An Affair with Death

Melody became flustered. She stopped crying. Instead, she turned to threats. "Officer Lowe, I want to remind you that I'm in charge of the proposals and dealings with Newton Properties. If I leave, you'll have nothing."

Oh, right. About that. I quickly ran to Officer Lowe and said, "Officer Lowe, Mr. Walker instructed Melody and me to work on the Newton Properties proposal. I just finished it. Do you want to have a look?"

Melody glared at me. I flashed my innocent eyes at her. "Melody, I heard you talking about Newton Properties, so I quickly came over. Did I do something wrong?"

"You… You…" Melody huffed.

"Melody, just go. If you have any issues, take it up with the city council," Officer Lowe said.

Officer Lowe had just gained some cookie points on my side. He sure was great at getting other people to do his job.

"Alright, enough. Everyone, get back to your desk!" Officer Lowe yelled.

There was finally a change in the situation. This round, Melody had no reason to hold a grudge against me anymore.

The morning after she was fired, I was on cloud nine. However, by the afternoon, Melody had returned.

Mary was gossiping about Melody to me. "Lucy, someone like Melody should be fired! She'll only bring a bad reputation to us. How could she have left her shift just like that!"

Mary was slightly older. She had always disliked Melody's attitude and often told me that Melody must surely be a mistress in an affair.

Just as we were talking, the office doors swung open. Melody entered with a few police officers.

She pointed at me and said, "Officers, that's her. She was the one who stole 10,000 dollars from me."

Why was Melody still coming at me? She was determined that I was the one who stole the cash she put in her drawers.

"Officers, she was packing up this morning. The other colleagues had left her alone. I was the only one here. Although we were the only ones in the office, I wouldn't have had the time to steal anything from her."

Even after explaining myself, I was escorted to the police station. On the way there, I called Evan Fontana, my childhood friend. He was a lawyer.

When I arrived at the police station to give my statement, Evan had just arrived. He had produced the surveillance footage in my office. I had stayed in the building the entire day. The footage of me in the stairwell showed that I was not carrying anything.

If I had stolen Melody's money, the money should still be in the office.

Two police officers returned to the office. They searched around, yet they still could not find Melody's missing 10,000 dollars.

When the police officers returned, Evan said, "You can't just base everything on one person's words. What if she made a false report?"

Yes, why did I not think of that?

I raised two thumbs at Evan.

The police asked Melody why she had so much cash in the office. She said that she had just taken them out of the bank.

"That would be easy to verify. Check when she withdrew the money and if she had taken it to the office," Evan said.

"Alright. Ms. Lois, we'll verify this. Just sign here and you can go," the police officer said.

I looked at Evan. He immediately understood what I wanted. Of course, we had to be the first witnesses to see what would happen.

"Sir, Melody has badly damaged Ms. Lois' reputation. I'm sure Ms. Lois has the right to know the truth."

The police left us be. They went to the bank to check Melody's withdrawal records while Evan and I made ourselves comfortable in the lobby. We even ordered takeout.

Melody was still cooped up in one of the rooms.

The police were a responsible group of people. They even told us about the situation when they returned from the bank.

They suspected that the ten-thousand-dollar cash never existed in the first place. The bank showed no records of Melody withdrawing that amount.

The police would interrogate Melody. It looked like the cash was just an excuse for Melody to frame me for a crime I did not do.

There was no longer any point in waiting, so Evan and I left the station. I wondered how Melody would explain the cash. Did she falsely accuse me, or did the cash really exist?

I wanted to get Evan to find out about it afterward. Evan and I were childhood friends. We only drifted apart after I married Zach.

The next morning, I was woken up by a call from Evan.

"Lucy, Lucy! Melody's 10,000 dollars didn't come from her bank. Do you know where she got it from?"

Evan had always been a tease.

I yawned. "Just spit it out. Don't tell me she made it all up?"

"No. The cash exists, but…"

"But what?"

"It was payment for prostitution. She was paid by her so-called boyfriend that night. What is that if not payment?

"Also, do you know she's married, too? I'm sure you didn't know about that."

"Then, the 10,000 dollars?"

"Her husband didn't give her the money. This came from my friends at the police station."

Melody had wanted to set me up. I bet she never expected I would learn such a massive secret of hers instead. When I was thinking about how to deal with Melody, a strange thing happened at home.

While doing the laundry, I fished a bank statement from Zach's pocket. The amount was 10,000 dollars, right down to the cent. The date of the transaction was July 25th.

A vague yet absurd answer started forming in my head.

I had always wondered what I was missing, why Melody would keep asking me to cover her shift, and why she would blame me when she was fired.

A chill ran down my back.

Could Melody's rumored boyfriend be my husband?