in the area.

She started down the stairs, so nervous she held her breath without realizing.

When she got to the second floor landing, she paused briefly. She heard no sound that would indicate that Trevor and James were aware of her sojourn out of her room. She lowered herself to the floor, back against the wall, once more holding her breath. She was relieved not to be wearing shoes, which muffled the sound of her feet sliding along the floor as she shuffled down to sit.

She then peered around the wall cautiously. She hoped that being close to the ground would prevent Trevor and James from seeing her, and it did seem to. The minute she saw that they both stood outside her door, James scrolling his phone and looking bored while Trevor stood with his arms crossed staring off into the distance, she pulled her head back.

Diana breathed a little sigh of relief as she gingerly stood again. Then she continued down the stairs.

She was once more relieved to see that there was no one standing in the main hall. She inched down the hall toward the corner which turned into the kitchen.

“-still don’t understand why you were there anyway,” she heard Thomas saying.

“I told you,” Joshua said, sounding exasperated. “I was out for a run and I just thought it would be–”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Joshua,” Anna’s voice rang out louder than Thomas or Joshua. She sounded exasperated. “You thought you’d drop by the place you crashed your car?”

“I gave up my whole life after that! So sue me if I felt a little nostalgic.”

“Your fake life,” Anna snorted derisively. “The life you were meant to have is the life you have now. Don’t you see that?”

“I understand that,” Joshua said. Although his voice didn’t get any louder, Diana could hear that he was getting frustrated. “I’m sorry, okay? How was I supposed to know she would be there?”

She, Diana thought. She unconsciously mouthed the word. He was talking about her. About the memorial.

“Of course she was there,” Thomas said. Diana found herself nodding along with him. Of course she had been there.

“Well what’s done is done,” Anna finally said, after a lengthy silence. “Now what do we do with her? She’s a problem.”

Diana felt suddenly offended, feeling her brow contract angrily.

“Why don’t we just tell her? She’s a loyal–”

“You know perfectly well we can’t do that!” Thomas suddenly roared.

Diana jumped. She had never, in all her life, heard Thomas raise his voice. She hit her head on the frame of a painting, which wobbled frighteningly. As the injury to her forehead throbbed once more, she reached up frantically to steady the frame, praying that they hadn’t heard it.

Suddenly, mercifully, she heard a slamming sound. Whatever it was masked her noise as she scrabbled to steady the painting and herself. She didn’t dare try to see what had happened, but she heard Anna sigh.

“Now we will have to have someone clean that up.”

“There’s nothing to do except wait for Maxwell to arrive,” Joshua said. His voice sounded defeated.

Maxwell? Diana wondered. She didn’t know any Maxwell. She had known Jacob their whole lives. She thought she knew everyone that mattered to him. She shook her head gently. There was so much about him she apparently didn’t know. It made her head spin.

“I suppose so,” Thomas said. He was breathing heavily, to Diana’s continued surprise. She wondered what had happened in the kitchen.

“Trevor and James will have to keep watch then,” Anna added. “But for three days, we may need to get another set of eyes on the door. Perhaps we can ask Evan and Paula?”

Diana’s brow furrowed even deeper. The only Evan in town was the police chief. And Paula… his wife?

“What?” Joshua sounded shocked. “No, we can’t very well keep her here for three days!”

“Of course we can, dear,” snapped Anna.

“Not only can,” Thomas said, “must. We can’t let her go about talking about you to the town, now can we?”

There was silence. Then Thomas said, “exactly.” Diana supposed that Joshua must have indicated agreement.

“I’m going to go talk to her,” Joshua said.

“Joshua, you can’t–” Anna started, but Joshua cut her off.

“I won’t tell her anything,” his voice was heavy. Diana started slightly as she realized that Joshua would soon be headed upstairs to her room. She stood up straight, carefully avoiding the painting on the wall, and began to tiptoe back the way she had come.

“Okay, fine,” Anna said, “but first–” as Diana moved away from the corner, the voices became more muffled. But she was reassured to hear Anna’s voice go on as she started to trek quietly up the stairs once again.

She slipped past the second floor landing quickly, back toward the attic.

The headache she was nursing, she realized, had very little to do with the physical pain she had endured throughout the day.

She was beginning to wonder if she had ever known Joshua at all.