30. Norah

Norah stood outside the cottage watching the dogs bound across the grass, pissing on cars, and digging up garden beds. She hadn't heard back from Kevin since sending the photo—he hadn't even double-tapped on it. She assumed this was a good thing; perhaps he was going to wait until he'd spoken to the cops and got the complaint dropped before replying? Still, she would have preferred it if he'd confirmed receipt.

"Is Jessica still not ready?" Alicia called. She was standing by the car, having already been to reception to check them out.

"Nope," Norah replied.

Alicia looked perplexed. "Is she ill?"

"That's what I said!"

Jessica had slept through her alarm, which never happened. Usually, she and Alicia gave her hell for even setting an alarm, since her body clock was more reliable than anything Steve Jobs could create, but this morning, after listening to her alarm beeping for several minutes from the next room, Norah sent the dogs in to rouse her. Jessica had complained bitterly about Thong's morning breath, but then a few seconds later she'd gone back to sleep.

"Are you ill?" Norah had demanded when she went in herself a few minutes later.

Jessica didn't have a fever, or a cough, or sore throat. She was just tired, she said. A reasonable excuse, and one Norah might have accepted from anyone else, but Jessica didn't get tired. She was wound up too tight to get tired.

"Sorry!" Jessica said breathlessly, stumbling out of the cottage. She unlocked the car. "What did I miss?"

"Us talking about you sleeping in," Norah said. "I feel like I'm in an alternative universe."

Norah rounded up the dogs and then they all got into the car. As Jessica slipped into the driver's seat, she threw her phone into the center console. "You're always telling me to chill out," she said, starting the car. "Now I do and you both freak out."

"We assumed you couldn't chill," Norah explained. "Like a penguin can't fly. I imagine you'd freak out too if penguins suddenly started flying."

Jessica frowned, contemplating that as she turned out of the parking lot onto the highway. Norah was disappointed when Jessica's phone started to ring. She'd been hoping for a compliment on her clever penguin analogy.

"Leave it!" Jessica cried, when Alicia reached for Jessica's phone. Her voice was so loud and abrupt that even the dogs startled. Alicia raised her hands as if in surrender. "I can't deal with work right now, okay?" Jessica added. "I need coffee first."

A few beats passed as they listened to the insistent ringtone. Norah and Alicia's eyes met in the mirror.

"Are you okay, Jess?" Alicia asked when the phone was silent.

"Of course I am. Why?"

"You're acting weird," Norah said.

"In case you hadn't noticed," she said, as her phone started to ring again, "the circumstances are pretty weird."

She pressed a button to decline the call. Immediately it rang again. The moment it stopped, Jessica turned off the phone and put it into the glove box.

Norah and Alicia's eyes met in the mirror again.

"Shut up!" Jessica said, even though neither of them had spoken.

As they pulled up in front of the police station, Norah received a message from Kevin.

Nice, but not exactly what I had in mind.

Norah stared at the message. What the actual fuck? She inhaled deeply and wrote: What did you have in mind?

Three dots appeared immediately.

Norah clenched her teeth as she imagined his delighted weaselly smile, his revolting weaselly hard-on.

I was thinking video.

Perhaps it was the thought of the weaselly hard-on, but Norah gagged. Seriously? This guy, who didn't even deserve her boob pic, wanted a video? Every instinct urged Norah to tell him to take his weaselly hard-on and go fuck himself. But she couldn't. She couldn't even tell her sisters what was happening. She felt like she was being squeezed. Like she was back in that space under the stairs where Miss Fairchild used to lock her.

What kind of video?

He was clearly prepared for this, because his long response appeared only seconds later. Norah considered herself to be sexually liberated. She understood fetishes and role-play and BDSM. Even so, reading the message, she gasped.

"What is it?" Alicia asked from the front seat.

"Nothing. Just… a funny TikTok."

Norah read the message again. Judging by what he was suggesting, he watched a lot of very intense porn. For the first time in a long time, she felt tears—angry tears—stinging her eyes.

She took a deep breath.

Have you spoken to the police about the assault? Told them I didn't do it?

His reply was swift.

Not yet.

Mother fucker. How do I know you'll do it after this?

Another swift reply.

You have my word.

His word? Norah wanted to reply and tell him exactly what she thought of his word. But what choice did she have other than to trust him?

They pulled into the parking lot of the police station. As they got out of the car, Norah noticed that Patel and Hando were crossing the street, holding takeaway coffees. Hando had spilled his and was wiping uselessly at a coffee stain on his white shirt.

"Stupid lids," Hando said to them as they emerged from the car. "Don't get coffee from that place. This is the second time it's happened!"

Patel had also spilled her coffee, Norah noticed, but she didn't mention it. She avoided looking at them as they made their way toward the doors of the station. Norah wondered what was eating her. She'd seemed fine last night when she'd escorted Miss Fairchild out of the pub. Perhaps, like Jessica, she was just tired.

Tucker, who must have been waiting in reception, opened the door as they approached and filed in with the dogs at their heels. For a moment, they stood in the foyer while Hando and Patel attempted to clean themselves up.

"How is everyone this morning?" Hando asked, grabbing some tissues from the front desk.

"Tired," Jessica said.

Hando dabbed at his shirt with the tissues, nodding. "It's always hard to sleep after hearing confronting news."

"I didn't sleep well either," Patel said, accepting the box of tissues Hando held out to her. "I lay awake for ages. I just kept asking myself why you guys wouldn't be honest with us."

It was as if someone had entered the room carrying a machine gun. They all went silent. Movements became cautious and slow and wide-eyed.

"What do you mean?" Jessica said.

"I mean," Patel said, "the fact that not one of you have mentioned her."

In the silence, the dogs began circling uneasily, clearly noticing the change in energy. Norah shot a look at her sisters, who looked equally uncomfortable. "Mentioned who?"

Patel glanced from one of them to the other like a disappointed school principal. Finally she lifted her hands, then dropped them with a soft, disappointed exhale. "The fourth sister? The other girl living at Wild Meadows with you? The one we just learned about in this police report?" Patel gestured to her laptop.

Silence. Alicia, Norah, and Jessica exchanged a look.

The police were looking at them as if they were criminals. As if they'd been deceptive, or withheld something relevant, which they most certainly had not.

"But why would we mention her?" Norah asked.

Patel blinked dramatically. "Seriously?"

Norah blinked back, indignant. "If you'd done your job properly, you would have found this report days ago."

"And if you'd read the report," Alicia added, "you'd know exactly why we didn't mention her."

Patel exhaled. They had her there.

Finally Jessica stepped forward, her inner boss-lady turned up to high gear. "And if you have any other questions, you'll have to speak to our lawyer."