16. Alicia

"I have good mind to leave you two and the dogs here and drive back to Melbourne," Jessica said crossly. "I don't understand how it can smell so bad. My eyes are watering."

They'd had to pull over and stand in the ditch at the side of the highway while they waited for the smell to clear from Jessica's car. Jessica's complete inability to see the funny side had Alicia and Norah in stitches.

"You bought the treats!" Norah said, wiping tears of laughter from her own eyes.

"I didn't know they would eat the whole bag!"

"I used to know a lot of fart jokes," Alicia said, "but I stopped telling them because everyone said they stunk."

She and Norah doubled over, laughing so hard Norah nearly toppled over. Jessica rolled her eyes, desperately trying to repress her smile. Alicia loved it when they made Jessica laugh. It was a rare treat. There was something about the whole interaction that fortified Alicia. When they finally got back on the road, it was with all four windows down and a sense that things weren't quite as bad as they had been a few minutes earlier.

When they were about twenty minutes from Port Agatha, Alicia decided to make a few work calls. Despite it being the weekend, she couldn't help but check in on Theo.

"Trish!" Alicia said, when the woman answered her phone. She closed the window of the car so she could hear better. "I'm glad I've caught you. How's Theo?"

"Better, thanks to Aaron," Trish replied. "Theo is quite infatuated with him. Won't leave the kid alone. Aaron would never admit it, but I think the feeling's mutual."

"Yes, I got that sense," Alicia said. "Listen, I've managed to get Theo an emergency appointment with an amazing pediatric psych. I'll text you the details. By the way, it looks like Theo's parents are going to relinquish parental rights, which means he'll be put up for adoption." Alicia paused. "I don't suppose you'd…"

Trish's response was swift. "Alicia, you know I'd love to, but I'm too old to be adopting babies now. Besides, people will be chomping at the bit for him, surely?"

Alicia knew what she meant. There would be no shortage of people wanting to adopt a two-year-old, who was white, cute, and had no known additional needs. Still, it wouldn't have felt right to move a traumatized child who was just starting to settle without asking the question at least.

She heard the sound of children squealing in the background. "Is that him?"

"Yep. Terrorizing Aaron."

Alicia smiled. "Remind me, who's Aaron's caseworker?"

"Louise? Louise something, I think. I have it written down somewhere. Why?"

"Just wondering." Alicia didn't know a Louise, but she made a mental note to track her down. She often did this, when she interacted with a kid who she wasn't officially responsible for. In Alicia's experience, the more people who cared about a kid, the better.

"I know you'll find Theo a good home, Alicia," Trish said out of the blue. "They always do well, the kids in your care."

"Thanks, Trish," Alicia managed through the lump in her throat.

But after she hung up, she wondered if Trish was right to have so much faith in her. Of course she would try to find Theo a wonderful home. But how would she really know? How sure could they ever really be that a foster home was good? It was a question that plagued her, day in and day out. After all, from the outside, Wild Meadows had seemed very good.

She dropped her phone into her bag. "I don't suppose you would consider adopting a two-year-old?" she said to Jessica.

"I've told you, I don't have the capacity. I run a business."

"Lots of working parents raise foster kids," Alicia replied.

"Great," Jessica said. "Then you do it."

"I live in a rented one-bedroom apartment!"

"So buy a house," Norah said from the back seat. "Jessica will pay."

"I will," Jessica said eagerly.

"Jessica is not buying me a house," Alicia said irritably.

She only wished her reasons for not adopting were as simple as accommodation. How could Alicia welcome a child into her life when she couldn't even have a proper relationship with an adult? She couldn't risk it. The stakes were too high.

"This is the turn-off!" Norah cried, pointing at the sign to Port Agatha. "Jess—here! Turn left. Here."

It was as if Jessica hadn't heard. Her hands were clutching the steering wheel, her gaze fixed straight ahead.

Alicia put a hand on her forearm. "Jess."

"I know. Just… give me a sec."

"You can do this," Alicia told her. "Norah and I are here."

"Okay." Jessica exhaled. "All right."

The turn was so late and so sharp that the dogs slid across the back seat, hitting the opposite door before landing in a pile in the footwell.

"Sorry," Jessica said to Norah, with an anxious glance in the mirror, as if bracing for her wrath. Alicia braced for it too. But to her surprise, Norah leaned forward, putting her hand on Jessica's arm where Alicia's had been a moment earlier.

"You did it," she said with uncharacteristic earnestness. "I'm proud of you."

Port Agatha was a small farming community two hours from Melbourne, comprising rural properties and a small township. According to the last census, it had a population of three thousand two hundred and eighty-five people. On the drive into town, they passed the Country Fire Authority building, a pair of tennis courts, a barbecue area, and a decrepit playground. Finally, they reached the local police station.

"I remember this place," Norah said.

The police station hadn't changed since the last time they were in Port Agatha, but the buildings around it had. Back then, the squat, 1970s flat-roofed single-story building had a concrete parking lot on one side and a paddock on the other. Now it was nestled between a coffee shop and one of those general stores that existed in every country town—the kind that sold everything from lawn chairs to hardware supplies to romance novels. Farther along the street were a hairdresser, a fish-and-chips shop, a newsagent, and a secondhand bookstore. Directly across from the police station was a beautiful, but weathered, old pub.

When they pulled up in the gravel car park, there was a pause as they each gazed out to the street. Even the dogs seemed suddenly pensive. No one was willing to make the first move out of the car, until Alicia broke the silence with an audible sigh.

"Right," she said. "Let's go."

As they made their way toward the station, Norah wrangling the dogs, Alicia's phone beeped with a voice message from Meera. Receiving a message from Meera here in Port Agatha felt jarring, like a bizarre clashing of worlds—a wedding and a funeral, a birth and a death. Her thumb hovered over the message for a second before she returned the phone to her pocket. Even though it was undoubtedly about work, Meera's messages needed to be savored. Cherished. Not listened to on the fly while approaching her worst nightmare.

Three detectives—two men and a woman—greeted them in the foyer of the police station, which smelled of curry and cigarettes.

"We really appreciate you coming in today," the female detective said. "I'm Ashleigh Patel, I spoke to you on the phone. This is Detective Hando and this is Detective Tucker."

They greeted each other with nods of the head. Hando was forty-odd, with sandy hair and stubble. Tucker looked to be in his fifties, with a gray mustache. Detective Patel was the youngest and the most impressive, in heels and a severe-looking ponytail, which told Alicia this team wasn't local to Port Agatha.

"I like your mustache," Norah said to Tucker.

Norah had always had a mustache fetish, ever since they were kids. She told them she'd read somewhere that men with mustaches were more trustworthy—but once, after a couple of drinks, she'd admitted that she merely found them sexy. Alicia hoped she wouldn't ask if she could touch it.

"Thank you," Tucker said, after a brief, puzzled pause. "My wife hates it." His gaze went faraway for a moment, as if he were thinking about his wife.

"Anyway," Patel continued, "we're from the homicide squad in Melbourne, but we've set up an office here for this investigation."

"Homicide?" Jessica said. "So you think the person was… murdered?"

"We think it's possible," Patel said. "That's what we're here to find out."

There was a short silence as they all digested this. Jessica got it together first.

"Well," she said, "we're hoping this won't take long. We all have responsibilities in Melbourne that we need to get back to."

"We understand," Patel said. "And I can assure you, we'll get through our questions as quickly as possible." Thong jumped up on Patel's black suit. "Ooof. Hello."

"Are these your dogs?" Hando asked, kneeling beside Converse and scratching his chin. "They're gorgeous. Unfortunately we can't have dogs in the interview rooms."

"They're service dogs," Norah said, without missing a beat. "So they have to stay with us."

Patel looked at the mutts dubiously. "These are service dogs?"

"Yes," Norah said serenely.

One of the things that Alicia had always admired about Norah was the fact that she was a committed liar. Not to be confused with a good liar; Norah's gift was the ability to come up with a lie on the spur of the moment and remain committed to it against all logic and reason.

"For…?"

The pause was negligible. "Irritable bowel syndrome."

The detectives exchanged a look. Hando, still stroking the dog's chin, snorted. "You have service dogs for IBS?"

"Of course."

"And you require three?"

"One each," Norah said. "And I suggest you open a window in the interview rooms."

Jessica broke into a sudden coughing fit. Alicia patted her back.

Patel glanced at her colleagues, who appeared just as bewildered as she was. "And you all have a diagnosis, I take it?"

Norah nodded. "You can call our doctors, if you like." She reached for her phone, which, Alicia had to admit, was a nice touch.

"That won't be necessary," Patel said. "Would you and your, er, service dogs like to follow us?"

Patel led them to a small room with a wooden desk, a fiddle-leaf fig, and a window that overlooked the parking lot. Couch immediately ran inside and peed on the plant.

"Jessica," Patel said, "you'll be in here with me. Detective Hando will take Norah and—"

"You're splitting us up?" Jessica interrupted. She looked utterly panicked.

Norah, looking equally stressed, bent over to rub Thong's belly.

"We need to interview you separately, yes," Patel said.

Alicia had expected this, but the prospect of being separated from her sisters—in Port Agatha—triggered anxiety in her too. It was almost as if the clock had wound back twenty-five years. They were all young girls, begging to be believed. Except this time they weren't children. This time, they were going to demand to be heard.

"Okay." Jessica clapped her hands and smiled brightly at her sisters. "Let's do this."

Detective Tucker crossed his legs, exposing the white sports socks that he'd already apologized for. Apparently, he'd forgotten to pack black ones. He didn't seem like a detective. He reminded Alicia of a kindly uncle, with his unkempt graying hair and weathered skin.

"Let's start at the beginning, Alicia. How did you end up at Wild Meadows?"

Alicia had agreed that the interview could be recorded, and they'd been through all the official stuff—confirming the date, the location and the names of those present.

"I was a respite case," Alicia said. "My grandmother had a fall and was taken to hospital, so there was no one to take care of me."

"A respite case?" Tucker said. "So you weren't in the home for long?"

"I wasn't supposed to be. But as it turned out, I stayed."

Tucker glanced nervously at Thong, whose huge head was resting on one of his feet. "And why was that?"

"My grammy," Alicia said, with a wobble in her voice, "she… she didn't come out of hospital."

"My condolences."

It felt so ridiculous to be receiving condolences. It happened when she was a little girl, and now she was in her mid-thirties. She should be over it by now. She should be over everything that happened at Wild Meadows.

"Can you tell me about your relationship with Miss Fairchild?" Tucker asked, after a respectful silence.

"We didn't have a relationship."

"Oh?" Tucker's bushy eyebrows leapt up toward his hairline. "How so?"

"You can't have a relationship with a monster."

Tucker's expression became concerned. Alicia crossed her arms in front of herself—a makeshift shield.

"I'm sorry, Alicia, but I'm going to have to ask you to tell me about it."

She nodded. She'd known this was coming. But it wasn't until Thong moved over to lie at her feet that she was able to open her mouth and start.