Page 37 of You Lied First
‘We should have taken her to a hospital! It’s on you that we didn’t!’
‘Don’t,’ Guy says, and his eyes are dark with anger. ‘Don’t you dare turn this on me. You know we couldn’t.’
They’re staring at each other, breathing hard. Margot looks away.
‘We cannot let Flynn feel responsible for this,’ she says.
‘Hey, hey, no one’s blaming Flynn,’ Sara says, holding her hands up.
Margot whirls on her. ‘He was the one driving yesterday. How do you think the authorities will view that?’ she says. ‘Can you tell me that they won’t blame my son? A teenager without a licence driving a quad bike? And that’s without factoring in the drinking. I’ve a fair idea of how that will go down with the police here.’
‘We could say someone else was driving.’
‘It won’t change a thing. We still have a dead body on our hands.’ She gasps. ‘And what if therewasan invisible injury?’
Sara swallows. ‘Maybe there was,’ she says. ‘As I said yesterday, I’m not qualified. I did my best, that’s all.’
‘It’s not your fault in any way,’ Guy says.
‘He’s right,’ Margot says. ‘If we had concerns, we should have taken both of them to a hospital last night, and you’re the one who said we should. But…’ She looks at Guy as she says this, ‘we decided that wasn’t necessary.’
‘We couldn’t drive anywhere.’ Guy puts his hands on his hips defiantly. ‘We were pissed. We would never have found the road – you saw how dark it was. We’d have killed ourselves trying. And where is the nearest hospital anyway? One that’s open that time of night? Tens if not hundreds of kilometres away. We did all we could.’ He holds his hands up, palms facing the two women. ‘Look, none of us is to blame. What we need to do right now, before the kids come back, is come up with a plan.’
Sara looks at Guy as if she’s never seen him before. ‘What do you mean, “a plan”? Surely we have to call the police?’
‘Uh-uh,’ Guy says, shaking his head. ‘Nope. We need to think very carefully how we’re going to handle this. There are two things to think about. One: what we do about Celine. And two: what we tell the kids. They’re going to be back very soon and …’ He pauses and looks from Sara to Margot and back. ‘I, for one, don’t think they need to know about this.’
‘What?’ Margot says. ‘How? How can we possibly not let them know one of us is dead?’ But even as she says it, she wants to know the answer because if she can protect Flynn from this, she’ll do anything. Anything. She swings her arm towards the tent. ‘How can we pretend this didn’t happen?’ She pictures them propping up a dead Celine on the back seat as they drive back to Muscat and shakes her head. ‘You’re out of your mind if you think they won’t notice.’
‘Even if we somehow hide it from them here, surely they’llfind out eventually?’ Sara says. ‘It’ll be in the news. The papers love stuff like this.’ She wipes the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Trust me, when she’s reported missing, it’s going to blow up. The kids will ask why we didn’t tell them. We’ll look like we lied to them – or worse, that we were covering something up. How can we possibly keep it from them?’
‘Listen to me,’ Guy says. ‘For now, let’s buy ourselves some time. Then we can decide what we’re going to do about … her. Okay?’ He pauses and waits till he gets a nod from Sara and Margot. ‘Okay, good. So, when they come back, we tell them she’s still sleeping. Sleeping off her hangover or whatever. Sara, you “take another look” at Flynn to check for concussion, and you find that his pupils are enlarged, or something. Or you tell him he’s looking peaky, or his reflexes are slow. Say anything. I’ll say why don’t one of us take him and Liv back to Muscat early to get him checked out while the others clear up the camp and follow.’
Shocked as Margot is with the speed at which Guy’s come up with this plan, she’s already on board with it. She’ll do anything she can to keep Flynn from blaming himself. She watches Sara’s eyes narrow as she processes the idea. Guy’s words are bound to hit home with her, too. It’s always about the kids.
‘And you’d actually take him to the hospital?’ Sara asks. ‘Because if you arrive at the hospital talking about a quad bike accident, and Celine is dead in our desert camp …’
‘Okay,’ says Guy. ‘Good point. So, when we get to Muscat, I’ll ask Flynn how he feels. He’ll say he’s fine –because he is fine. And we know how much he hates hospitals, so I’ll checkhis pupils or whatever, say I agree, and suggest we skip it. It’s doable. He won’t want to go any more than I want to take him.’
‘What if he’s not fine?’ Margot interrupts. ‘I mean, she clearly wasn’t.’ She indicates with her thumb towards the tent. ‘Maybe it was a lot worse than we thought.’
‘He’s fine,’ Guy says firmly. ‘This is probably nothing to do with what happened yesterday. She could have had alcohol poisoning for all we know, or mixed medication with all that booze. But that’s not the point right now.’
‘So, one of you takes the kids,’ Sara says slowly as she figures out what Guy’s proposing. ‘And then what? The other calls the police and stresses that it was an accident?’ She frowns then looks from Margot to Guy. ‘Look, I’m not one to cover things up, and of course I’d normally never consider doing anything like this, but maybe we could move her to the dunes so it looks like she went for a walk last night, while we were asleep, and we only found her this morning?’ She grimaces. ‘I mean, it’s a bit dodge but it might mean we’re not implicated so much when the police come …’ She clucks her tongue. ‘But then we’ll still have to tell the kids about Celine when we get back to Muscat and they’d be suspicious because they know she fell off the quad bike…’
But Guy is shaking his head firmly. ‘Stop right there. Sorry, but we can’t call the police. Absolutely not.’
‘Are you serious?’ Sara says with a hand over her mouth. ‘Like, just do a runner?’
It sounds appalling, but Margot knows Guy’s right. It’s the only way if they don’t want to end up in jail. They have a dead body on their hands. The police will have questions and whowill they turn to if not the people who were with Celine when she died? If they call the police now, they won’t be home any time soon. Flynn will likely blame himself for Celine’s death, and neither of the kids will be sitting their mocks in January. They’ll all be held until the police have answers and, should Celine be found to be injured … Margot can’t even bear to think how that would play out. Flynn’s nearly eighteen. Nearly an adult.
She’s about to say this but then she hears voices. She turns and sees the kids loping back across the sand, holding hands and laughing, ready for their breakfast.
‘They’re coming! What are we going to do?’ Margot rarely panics but now she’s rooted to the spot, unable to think, her brain a cup of noodles.
‘I’ll handle it,’ Guy says. ‘Act normal. Both of you.’
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