Pernikahan yang Dicurangi Suami Polisi

Maya Ellison had learned a long time ago that some phone calls were better left unanswered.

She stared at the unknown number glowing on her screen.

It was almost ten at night.

The house was quiet except for the soft hum of the air conditioner. A half-finished cup of coffee sat beside her laptop, forgotten as she worked through documents for a case she needed to finish before morning.

Her phone vibrated again.

Maya frowned.

Unknown number.

She almost ignored it.

Something about the call made her uneasy.

But she was curious to know the caller. 

Then she picked up. 

“Hello?”

There was silence.

Maya sat straighter.

“Hello?”

Still nothing.

She pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen.

The call was still connected.

“Who is this?”

A man's breathing came through the speaker.

Slow and heavy. 

Then a voice finally spoke.

“Hello Maya”. 

Maya froze.

There was something familiar about the voice.

Something she hadn't heard in years.

Her fingers tightened around the phone.

“Who are you?”

A quiet laugh came from the other end.

“You really don't remember?”

Maya's heart began beating faster.

The voice was older now. Rougher.

But she knew it.

She had spent fourteen years trying not to remember it.

“Tony?”

Silence.

Then the man laughed again.

“Now you remember.”

Maya stood so quickly that her chair rolled backward.

“What!”

Her breathing became shallow.

She walked toward the window and pulled the curtain aside.

The street outside was dark and almost empty.

A streetlight flickered across the road.

“Where are you?” she whispered.

“Does it matter?”

“Tony, where are you?”

“Fourteen years, Maya.”

She closed her eyes.

Fourteen fricking years.

The number struck her harder than she expected.

Fourteen years since Daisy died.

Fourteen years since the police arrived.

Fourteen years since Tony Jones was taken away.

Fourteen years since Maya had stood among three other terrified girls and watched a young man become a murderer in everyone's eyes.

“I didn't”. 

“You didn't what?”

Maya swallowed.

“I didn't know.”

Tony's voice changed.

“You didn't know what exactly?”

Her eyes opened.

“ Wait! You escaped?”

“You heard the news, didn't you?”

Maya's stomach dropped.

She had seen the alert earlier that evening.

CONVICTED MURDERER TONY JONES ESCAPES CUSTODY.

She hadn't clicked the article.

She hadn't needed to.

She knew exactly who Tony Jones was.

Or at least, she thought she did.

Tony continued.

“You and your friends pointed at me.”

Maya said nothing.

“You told them I killed Daisy.”

“We were just sixteen.” Maya said in a cold tone. 

“You were old enough to point.”

Maya gripped the curtain.

“I was scared.”

“So was I.”

His voice was colder now.

“They took me away, Maya.”

“I know.”

“No. You don't.”

She could hear the anger beneath every word.

“You went home that night. You slept in your bed. You went to school the next morning. You grew up. You became a lawyer.”

Maya's eyes filled with tears.

Tony continued.

“I spent fourteen years behind bars.”

“I know.”

“You don't know anything.”

Maya looked down.

She wanted to tell him.

She wanted to tell him that she had never believed he killed Daisy.

That she had remembered the scar.

That she had questioned the watch.

That she had carried the guilt into adulthood.

But the words wouldn't come.

Tony spoke again.

“Do you still remember that night?”

Maya's body went cold.

She saw it.

Not the whole memory.

Just pieces.

Rain hitting the pavement.

Daisy running.

A man's back disappearing into the darkness.

Her own hands reached for him.

A scar.

A deep, pale scar across his back.

Maya squeezed her eyes shut.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good.”

The line went quiet.

“Tony?”

No answer.

“Tony?”

The call ended.

Maya stared at the phone.

For several seconds, she couldn't move.

Then another notification appeared.

A news alert.

She opened it with shaking hands.

ESCAPED INMATE TONY JONES STILL AT LARGE. AUTHORITIES URGE RESIDENTS TO REMAIN CAUTIOUS.

Maya read the words twice.

Then she looked toward the dark window.

Tony is free.

And he had called her first.

Fourteen years earlier, Daisy Taylor had been alive.

Maya remembered that too.

She remembered Daisy's laugh.

The way she always defended people.

The way she could walk into a room and somehow make everyone feel noticed.

She remembered the first day they met.

Maya had barely known her.

None of them had.

But when a fight broke out at school, Daisy stepped between them without hesitation.

She had protected four girls who weren't even her friends yet.

That was how everything began.

Five girls.

One friendship.

Then one murder.

Maya walked back to her desk and sat down.

Her laptop screen had gone dark.

She stared at her reflection in it.

The woman looking back at her was no longer the sixteen-year-old girl who had been too frightened to speak.

She is a lawyer now.

She spent her days defending people who couldn't defend themselves.

Maybe that was why she had chosen the profession.

Maybe every case she had taken had been her way of making up for one mistake.

One night.

One silence.

One dead girl.

Her phone vibrated again.

Maya flinched.

She looked at the screen.

It wasn't Tony.

It was a news notification.

POLICE CONFIRM TONY JONES MAY HAVE RETURNED TO BROOKHAVEN.

Maya slowly stood.

Brookhaven.

Her hometown.

The place she had spent years trying to leave behind.

She had thought Daisy's death belonged to the past.

She had been wrong.

Her phone rang again.

This time, she didn't answer.

The call stopped.

A few seconds later, a message appeared.

Maya opened it.

“You should have told the truth fourteen years ago” 

Her hands began to shake.

Another message appeared.

“Now I'm coming back for the four of you”

Maya stared at the screen.

All four!

Her mind immediately went to Leah, Mila, Nova.

The other three girls who had stood beside her that night.

The four girls who had watched Tony Jones handcuffed by the po

lice. 

Maya looked toward the window again.

For the first time in fourteen years, she wondered if Daisy's killer had ever really been caught.

And somewhere in Brookhaven, a man who had lost fourteen years of his life is coming home.

Tony Jones is free.

And this time, Maya wasn't sixteen anymore.

But she wasn't sure that would be enough to save them.