Page 22 of What Have You Done?

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know, exactly. Kelly told me a while ago that she came to him and said Turner had been inappropriate with her. Kelly told me it was all just a misunderstanding. It was kept quiet. He only told me because he needed to talk to someone, and I’m the only one he confides in. Apparently that was the end of it. It was all kind of swept under the rug. I don’t even know if he put a record of it in his file.’

‘What did he do?’

‘That’s just it. I don’t know the extent of it – Kelly didn’t say – but he seems to think it was nothing. It’s just – I’m not sure he’s the best judge. It all got settled without anything official being done, so it couldn’t have been that bad, surely?’ She looks at her husband anxiously.

‘So – do you – are you afraid that the gym teacher might have killed Diana?’ He seems shocked.

‘I don’t know.’ She shakes her head. ‘I spoke to Kelly about it this afternoon. I asked him if he was going to mention Diana’s complaint to the police investigating her murder. Kelly wasn’t planning on telling them, but I convinced him he should.’

‘And?’

‘And he said he would tell the detectives. But he also implied that I was being terribly naïve, and that if it got out it would ruin Brad’s life for nothing – because he never did anything wrong and there’s no way he killed Diana.’ She looks at him now, worried. ‘Have I done the wrong thing? Should I have stayed out of it? I mean, just because he may have been inappropriate with Diana – and apparently there’s no proof that he was – it doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.’

Martin looks back at her, considering. ‘I don’t know.’

She doesn’t know either.

‘I guess it would depend on what he actually did, if anything – how serious it was.’

She doesn’t answer for a moment. She takes another gulp of wine. Then she says, ‘That’s just it – there’s never any real proof with this kind of thing – it all comes down to who’s telling the truth. To who you believe.’

Edward Farrell stands in the basement watching his wife’s back as she retreats up the stairs. She’s dropped this bombshell on him, and now she wants to just ignore it all, and not talk to their son about it? Cameron has lied to the police. He hesitates for a long moment, and then he charges up the stairs. He finds her in the kitchen. She doesn’t want to meet his eyes.

‘Shelby,’ he says, coming up close to her, his voice low and urgent, ‘Cameron didn’t do anything to Diana. We both know that.’ She looks up at him then, nodding. He pulls her into his arms and holds her, his heart pounding. He’s trying to think. His first instinct is to go upstairs and ask Cameron to explain. But that’s not what Shelby wants to do.

He’s suddenly afraid. Can they ignore this? Should they? There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe Cameron did lie about the time because of his curfew. He’s just a kid, and kids do stupid things, make bad decisions. Or maybe he lost track of time, and he thought it was much earlier, but Edward finds that hard to believe – he’s always got his phone in his hand; he always knows what time it is. As he holds his wife, he realizes with a sinking heart that while she might be able to live with not knowing, he can’t. He has to talk to their son. He releases her from his arms and speaks quietly.

‘Shelby, we have to talk to him about this.’

‘No! It’s better if we don’t know. I’m a terrible liar. You know that. What if the police bring me in and question me—’

He stares back at her, aghast. What the hell does she think their son did? He’s almost angry at her. ‘They won’t bring you in. He’s not a suspect.’

‘What makes you think that? They’re treating him like a suspect.’

‘They have to ask him questions! He was Diana’s boyfriend. He was the last one to see her. He’d just had sex with her. But I think that will be the end of it. They can’t honestly think it was him.’ Edward looks at his frightened wife. But if she can have doubts, what will the police think?

She starts to cry and collapses against his chest. He folds his arms around her again and makes a decision. ‘It’s okay,’ he whispers. ‘We won’t ask him. We’ll leave it alone. Everything is going to be all right. Cameron didn’t harm Diana, so it doesn’t matter if he lied about the time. They’ll find out who did it.’

But as he holds her, he decides uneasily that he will ask Cameron himself, when Shelby isn’t around. He will leave his wife out of it; he’ll tell Cameron that he heard him come in after one in the morning and get an explanation. And if he has to keep the answer to himself, to protect his wife, to protect his son, then he will.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

RILEY HAD TEXTED Evan and asked him to come over. Now she takes him into the TV room. Her mother has left them alone. Riley closes the door and drops onto the couch and sinks down beside him, exhausted. Then she looks at him and says, ‘I went over to Cameron’s house to talk to him tonight.’

He raises his eyebrows at her. ‘His parents didn’t let you see him, did they?’

‘I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I just barged in.’

‘Wow,’ Evan says. ‘I went over there this afternoon. They wouldn’t let me in, and I just left.’ He looks at her expectantly. ‘What did he say?’

She bites her lip nervously. She says, ‘I think he might have been lying.’

Now Evan seems wary, anxious. She can see the dismay in his face. ‘Why? What did he say?’

‘He said that everything was fine between him and Diana, and that when he left her at home, around eleven, everything was good.’

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