Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
TASHA
The cell door shuts with a clang that feels like it rattles my bones. Panic climbs up my throat – a scream fighting to get out. I blink, taking in the space. I thought the interview room was bad, but this… this is worse.
The cell is barely bigger than a cupboard.
Pale-blue walls, cold concrete floor. A raised slab of the same, topped with a plastic-covered mat that reminds me of the gym mats Sofia uses at school.
There’s a stainless-steel toilet in the corner and a sink, and nothing else.
The fluorescent light overhead hums with an incessant pulse that adds to the pounding in my head. What the hell just happened?
Everything moved so fast. The rush to Keira’s house. Seeing the girls safe. The flood of relief. For one moment, it had felt like everything might be OK again. We’d done it. We’d found them. They were laughing. Happy.
Accusing Keira. Laying it all out. Everything she’d done.
And then… bam! It was me. The phone ringing in my bag.
The look on their faces – Georgie’s shock, Beth’s horror.
The betrayal I saw in their eyes. I tried to explain, to tell them they were wrong, but the words wouldn’t come fast enough.
I saw the wall go up between us, and I knew, in that moment, I’d already lost them.
Even Sató’s expression was hard, like she was convinced of my guilt too.
What happens now?
I close my eyes. Try to picture the vineyard Marc has bought – wide open skies, rows of vines catching the sun, the promise of space and calm and fresh air.
All those times I closed my eyes, wishing I was someone else – it wasn’t just open space and rolling hills; it was his vineyard I pictured.
I just couldn’t see it beneath the weight of everything I was carrying.
I can’t be here! My parents need me. My girls need me.
I press my palms into my knees and try to breathe.
The air smells faintly of bleach and something metallic.
Like blood. The thought curdles in my stomach.
Was I so wrapped up in keeping our secret from Georgie and Beth that I missed something?
So scared of my precious girls feeling that burn of rejection, of being pushed out of the friendship group and the Magnolia Close community like Lily—
I sit up. Jolted. Alert. My mind suddenly clear.
Lily was ostracised by everyone in Magnolia Close.
First the duck spring rolls, then Georgie’s missing ornament.
We convinced ourselves – thinking as one – all turning on her and Kevin.
We were so sure she’d stolen Georgie’s gold heart.
So righteous. Last week, I half wondered if someone set her up – someone angry at them for leaving. Like the owners of our house before us.
And now it’s me being set up. Not as a social outcast but as a murderer.
Someone has set me up to take the fall for Jonny’s murder.
It’s so extreme, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.
And yet it would mean someone knew what Marc was planning.
The only person he told in Magnolia Close was Jonny.
Could he have told someone in the close?
Or did the person with the secret camera pick up a conversation between them?
My heart thuds against my ribs. Cold sweeps through me. All this time, we’ve been speculating about what that camera caught the night of Jonny’s murder. But what if the person with the camera is responsible for more than just spying?
Yes, I left the PTA quiz that night. I was meant to be helping in the kitchen, but the noise, the heat, the crowd – it was too much.
My head was pounding, and all I could think about was Jonny.
I hated him. But I needed him too. I needed him to call his friend at the planning office and remove his objection.
That’s why I left the quiz. That’s why I went to his house.
Georgie was playing quiz master, and I could hear Beth in the toilet throwing up.
So I went. I ran. I knocked on his door.
I heard movement from inside, but he didn’t answer.
I knocked again. Louder. Firmer. But he still didn’t answer.
All I’d wanted was to talk to him. To beg him to help us.
I shiver, realizing the movement I heard in Jonny’s house must have been the real murderer.
A dog walker saw me that night. I no longer have an alibi.
My head spins.
What else do the police have on me? A motive. Opportunity. My dad’s missing sleeping pills. The phone used to send those messages in my bag. A bloody top that looks exactly like mine. I saw it in Beth and Georgie’s eyes. They think I’m guilty. Sató too. I don’t know how to make it right.
Yes, I hated Jonny. Yes, I wanted him dead. Yes, I went to his house that night.
But I didn’t kill him.
I didn’t do it.