Cover of Listen for the Lie

Listen for the Lie

by Amy Tintera


Genre
Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Year
2024
Pages
317
Contents

Chapter Forty-Seven: Lucy

Overview

A chance encounter with Emmett gives Lucy a crucial recovered memory: Emmett was the man Lucy kissed at the wedding before Savvy died. Emmett’s present-day roughness reframes that earlier encounter, showing Savvy had intervened to pull Lucy away when Emmett crossed a line. Nina’s tense interruption and Lucy’s sudden new suspicion about Savvy’s reaction push the murder mystery toward a hidden connection involving Emmett.

Summary

Lucy drives home through dark, empty Plumpton streets after an emotional day. At a downtown stoplight, Lucy sees Emmett painting a sunflower on the art shop window and decides to stop. Lucy apologizes for ignoring Emmett’s texts, and Lucy admits that coming back to Texas and revisiting Savvy’s death and Lucy’s marriage has been horrible. Lucy starts crying again while trying to explain herself.

Instead of simply comforting Lucy, Emmett kisses Lucy. The kiss is unexpectedly aggressive and immediately unpleasant to Lucy; Emmett presses against Lucy, kisses too forcefully, and puts a hand on Lucy’s breast. Lucy does not actively respond and begins thinking about how to get away, showing that Lucy is freezing rather than consenting.

Emmett’s touch and the smell of paint trigger a buried memory from five years earlier at the wedding. Lucy realizes Emmett was the unknown man Lucy had been remembering kissing that night. In the recovered memory, a drunk Lucy had been making out with Emmett near a dumpster as an act of spite toward Matt, but Emmett became rough and clearly intended to have sex there. Savvy appeared, sharply told Lucy to leave, and snapped Lucy back to herself. When Lucy tried to stop, Emmett grabbed Lucy’s hand hard enough to hurt, and Lucy apologized before running after Savvy.

Back in the present, Nina arrives in scrubs and interrupts the scene with an icy glare. Nina asks to speak to Emmett privately, and Emmett follows Nina into the art store. Lucy hurries back to Lucy’s car, shaken. As Lucy thinks about Savvy’s angry expression at the wedding, Lucy begins to wonder whether Savvy’s reaction to Emmett meant more than simple disapproval, and another memory starts to come into focus.

Who Appears

  • Lucy
    protagonist; an encounter with Emmett triggers a major recovered memory from the wedding night
  • Emmett
    art shop painter whose aggressive kiss reveals he was Lucy’s mystery wedding makeout partner
  • Savvy
    appears in Lucy’s memory, interrupting Lucy and Emmett and pulling Lucy away
  • Nina
    arrives unexpectedly, glares at Lucy, and pulls Emmett away for a private talk
  • Matt
    Lucy’s abusive husband; motivates Lucy’s drunken revenge impulse in the recovered memory
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