was closed. Or at least I couldn’t see any light—someone could’ve just switched everything off.”
“Was the person who got in the car with her tall or short? Big? Small?”
A long pause. “Not big or tall enough for me to take note. Honestly, all I saw was a vague person-shaped shadow . . . but I made a mistake and accidentally touched my phone. The screen lit up my face . . . I was sure whoever it was saw me.”
The bus turned into the school gates.
“Do you remember anything else about that person?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’ve been so stressed ever since she was found, thinking the police would track me down, and telling myself they wouldn’t. How did you find out I was there that night?”
“Your car was caught by the security cameras of a neighbor’s house,” I lied. “The police noted it down at the time, but didn’t pursue anything because they thought my mother had run off.” The lie wasn’t one that made much—or any—logical sense, but she was too distraught to see the holes in my logic.
I saw the holes, however, and I still had no idea how I’d first uncovered the information. Had I actually seen her car that night, even through the rain?
“Are the police going to come after me?”
“If you’re telling the truth, I won’t nudge them to look up that old report.”
Turning in the seat, she clasped her hands to her chest. “Please, please believe me. I didn’t do anything to your mother. That’s all that happened that night.”
“Go over it again.”
She did, her story consistent though the words changed. This wasn’t something she’d practiced over and over again to deliver like a speech. It even made sense that the gates had been open when she left—the Cul-de-Sac had a new system these days and the gates shut automatically two minutes after being opened. Back then, however, we’d had to use our remotes to trigger them shut when we left or they’d stay open.
Whoever had been driving the Jaguar must’ve forgotten that step.
“Was anyone else awake in the Cul-de-Sac that you could see?”
“Your closest neighbor. There was a light in a second-floor window—I noticed because I wanted to make sure not to park in anyone’s line of sight. And a few security lights kept going on and off, but I think that was the storm setting them off. Otherwise, it was dark.”
Her recollection matched mine. Rare flashes of light in my peripheral vision as I . . . As I what? Pulse speeding up, I fought not to clench my fists. “I need your address and phone number in case I have further questions. Don’t try to lie—you’re not exactly difficult to find.”
She scribbled down both. “Please don’t come to my house. I’ll meet you anywhere else.”
Inputting the number into my phone after she passed across the torn piece of notepaper, I called the number. The sleek rose-gold phone she’d put on the dash began to ring.
Satisfied, I ended the call and opened my door.
I’d forgotten something important, a piece of knowledge my misfiring brain couldn’t retrieve. Turning, my expression cold and flat, I said, “If I find out you’ve lied, that you had something to do with my mother’s death, I’ll make it my mission to destroy your perfect life.”
Eyes stark with terror, she dropped the lipstick she’d just pulled out of her purse. “I haven’t lied. I was a stupid twenty-one-year-old caught in a situation I should’ve never been in.”
Twenty-one.
My father was an even bigger bastard than I’d thought.
Shutting the door, I crossed over to my car as fast as the crutches would allow. I’d promised her discretion if she told the truth, so I waited until after children began spilling out of the gates before I pulled away.
Despite my belief in her honesty, I thought about what it would’ve taken for Aurelie to commit the crime if she was some sort of psychopathic master criminal. She’d have had to drive my mother’s car to where it had gone off the road, ensure it crashed, then make her way back to the Cul-de-Sac on foot to move her car before anyone woke up and started asking questions. Difficult if not impossible given the conditions that night.
Unless of course she’d been the accomplice.
50
My father could’ve planned it all, Aurelie his willing helper.
The fly in the ointment was that, as far as I knew, he’d dropped her like a hot potato not long after my mother’s disappearance. Would he have risked letting her