Page 53 of What Have You Done?

‘You don’t need a truck to go to the church from your place,’ Stone observes.

‘I told you – I drove around for a while first,’ Cameron says.

‘Right,’ Stone says, obviously not buying it. ‘We know you were in Diana’s backyard that night. We think that whoever killed her moved her body out through the back of the house and across the empty field to an abandoned road, where he had a vehicle waiting. You must know about that road, Cameron. You grew up here.’

‘No, I didn’t know about it.’

‘Stop lying to me, Cameron. It’s like a reflex with you.’

Brad is in a state. Ellen doesn’t want to see him. She hasn’t answered his calls or texts. He doesn’t want to leave the apartment, now that all this shit has hit the news. He’s lost his fiancée, and he’s clearly going to lose his job and probably his teaching certification too. He thinks it’s time to get himself an attorney. He’s searched online and chosen a couple to call. He needs Kelly to keep his damn mouth shut.

The detectives arrive with a search warrant and a team early Monday evening. He looks at the warrant carefully before he lets them begin. But there’s nothing he can do to stop them.

It doesn’t take them long to search the small apartment, but it’s one of the worst experiences of Brad’s life, worse even than the interviews he’s been subjected to at the police station. They tear everything apart as he watches, helpless. He’s worried that they might try to plant evidence – something of Diana’s. He doesn’t trust the police. He tries to keep an eye on each of them, but they’re everywhere all at once. He watches them, while Detective Stone watches him. ‘What are you looking for?’ Brad asks.

But the detective doesn’t answer. Detective Stone doesn’t search much himself; he just wanders around rather aggressively, glancing here and there, letting the others ransack his apartment with abandon. But they find nothing. Brad feels the most tremendous relief.

After they leave, he reaches for his phone with trembling hands and calls an attorney.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Monday, Oct. 24, 2022, 7 p.m.

Everything is so different now. The world feels as if it just stopped when Diana died and then started spinning in the opposite direction. Nothing is the way it used to be. I don’t know what to think about anybody any more.

I think about Cameron a lot, stuck in his house, not talking to anyone except the police. We used to be close friends, but he changed when he started going out with Diana. We could all see it. It took Diana the longest, but she got there in the end.

Cameron’s always been a bit full of himself because he’s so good-looking and athletic – a sports star. That’s what matters around here. It all seems to come so easily to him. But I never thought he was particularly bright. I’m thinking about that text and whether Cameron could have sent it. Riley says the detectives thought it was a sign of hubris, and yes, I can see that. Would Cameron be that arrogant? Possibly. It’s a fact that people tend to think good-looking people are smarter than they are – I read that somewhere. But I haven’t seen him since Diana died. I don’t know how he’s handling all this. Riley saw him, and she said he seemed devastated and lost, but I suppose he could have been putting on an act. I just don’t know.

I’m worried about Riley. It’s funny – I never thought I’d worry about her. She’s never seemed to be someone anybody would have to worry about. She’s very capable and self-reliant. Strong. But Diana’s death has really thrown her. And this thing about the text has really frightened her. She seems to be falling apart more and more by the day. She doesn’t think she can manage the burial, on Wednesday, but I have told her she has to try. I told her that I will be there to support her.

All that competitive stuff between us has disappeared. Who cares about school and marks and academic prizes when Diana is dead? Riley is very different from Diana. Not as buoyant and carefree. But she is beautiful, too, in her own way.

That stuff about the Ouija board, though – it’s all very weird. It seems to have upset Riley even more. I wish she wouldn’t think about that stuff. I think she should see one of the counsellors at school. It might help. I suggested it to her today, but she said she didn’t feel like going back to school. I told her she had to go back sometime, and she just shrugged. I told her I was going to start going back to classes regularly tomorrow, and that she could just text me if she needed me and I’d be there.

I was at school for a bit this afternoon and all people were talking about was Mr Turner. And now – it was in the news tonight – another girl has come forward with complaints about him. They’re not saying who she is because she’s a minor. Just how much of a creep is he? Could he be a murderer?

I hope they get to the bottom of all this and identify Diana’s killer. She deserves justice. But even if they find out who did this, she’ll never get her life back. And we’ll never get her back in our lives either.

Edward Farrell decides to tell his wife everything. He can’t carry this heavy load alone.

The police had found nothing in their search of their home and truck that afternoon. Edward wasn’t surprised by this because Cameron hadn’t seemed particularly worried about the search. But that evening, sitting at the kitchen table, while Cameron is closeted in his room, Edward tells Shelby what happened at the police station – about the missing phone, and the text.

Shelby looks back at him in fear.

‘He told them he went to the graveyard, to be alone,’ he says. She stares back at him, her eyes large, her face drained of colour.

‘What?’ she whispers. ‘But he told you he was at the field that they used to go to, near the Ressler farm.’

He swallows. ‘I told him not to tell them where he really was. It looks … bad.’

‘But he doesn’t have her phone,’ Shelby says. ‘They didn’t find it.’

He can’t believe he has to spell this out for her. Her mind can’t be working properly – it’s the fear. ‘No, not here.’ He watches as it dawns on her, and she becomes even more frightened.

‘You think he hid it somewhere else.’

‘He says he doesn’t have it,’ Edward says tersely. ‘But what if he does? What if he sent that text? But why the fuck would he? I’m pretty sure that’s what the detectives think.’

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