Page 40 of You Lied First
‘I see the logic. I do. But we need to think through every step. How can we possibly get away with it?’ Sara says. ‘People will notice she’s missing. There’ll be a search … it’ll probably be in the papers. The kids will find out. Someone will connect us being here to her.’
‘We just say we were in Muscat, but we didn’t see her. No one else was in the compound. No one saw us. And we absolutely don’t mention that we went camping. Then the search will focus on Muscat.’
Sara gives a tiny nod, so Margot continues.
‘Look, it boils down to this: what are the chances she’ll befound out here in the middle of nowhere? Ask yourself that. I’m not sure we could find this spot again, even if we tried.’
Sara sighs. ‘Okay. But what about her family? They won’t have any closure. She’ll just go missing and never be found …’
Margot shrugs one shoulder. ‘I know. I feel the same, but …’
‘Collateral damage,’ Guy says. He sits down on the sand opposite Sara, his knees bent up. ‘Look, if it’s between saving us andourkids from a potential life in jail, or her parents from a life of worry – I’m sorry it’s not nice – I know which I choose.’
‘You know they’ll start making those appeals on telly,’ Sara says. ‘How will we feel then? When we see them weeping and begging for leads and we know where she is and we can’t say anything? What are we going to tell the kids then?’
‘We’ll act. We’re shocked that she went missing. But look: neither of the kids liked her that much anyway. I think you’re overestimating how much they’ll care.’
‘I worry how Liv will take it,’ Sara says. ‘I really hope it doesn’t trigger her anxiety again.’
‘We’ll handle it carefully, don’t worry,’ Guy says. ‘And we’ll also have to tell them that we can’t admit we were with Celine. I’ll explain how it works out here. Say we’d be wanted for questioning if we admitted we’d been hanging out with her and, as we don’t know what happened to her, we’re better off staying out of it.’
Sara doesn’t argue, so Guy continues. ‘Look, when we get back, they’re going straight into their mocks. They’re going to have other things on their minds. This will all fade away.’
Margot’s not sure he’s right about that but she stays quiet.
‘At the end of the day,’ Guy says, ‘I’ll do what I have to do for my family. As will any parent.’
Margot closes her eyes. She doesn’t like it, but shielding the kids from what’s happened is a really good call. All Margot wants to do right now is get them safely out of the way, so they can’t find out, and there’s no possibility that Flynn can be blamed. She’ll deal with the emotional fall-out and the explanations later, and she wishes Sara would stop overthinking it. It’s clear to Margot what needs to be done, however unsavoury, and they really need to get on
with it.
Guy peers back towards the big dune then looks at his watch. ‘They’ve already been gone ten minutes.’
‘And what if we do as you say and still get caught? Then what?’ Sara says. ‘It’s going to look a million times worse if they find her and it comes back to us. It’ll look like we murdered her.’
‘How can we possibly get caught?’ Guy says. ‘When she’s reported missing, they’ll be checking Muscat, maybe the surrounding areas – the police are not going to drive randomly all this way, to this exact spot and start digging. They’re just not.’
‘Okay, what if we cleared all evidence of our camp and just left her in the tent?’ Margot says. ‘Made it look like she was camping alone? So at least someone might find her and her family would have closure? Maybe some other campers?’
Guy shakes his head. ‘We can’t leave her out in the open. She’d be savaged by wild animals.’
Margot thinks about birds of prey pecking and ripping at Celine’s body.
‘Look,’ Guy says. ‘Whatever happens, she’s going to end up buried. She’s dead! We’ve got to do what’s right for us. So, what do you say? Do we have a plan?’
Sara stands up. ‘Give me a minute. I need to go through this in my head one more time. Make sure we’re not missing something crucial.’
32
SARA
Ineed to get away from the Forrests. Their constant ear-bending is stopping me from working out my own thoughts and I need to think through every angle of this for myself; I need to figure out what we need to do and what could go wrong. I need to be sure that they have my back; that they won’t turn on me once we’re home. And I need to know that I’m good with my decision because I’m hardly going to be able to change it later.
Holding up my hand to stop the Forrests from following me, I stumble through the sand and find a shady spot under a tree where I sit, leaning against the trunk, and hug my knees. I feel like I’m holding the nuclear codes in my hand while the world waits to hear its fate. I should have listened to my gut yesterday. We should have turned back after the tyre blew out. The universe was sending us signs. I knew it and I ignored it. Never has the phraseSara Sayshaunted me more.
When I consider the Forrests’ arguments, it’s obvious what we need to do if we want to get away scot-free, and the idea of that is very, very attractive. ButSara Saysis the sensible voice. The angel on your shoulder – not the devil. And the problem here is that the ‘right’ decision, the thing the angelvoice would tell you to do, is to take the difficult route: to stay and face the consequences. But the consequences of me ‘doing the right thing’ will impact all of our lives, possibly forever. Until Margot mentioned it, I hadn’t even thought about the death penalty, but this is the Middle East, so who knows? I shudder and squeeze my knees even tighter as my thoughts run in circles. Whatever I decide, we three adults have to be in agreement. We have to stick together or all five of us will find ourselves in trouble – way deeper than we can imagine.
‘Sara?’
