Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Morgan felt awful that she had to go and speak to Tori again so soon, but she needed to know more. Plus, without Tori’s dad being present, it hadn’t been a proper statement just a first account.
She got out of the car and locked it; the family lived in a bungalow which surprised Morgan.
She imagined them living in a trendy new build.
As she approached, she heard a dog barking and scrabbling furiously at the front door.
It was mainly glass and she felt relieved to see a small dog and not some huge Rottweiler.
She didn’t need to knock – the door opened and Tori’s dad was standing there in a pair of red tartan lounge pants and a faded Aerosmith band T-shirt.
He had obviously got changed the moment he walked in the door.
The dog had been scooped up in one arm and was still barking.
‘Hi, I’m sorry to disturb you.’
‘I knew you’d have to come back at some point. I didn’t think it would be so soon though; there is no getting away with it. Have you found Scarlett yet? Shut up, Treacle.’ He growled at the dog.
She shook her head. ‘Unfortunately, not. How is Tori? Is she okay to give me a statement now she’s home in a familiar environment, do you think?’
‘She’s in her room, went straight up there when we got home. I’ve taken her favourite tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches up, but she’s barely touched them. It might do her good to talk about it with you because she told me to get out.’
Morgan felt bad for him; it must be difficult not knowing what to do or say, and teenage girls could be hard work at the best of times.
‘You know, it’s at times like this I wish her mum was here instead of living the high life in Las Vegas, but I suppose I should be grateful that she didn’t take her with her and leave me alone. That would have killed me. Come inside, it’s freezing out here.’
Morgan walked in and was surprised, the bungalow had been extended and was a huge open-plan living-dining room and kitchen. All tastefully decorated in muted tones of taupe and cream.
‘Wow, this is like the Tardis. It looked tiny from the outside; you have a beautiful home, Mr Mather.’
His cheeks flushed pink. ‘Thanks, I tried to make it as good as I could. I didn’t want Tori living somewhere she was embarrassed to bring her friends. Always trying to overcompensate for the fact that her mum left her.’
She felt bad for him and smiled. ‘Well, you’re doing a great job.’
‘Not that great, she thought it was okay to lie to me about where she was sleeping and then go running around in the middle of the night with her friends and not tell me where she was going.’
‘Kids, well teenagers, don’t see the world like we do. They have no idea of the evil that stalks it. Being an adult is the opposite, all we see is danger and worry in every mundane thing. I miss the innocence of being sixteen and carefree.’
He smiled at her. ‘Thanks, you’re right. Me too, I never expected my life to turn out the way it did. I was never getting married or having kids, then before I knew it, I was a single dad, with a sixteen-year-old daughter who listens to no one.’
‘Bet you wish you hadn’t had me.’ Tori was standing at an open bedroom door, and Morgan felt bad. How long had she been listening to their conversation?
‘Hey, how are you doing, Tori?’
She shrugged and walked to the sofa, flopping onto it and tucking her legs underneath her. She was a much better colour than she’d been in hospital and had a pale pink, fluffy dressing gown on.
‘Have you found Scarlett?’
‘Not yet, but we will.’
Tori nodded. ‘Alive?’
‘I hope so.’
Tori rolled her eyes. ‘Just like Scarlett to cause even more drama than there already is.’
Morgan sat near to Tori, her interest well and truly piqued at that statement. Maybe things weren’t as happy between them as she’d initially thought.
‘Does she usually cause drama?’
Tori shrugged. ‘Sometimes, she was all over Dawson in the car when he was driving. It’s her fault that he didn’t see the girl that ran across the road.
If she hadn’t been flirting with him, he wouldn’t have almost run her over.
Then we wouldn’t have gone out searching for her to see if she was hurt, and Dawson wouldn’t be…
’ Her voice caught in the back of her throat, and Morgan reached out, gently clasping hold of her fingers, holding her hand.
‘It’s nobody’s fault, Scarlett didn’t know that was going to happen, neither did Dawson. Did you find the girl?’
Tori shook her head. ‘No sign of her, but it was so misty we couldn’t even see each other properly. It was so stupid being out there like that.’
‘Are you sure it was a girl? What makes you think it was?’
‘I don’t know, I didn’t see her, it’s just what Dawson shouted out.’
‘Did Scarlett see her?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Did Dawson say what she looked like?’
‘Just that she was really tall, thin and dressed in grey.’
‘Why did you decide to get out of the car if the weather was so awful? I’m sorry to ask you, Tori, but I need to get a clear picture of what happened before Dawson was attacked, so I can try and make sense of it.’
She shrugged. ‘Because we were idiots, that’s why.’
‘Could it have been someone running away and trying to escape from the person who killed Dawson, do you think? Could it have been another victim?’
Tori was shaking her head. ‘If she was, wouldn’t she have tried to get into the car and ask for help?
I mean, if Dawson almost took her out, she would have been relieved to see us.
She could have got into the car, and we could have locked the doors and got the fuck out of there.
’ Tori glanced at her dad then back at Morgan, then continued.
‘Why would she have carried on running into the fields and towards that lake? It doesn’t make sense. ’
‘It doesn’t, although sometimes when people are scared, they can act out of character and the fear makes their thoughts cloudy. We can do stuff we wouldn’t normally dream of. Maybe she didn’t know who you were and thought that whoever was chasing her was in the car.’
‘Maybe, but—’
‘But?’ asked Morgan.
‘Well, there was no sign of her, and we called out a couple of times when we got onto the grounds of the summer camp. Surely, she’d have known we weren’t the person chasing her.
It’s supposed to be haunted. What if Dawson saw a ghost and not a person?
What if all of this happened because some ghost was going about their business and we interrupted them? ’
She was holding Morgan’s gaze so intensely that Morgan wanted to look away. She couldn’t; she stared back at her and nodded. ‘Maybe it was.’
‘You believe in ghosts?’ Tori scoffed.
‘I believe that there are things out there we can’t explain, so yes, why not.’
Tori’s dad was shaking his head. ‘All of this happened because you saw a ghost. Christ, are you for real? Just admit it, Tori, what happened? Did you lose your shit with Scarlett over Dawson finally and have an argument that resulted in Dawson nearly crashing the car and then you all got out and stormed off in separate directions? Because that I find easier to believe than the ghost of some long dead grey woman running across the road.’
Morgan’s mouth was dropping open at this revelation, and she had to snap it shut.
‘For God’s sake, Dad, no it wasn’t. I mean I was annoyed with her, but it didn’t cause Dawson to slam his brakes on. She almost broke her nose and was pissed off with him after that.’
He shrugged and his gaze met Morgan’s.
‘You didn’t mention this before?’ Morgan asked, her voice soft.
‘I was frozen almost to death. I heard my friend get his head smashed in and I ran to save my own life. I feel so bad I left him that I didn’t want to think about it.’
‘You did what you had to do, Tori. If you’d gone to help Dawson, you would be dead too. Don’t beat yourself up at running away. It was the right thing to do. It wasn’t your job to stop whoever this was.’
‘Was it?’ Tori was crying silent tears and there was no mistaking the hurt in her eyes and the look of betrayal on her face.
‘Scarlett is dead. She would have been screaming so loud you’d have heard her from here if she wasn’t, and a part of me feels glad that she is because if it hadn’t been for her, me and Dawson would have been a thing, but she was always there.
Interfering, and I’m a horrible person for feeling that way, so maybe you should lock me up.
How do you know I didn’t kill them both? ’
Morgan was shocked by Tori’s outburst, but not fazed by it, she took hold of her hand and studied it closely.
‘Whoever killed Dawson would have been covered in blood spatter, their hands would have been bloody, their clothes too. When Amos found you, you were frozen and scared to death. You didn’t kill your friends.’
Tori began to cry. ‘No, but I may as well have. I wished Scarlett would leave us alone forever, she knew how I felt about Dawson and she would flirt with him on purpose to make me mad, she was flirting with him that night and I was so upset with her and now look at what’s happened. It’s my fault.’