Chenford Story ✔️

33

Tim's POV

Eight months had passed. Eight months since I had last heard from Lucy. Eight months of having my beautiful baby girl. A year and a half of not having seen Lucy.

I was going out with the rest of the station. For drinks after shift and Angela and Wesley's place.

We ended up doing truth or dare shots.
Everyone got three shots, if you didn't want to do it you drank, if you ran out of shots you had to do it. It was John's turn to ask.
"Nyla truth or dare?"
"Truth"
"Who was the last person you kissed"
"James, easy question John I'm married"

Then it was my turn. I looked around the table, Angela was out of shots.
"Angela truth or dare?"
"Dare"
"I dare you to let me look at your phone for five minutes"
Reluctantly Angela handed over her phone.
I started with her apps, nothing weird.
Then I moved onto her messages, scrolling down until I found one I wanted to see.
'Wade Grey' boring
'Nyla Harper' girl stuff
'Smitty' maybe
'Lucy' Why does she still have Lucy?
I clicked the contact. It.... Angela wasn't blocked?!
Why hadn't she said?! How long had she been unblocked for?!
I looked at the text strain.
Last message, May 9th......
The day Juniper was given to me....
I looked through the texts, 'take care of them for me'
I scrolled back.
'so nice seeing you and Wesley this weekend'
I scrolled further.
'Juniper cried the second you guys were gone'
Further back, April 9th, one call.
'dont worry Luce, we just landed, can't wait to meet new baby'
I looked up at Angela.
They had continued the game.
All this time.
She knew.
She knew where Lucy was, that she was ok.
She knew about my daughter.
I thought back to that day, just before Heidi had broken up with me, Wesley, James and I had given out for drinks.
Wesley had left after a call from Angela.
He had left.... To watch my daughter be born.
I saw the way he looked at me before he left, like he was sorry for me.
Now I knew why.
I practically slammed Angela's phone down on the table.
"ANGELA, WESLEY WE NEED TO TALK!"
I had never in my life been this angry.
Not even at Caleb after he tried to kill Lucy.
I didn't trust Caleb.
It wasn't a complete shock to me.
This....
I had been betrayed by my best friend....

Angela's POV

I noticed my phone on the table and I opened it. The texts with Lucy. Shit. He knew. Tim knew about Lucy.

I walked onto the patio with Wesley.
"He knows about Lucy, Wes"
I saw the colour drained from his face. Wes knew this was probably not going to end with everyone going home peacefully.

Tim's POV

I stroked outside.
"What the fuck Angela?! You knew she was ok, you knew where she was. You knew I had a kid?!"

I was practically screaming at them. It took everything in me not to just choke them both to death or punch a wall.

"Tim- I-"
Angela faulted and looked down.
"I'm sorry"
Wesley just stood awkwardly to one side, his arm wrapped around Angela's back.

"Wesley. That night, when you left the drinks early..... You went to see my daughter's birth didn't you?"
Wesley just nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
My voice cracked and I was just sobbing.
"W-why didn't you tell me Ange?"
I wasn't as angry now, just so sad.

"Lucy.... Lucy didn't want you to know....."
"Why the hell not?!"
"Tim..... She can't come home....."
"Why not?!"
I was a mixture of angry and sad.
I wanted answers that Angela and Wesley either didn't have, or weren't able to give me.
"Tim...."
"Why can't she come back Angela?"
I collapsed to my knees and begged.

"She.... Lucy did some things..... I can't let her come back without arresting her or I'll loose my badge"
Angela sounded so guilty.
Wow. Lucy was... a criminal.... What did she do?
When?
Why?!

A million and one questions were flying through my brain as Angela gave me her phone again.
"Call her, I haven't heard from her in eight months, I don't know if she'll pick up but just call"

I wiped my tears and hit call.

Lucy's POV

I had just lay down in bed. The waves underneath me.

The last six months I had been around the world. On cruises, tours across Asia.
I was having a good time. That wasn't to say I wasn't absolutely depressed.

I was barely eating, Tamara regularly had to pry blades out of my hands and I barely had enough money to keep Tamara in university.

Not that the outside world saw any of that.
On the outside I was now Olivia Smith, a journalist who traveled across the world to find stories. I worked for a journalism company in England. If the LAPD didn't already hate me for leaving, they would for becoming a journalist, I may as well have been releasing prisoners myself.

I chuckled at my joke. I was barely alive, but I was fine. This was fine. My life was fine. I had an income, a boat where I lived and worked. I had a job which took me all over the world.

My phone rang. 'Angela'
Angela hadn't called in months?
I picked up.
"Hello, Olivia speaking... Sorry, force of habit, this is Lucy."
"Angela told me Lucy."
My heart either stopped or sped up exponentially.
"H-how much do you know?"
"That your a criminal. Not what you did. Lucy I just want to see you again"
"Tim you know that if you do that I'm going to jail"
"What did you do Luce?"
I stayed silent, reminiscent of our last phone call together.
"Please Lucy. I won't tell anyone. Please..."
"I killed a guy"
Tim was silent.

Tim's POV

Lucy.... Lucy killed a guy....
When? Why? Who?
The more questions I asked, the more I seemed to have.
"When?"
"I was 14. It was July 6th 2006."
"Who?"
"Thomas Foxly"
I took a sharp inhale. I knew that file. It was one of my first cases. I was attached with my TO, no evidence, no body, just a disappearance.
Lucy. My Lucy had killed him......

I was hesitant to ask the next question.
"Why?"
"He tried to rape me. My parents had let him sexually abused me for years, he tried to rape me, I shoved him away. He hit his head in the counter and I watched him bleed out."
Fuck. I knew Lucy had a.... Not so great childhood but.....
"What did you do?"
"My parents buried him in the garden, beneath the cherry tree. Covered up the evidence. He hadn't exactly told anyone he was at our house, upstanding husband and father and all...."
Lucy trailed off. This was clearly painful for her.
I turned to Angela.
"So you knew. About the murder"
Angela just nodded.
"Why did you leave? You had gotten away with it for 16 years? Why leave then?"
"My parents blackmailed me to go back to them..... I.... There wasn't any other way out....."
I just sighed.
It made perfect sense. All the tenseness the week before. Giving Juniper to me.
I asked one last question.
"A-are you ever coming back?"
I heard Lucy chuckle go herself on the other end of the line.
"If somehow you can convince a jury to let me off for a murder I literally confessed to, then sure. I love you Tim."

Lucy hung up.
I saw her point.
She had and would confess to the murder. Somehow we had to convince a jury not to prosecute her. Even then Lucy would probably lose her job, many friends, a lot of people.