Page 60 of This Stays Between Us
“I’m going to go upstairs and call the hospital. See if there’s any way they’ll give us an update on Kyan’s condition,” Josh says.
Declan and I exchange a look. This is perfect. It will give us a chance to talk through everything that’s come to light in the last few hours.
***
“What did Phoebe do that ruined Adrien and Kyan’s lives?” I muse, staring into the amber liquid Declan’s poured in the glasses in front of us.
“I have no idea,” he responds. “But whatever it was, I bet it happened the night she went missing, given how angry the two of them looked in that video.”
“I think they may have killed her,” I whisper, barely loud enough for myself to hear, let alone Declan. But it’s as if he can tell what I’m thinking, just like he used to.
“No. There’s no way. They couldn’t have. Plus, Nick…”
“I’m not so sure anymore that Nick was responsible. He wasn’t the person that trapped me in the mine.”
Declan raises his eyebrows. I give him a brief summary of our earlier conversation.
“Wow,” Declan says, once I’ve finished. “And you believed him?”
“I did, surprisingly,” I say. “And I think you would have too. He was genuinely remorseful.”
Declan gives a slight laugh. “Well, who would have thought.”
“But you saw Kyan and Adrien on that video,” I say turning back to my first point. “If they had found her that night in the state they were in, they may have been angry enough to hit her, to use something and smash it over her head.”
“But maybe they didn’t,” Declan protests. “Find her, I mean. Maybe someone else got to her first.”
Declan’s gaze is fixed squarely on the glass in front of him. I take in the boyish freckles that still dot his face, the long chestnut curls that seem incapable of being tamed. I want to trust him completely, I do. I want to tell him everything, but something holds me back.
My mind flits back to our first time here in Jagged Rock. Up until then, I had been living on cloud nine. Declan and I had fallen easily into a relationship. We spent virtually every waking minute together, and all the others too, sleeping curled tightly in his arms on his hostel bed while Tomas was kind enough to bunk with Ellery.
It was everything I had ever wanted in a relationship, yet something I never even hoped for. Back home, guys didn’t even seem to notice me. And why would they? I was a quiet, introverted college student who lived with her mother and never went out. But here, in Australia, I was someone different. I channeled the confidence Phoebe had in those first few weeks, until it felt almost vampiric, as if I was draining her of her charm and extroversion as she retreated inward.
I wasn’t the best friend to her in those days. I know that.
Once Declan and I finally got together, our relationship pretty much consumed me. All the time, attention, and affection I oncehad for Phoebe I now directed at him. And then on top of it, she kept doing all that strange stuff to Adrien. First, that attempt at switching her pills, and then shoving Adrien in the bathroom in the Whitsundays in a drunken haze, the account of which Adrien repeated constantly to all of us.
I should have known then that there was something wrong, but instead of asking Phoebe about it, making sure she was okay, I distanced myself. I didn’t want the others—especially Declan—to associate me with her erratic behavior. I didn’t want to be blamed for her mistakes. It was selfish, and the thought of it now twists my stomach.
“You two doing okay?”
Luke’s voice startles me from my memories.
“Grand,” Declan says, raising his glass. “Care to join us?”
“I never turn down a drink,” Luke says, pulling up a stool as Declan pours another glass of whiskey and hands it to him.
“So, how are you two holding up after everything that happened?”
I notice my glass trembles slightly as I raise it to my lips. “A little shaken, but as good as can be expected I guess.”
“Who do you think did it?”
Luke’s question hits me with full force. Who, indeed? If I’m right, and whoever killed Phoebe is picking the rest of us off one by one, then my hypothesis that Kyan and Adrien were behind her death wouldn’t make sense. But who else could it be? And why?
Declan answers first. “No bloody idea.”
Luke sighs, takes another sip. “Can I ask you something?” He pauses as we nod. “What did Adrien mean about your friend,the one who died? She said she was a horrible person. What did she do?”
