The last message

It was exactly 3:03 AM when my phone buzzed.

I groaned, rolling over in bed. I expected it to be a spam call or a drunk friend forgetting the time. But when I looked at the screen, my heart stopped.

**Unknown Number. One new voicemail.**

I almost didn’t listen. But something pulled at me. A strange, sinking feeling in my stomach.

I played it.

Static.

Then a voice.

“*Ava… don’t trust him.*”

That was it.

I shot up in bed, pulse racing. The voice was distorted, low and crackling—but it was familiar. Too familiar.

It was my sister’s voice. My sister, Lily.
The problem?

She died seven years ago.

A car accident. Rain, a sharp turn, and she was gone. I’d never recovered, not really. She was my best friend, my only family after our parents passed. I thought I’d imagined it. Some kind of dream-haze mix of grief and stress.

But the voicemail was still there. I replayed it. Again and again.

**“Ava… don’t trust him.”**

I barely slept. The next morning, I sat at my kitchen table with my phone in one hand and coffee in the other, replaying the message for the tenth time.

That’s when Ethan walked in.

“Didn’t sleep?” he asked, kissing the top of my head.

I faked a smile. “Weird dreams.”

He chuckled, opening the fridge. “Too much wine, maybe?”

I nodded, my stomach tightening. Ethan had been my boyfriend for nearly two years. Sweet, dependable, good to a fault. But now, I looked at him differently. My sister’s words echoed in my ears.

**Don’t trust him.**

That day, I did something I never thought I’d do. I snooped. I searched his laptop when he was in the shower. Checked drawers. Dug through his closet. At first, nothing. Just a pile of receipts, some old photos, and a dusty box I hadn’t seen before.

Inside the box, I found a stack of letters.

Addressed to him.

From Lily.

My blood ran cold.

They were dated a few months before her death. Some were loving. Others scared.

One stood out. Her last one.

**"Ethan, you said you’d leave her alone. You said it was over. If you come near me again, I’ll tell Ava everything."**

I dropped the letter.

My hands shook as I grabbed my phone and ran outside. The voicemail played again in my ear like a siren.

Ethan knew Lily. Not just knew her—he had some kind of twisted history with her. And she warned him. She was afraid of him.

Why didn’t she tell me?

And why did she die so suddenly?

I didn’t go back inside.

I went straight to the police.

They said they'd “look into it.” I didn’t wait.

I checked into a motel, my mind spinning. The voicemail, the letters, the lies. I couldn’t make sense of it.

That night, I got another call.

**Unknown Number. One new voicemail.**

Hands trembling, I played it.

More static.

Then:
“*He knows you found the letters.*”

My breath caught. I dropped the phone, staring at the screen in horror.

A soft knock came at the door.

“Ava?” Ethan’s voice, muffled through the wood. “Can we talk?”

I backed away, heart pounding.

The knocking grew louder.

I looked down. The phone buzzed again. Another voicemail was recording.

But I didn’t need to hear it.

I already knew what it would say.