Chapter Forty

CHAPTER FORTY

CAMERON IS IN his room when he hears voices from outside. He peers out his bedroom window. The police are here. There's a police van parked on the street in front of their house. Cameron is already anxious about having to go back to see the detectives at four o'clock, and now this.

He cocks his head and listens from behind his closed bedroom door. He can hear people talking downstairs, his mother's voice rising in fear. He opens his bedroom door, walks a few steps, and stops abruptly, looking down the stairs into the living room. There are people everywhere, and they're obviously looking for something. His dad is still here, standing at the foot of the stairs with his mom; he hadn't gone back to work after he came home earlier that day. His parents look as if they've had another shock.

‘What's going on?' Cameron asks, coming to stand beside them.

‘They have a search warrant,' his dad says. His mother seems incapable of speech. She can hardly meet his eyes.

‘Why? What are they looking for?' Cameron says stupidly, as he watches them head up to his bedroom.

Neither of his parents answers.

‘We need to go back down to the station now,' his dad says. ‘It's almost four o'clock.'

‘No,' Cameron protests. He says it automatically. He can't face it. He doesn't want any of this to have happened. He just wants to hide.

‘Come,' his father says firmly, his hand on his shoulder. ‘Let's get this over with.' He tells him the lawyer will meet them there.

His mother doesn't come with them, for the first time. Cameron wonders if she's staying behind to see if they find anything. They have to take the car, because the truck is being searched. His mind goes blank on the short drive to the station.

His father tries to nudge him out of his stupor. ‘Cameron?'

He turns reluctantly to his father. What now?

‘Is there anything I should know?' his dad asks, his voice serious.

But Cameron can't speak.

‘What are you going to tell them about last night?' Edward asks, staring grimly at the road ahead. ‘Maybe we should talk about it.'

Edward is quietly panicking as they resume their places in the room and the taped interview begins. Cameron is still not under arrest, but Edward is terrified that it's only a matter of time. It's getting harder and harder to know what to do. Everything has become so blurred in Edward's mind. He doesn't know truth from lies, or right from wrong. Edward remembers his whispered conversation with his wife earlier that day. They want to help their son if they can, no matter what he might have done. Diana is dead, and nothing can change that now. What is to be served by their son spending the rest of his life in jail? If Cameron is to blame, he must have lost control. Surely he would never do something like that intentionally?

But how can they be certain that he would never do it again? How would they ever live with themselves if he did?

And how best to help him now? He's been caught out in too many lies already. Edward had no idea until now what a liar his son was. They'd discussed, on the way to the station, what he should say. Should he admit he was out last night? Edward had clenched his hands around the steering wheel and tried to think. Someone might have seen him go out in the truck, so he should tell the truth. That's what they decided. But Edward suggested – God help him – that he not mention the field that he and Diana used to go to, so close to where her body was found. He told him to say he went somewhere else – anywhere but there.

The voice of Detective Stone pulls Edward out of his thoughts.

‘Cameron, we have a simple question. Where were you last night, between eleven and eleven thirty?'

Cameron looks at the detective. ‘I went out, in the truck.'

‘Where did you go?'

‘I went to get a burger. And then I just drove around.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I'd been stuck in the house for three days, and I was going out of my mind.' He says this with a raised voice, his desperation showing.

The attorney interjects. ‘Why does it matter? Why are you asking him this?'

Stone says, ‘Diana's cell phone is missing. Do you have it, Cameron?'

Cameron shakes his head. ‘No.'

‘Well, someone has Diana's phone, and sent a text message from that phone to Riley Mead at eleven thirteen last night.' He adds, ‘We think that whoever killed her kept her phone. We're looking for it right now at your house, Cameron, but we're not going to find it there, are we? Because you've hidden it somewhere else, haven't you? And you were looking at it when that text came in from Riley, weren't you?'

Cameron shakes his head, insistent. ‘No.'

Edward feels the blood rush from his head. Cameron doesn't seem very worried that the police are going to find Diana's missing cell phone in the house. Is that because he doesn't have it, or because he knows it isn't in the house? God help him, he and his son alone know where Cameron was last night. What if he did kill her, and hid the phone somewhere in that field? What did the text say?

Stone leans forward, slightly aggressive. ‘Tell us exactly where you went last night.'

Cameron hesitates and then says, sullenly, ‘I went to the graveyard, at the United Church.'

‘Why?' Stone asks.

‘It's a place we used to go, Diana and I.' He adds, ‘I just wanted to be alone.'

Now Edward is very much afraid that the phone is somewhere in that field. They can't have the police finding it, possibly with Cameron's fingerprints all over it. Maybe, he thinks, if he could get Cameron to tell him where it is, he could go get it and get rid of it. Destroy it.

‘You don't need a truck to go to the church from your place,' Stone observes.

‘I told you – I drove around for a while first,' Cameron says.

‘Right,' Stone says, obviously not buying it. ‘We know you were in Diana's backyard that night. We think that whoever killed her moved her body out through the back of the house and across the empty field to an abandoned road, where he had a vehicle waiting. You must know about that road, Cameron. You grew up here.'

‘No, I didn't know about it.'

‘Stop lying to me, Cameron. It's like a reflex with you.'

Brad is in a state. Ellen doesn't want to see him. She hasn't answered his calls or texts. He doesn't want to leave the apartment, now that all this shit has hit the news. He's lost his fiancée, and he's clearly going to lose his job and probably his teaching certification too. He thinks it's time to get himself an attorney. He's searched online and chosen a couple to call. He needs Kelly to keep his damn mouth shut.

The detectives arrive with a search warrant and a team early Monday evening. He looks at the warrant carefully before he lets them begin. But there's nothing he can do to stop them.

It doesn't take them long to search the small apartment, but it's one of the worst experiences of Brad's life, worse even than the interviews he's been subjected to at the police station. They tear everything apart as he watches, helpless. He's worried that they might try to plant evidence – something of Diana's. He doesn't trust the police. He tries to keep an eye on each of them, but they're everywhere all at once. He watches them, while Detective Stone watches him. ‘What are you looking for?' Brad asks.

But the detective doesn't answer. Detective Stone doesn't search much himself; he just wanders around rather aggressively, glancing here and there, letting the others ransack his apartment with abandon. But they find nothing. Brad feels the most tremendous relief.

After they leave, he reaches for his phone with trembling hands and calls an attorney.