Not Dying for Her Lie Again novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Boxes
Delaney asks Molly to help move boxes in storage; this time Molly says no in front of the whole row and follows with her phone recording; Delaney throws herself down the stairs and screams that Molly pushed her, and a camera nobody knew about is watching.
My coworker Delaney Brogan stood beside my desk with one hand on her belly and her voice low.
"Molly, there are some boxes in storage. Come help me move them."
Last time, I said yes and went with her.
Half an hour later she was lying at the bottom of the fire stairwell with blood all over the floor.
When she woke up in the ambulance, she pointed at me through her tears.
"Molly made me carry those boxes down. She pushed me."
I was fired by the end of the week.
Then I was sued, and I lost every dollar I had.
My dad's heart gave out the week of the hearing.
My mom stopped knowing who I was.
I ended up on the roof of that office building.
It was only after I died that I found out Delaney had been stringing along eight men at once.
Now I was sitting at my desk again, and the Monday morning light was coming through the window on the 31st floor.
My coffee was still hot.
My phone said September 22nd.
My heart was going so hard I could hear it in my ears.
I looked up at her.
She wore the same pale pink cardigan she had worn that day.
She had the same sweet, tired smile.
"Molly?" she said. "Did you hear me? It'll only take ten minutes."
Ten minutes was how long it took the last time.
"No," I said.
I said it loud enough for the whole row to hear.
Delaney blinked.
Two desks over, the woman who shared my printer stopped typing.
"Come on," Delaney said, softer. "I'm pregnant. I can't lift them myself."
"Then you shouldn't lift them," I said. "Ask facilities. They have a cart."
"Facilities takes all day."
"Then it can wait all day."
A man across the aisle took his headphones off.
Delaney's smile slipped a little at the corner.
She laid her hand on my arm.
Her fingers were cold.
"Please," she whispered. "I don't want to make a thing of it."
I looked at her fingers, and all I could think about was the last time they had pointed at me.
"We'll all go," I said, and I stood up.
"All of us. It'll go faster with six people."
I turned to the row.
"Delaney needs help moving boxes downstairs. Who's in?"
Nobody answered right away.
Then the woman at the next desk pushed back her chair.
"Sure," she said. "I could use the walk."
Delaney's face went still.
"It's fine," she said quickly. "Forget it. I'll do it myself."
"You shouldn't," I said.
"I said forget it."
She pulled her cardigan tight, turned, and walked toward the fire door at the end of the floor.
She did not look back.
I picked up my phone and opened the camera.
I pressed record.
I held it low against my hip and followed her.
The woman from the next desk watched me go and then, after a second, got up and came too.
The fire door was heavy and gray.
Delaney pushed through it and let it swing shut behind her.
I caught the edge before it closed and held it open a crack.
The stairwell smelled like cold concrete.
She stood on the landing with her back to me.
She looked up the stairs.
She looked down them.
She was checking that nobody was there.
Then she reached under her cardigan and pressed something flat against her stomach.
I stopped breathing.
She took a step to the edge of the top stair, gripped the rail, and let go.
She dropped down half a flight, hard, with a cry that echoed up and down the whole shaft.
She hit the landing on her side and lay there.
Red spread out across the concrete from under her skirt.
"Help!" she screamed.
"Somebody help me! Molly pushed me!"
Feet pounded behind me.
The door banged wide, and the whole row came spilling in.
"Oh my God," somebody said.
"She's bleeding!"
"Call 911!"
Delaney lifted her head and found me through her hair.
Her eyes were wet and bright and perfectly clear.
"Why did you do that?" she sobbed. "I only asked for help."
Every face in that doorway turned toward me.
My hand was shaking.
I raised my phone so they could all see the red light on it and the screen showing her, lying there, the whole time.
"I've been recording since you stood up," I said.
For one second nobody moved.
Then something blinked above Delaney's head.
I looked up.
On the ceiling of the stairwell, in the corner where the wall met the landing, there was a small black camera I had never seen.
A green light glowed on its side.
It had not been there last time.
Behind me, a low voice said, "That angle is mine."
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