Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

RILEY HEARS HER mother's footsteps thudding down the hall. Her bedroom door is flung open and her mother appears, clearly alarmed. ‘What is it?' she cries. ‘What's wrong?'

Riley turns her face to her mother. ‘It's the phone!' she cries.

‘What?'

Riley finds herself shrinking away from the phone lying on her bed. She says, her voice shaking, ‘I was texting Diana. I don't know why – it helps me feel like she's still here, somehow. But she answered, just now.'

‘What?' her mother repeats, dropping onto the bed.

Riley reluctantly picks up the phone and shows her. ‘Look.'

‘It's not Diana,' her mother says.

‘Of course not. I know that. But who is it? Wouldn't the police have her phone?'

‘The police wouldn't send a text like that,' her mother says, her face pale.

Riley drops the phone again and starts to tremble. ‘It's her killer, isn't it? He's got her phone, he must have. He sent that text!' She can feel herself becoming hysterical.

The man who killed Diana has just sent her a message. No you won't. She looks at the phone as if she's looking at a snake curled on her bed. Her thoughts race. What if he knows who she is? Her name would have come up on Diana's phone. What if he's watching her ? He might know where she lives.

‘What are we going to do?' Riley asks in panic.

‘Where's that card Detective Stone gave you?' her mom asks quickly.

Riley gets up off the bed and starts searching through the pockets of her jeans. She finds the card and hands it to her mother, who pulls her own cell phone from the pocket of her robe and dials the number on the card. She puts it on speaker.

The phone rings four times before it's answered. ‘Detective Stone.'

‘It's Patricia Mead, Riley Mead's mother. My daughter has been sending texts to Diana on her phone. Someone just answered.'

There's a short silence. Riley and her mother look at each other, waiting.

Detective Stone says, ‘I'll be there as soon as I can. It will probably take me an hour to get there. What's your address?'

They both get dressed while they wait for the detective. Her mother checks that all the doors and windows are locked, then makes them chamomile tea, but both of them are too on edge to drink it. When the detective arrives, alone, it's well after midnight. Riley's mother invites him in, and they sit in the living room.

Stone gets right to the point. ‘We don't have Diana's phone. We couldn't find it.' He looks at Riley and reaches out his hand. ‘Can I see yours?'

She opens it to her texts with Diana and hands it over without a word. She's still too shocked to say anything.

Stone studies the messages, scrolling through.

‘That text was sent at eleven thirteen p.m.,' he says at last, putting her phone down on the coffee table between them. ‘I think we have to assume that whoever killed Diana has her phone – and sent that message.'

‘Why would they do that?' Riley asks, frightened. Her voice is shrill, and her mother turns to her anxiously.

‘We know that some killers take trophies. It's risky, but it's worth it to them.' He pauses. Then he says, ‘But answering your text, that's a whole new level of hubris.'

Riley knows what hubris is. ‘Is he after me now? He knows my name. He might know where I live!'

Her mother looks at her in alarm, then turns back to the detective. ‘What can you do to protect her?'

‘The best thing we can do is catch this bastard,' Stone replies. He looks at both of them calmly, but Riley can sense his excitement. ‘I know you're frightened,' Stone says, ‘but this is his first mistake. We'll get him.' He takes a deep breath, lets it out. ‘In the meantime, I'll have a patrol car keep an eye on your place. And please keep this to yourselves.'

The next morning, Graham Kelly feels unwell as he prepares to go in to work. This is much worse than the usual Monday morning malaise.

For a while, lying in bed wide awake at five a.m., he thought about not going in at all. It would be a shitstorm. The reporters would be all over him, now that KCVS broke the news that Diana had made allegations about one of her teachers. They'd want to know who it was and what he did about it. He felt himself breaking into a cold sweat.

But he's going in because it will only look worse if he hides out at home. He has to minimize this somehow. Brad Turner has him by the balls. If he tells the truth, Brad will tell his wife about his stupid, short-lived, and much-regretted affair. His wife will want a divorce. Kelly doesn't want a divorce. A divorce will ruin him, and ruin the kids. He doesn't want his career destroyed either. It's a stark choice: tell the truth about what Diana claimed Turner did, or stick to the much milder version he's already told the police – the version that's in the file. There's no good coming to him if he tells the truth now, no matter how bad it makes him feel. He must stick to what he said in the first place.

Turner had called him late last night and made that very clear. Graham hates him for it. Brad is basically blackmailing him. Kelly doesn't know for sure what happened between Brad and Diana, but he thinks now that there must be some truth to what she said. Diana is dead, and Kelly's not sure of anything any more.

The problem is, Kelly is fundamentally a good man, and he's appalled to be in this position. He wants to make a clean breast of it and tell the police what Diana really said, and explain to them that he didn't believe her, because she refused to go any further with her complaint, and she should have if she'd been telling the truth. And she'd lied before, about the cheating. So of course he thought she'd been lying.

His wife is very quiet while he gets dressed. He's going in earlier than usual, to avoid the press. Sandra is not happy with the situation either. He has given her the same whitewashed story he gave the police. She knows that Brad was over here on the weekend, that they were shut up in his office. She knows how uneasy Graham is.

He gets into his car with a troubled conscience and a quaking heart.

Ever since his daughter started working at the bakery, Roy has enjoyed their early mornings together in the farmhouse kitchen, having breakfast, talking about the day ahead while the sun is barely up. Monday morning he's alone with Ellen in the kitchen, but the vibe is very different. Susan has stayed in bed, because they both think it's better if he talks to their daughter alone.

Ellen drinks her coffee and eats her toast silently, her head down. He has to say something, even though it breaks his heart to do it.

‘Ellen?' he says. She looks up warily. She looks like she's barely slept. ‘Your mom and I were watching the news last night.' Ellen stops chewing. Her eyes are fixed on him with fear. His heart sinks. ‘They said – they said that Diana made a complaint against one of her teachers.'

She covers her face with her hands.

‘Is it Brad? Is that why you've been so upset?'

She nods listlessly and uncovers her face. ‘But he says he didn't do it. That she made it all up.'

He hesitates for a moment and then asks, ‘Why would she do that?'

‘I don't know.'

He steels himself. ‘Do you believe him?'

‘I thought I did.' She looks at him, her face desolate. ‘Oh, Dad, what am I going to do? He says I should stand by him, and I would, but—'

‘But what?'

‘But – another one's come forward.' Her voice has become a whisper. ‘A second girl. She went to the police yesterday.'

Roy swallows. Another one. He's filled with revulsion. His daughter's fiancé might be a child molester. He's also going to be a suspect in a murder investigation. Does she realize it?

As if reading his mind, she says, ‘He told me that the police might want to talk to me.' She looks at him, clearly anxious. ‘He's worried they might suspect him of – of what happened to Diana. They've already asked him for an alibi for that night.'

‘And?'

‘And he doesn't have one.'

He regards his daughter, his heart thumping. The girl's body was left in their field, Roy thinks. Why? Because he knew the road? Knew that it was deserted at night? Is his daughter's fiancé some kind of madman?

He sees the distress in his daughter's eyes and he can't bear it. The idea of her marrying a man who might be a child molester and perhaps a murderer – he can't let that happen.