it. If I could just get her on her own, she might cave in.
Why, oh why, hadn’t I got rid of them then, when I had the chance? I felt furious with myself. Dad was right, I was a “brainless fool.” But all I said was, “What else did you find out? I’d love to know actually. If there’s a puzzle to solve, we could work together.” All was not lost. If I could somehow get them on my side without revealing too much, I might be able to turn the situation around. Gain my freedom and get the hell out of here.
Dan slowly moved over to the window and stared at the view. “What ‘else?’ You mean there’s more?” Clever bastard, Dan was. He’d make a good lawyer.
I crossed my hands—clammy and cold as dead fish—neatly on my lap, lacing my fingers together, almost in prayer. “This is ridiculous. You’re holding me a prisoner in my own house when I haven’t done anything!”
Dan stood, hands clasped behind his back. He had a habit of speaking to the ocean view when something was bothering him. And I had been bothering him a lot lately. “Okay, we’ll let you know what we believe, based on what we’ve found out so far.”
I was exhausted. Talk about beating around the bush. “Good,” I sighed, “just let it out. Tell me what else you think you know about me, apart from being the femme fatale in The Postman Always Rings Twice.” I waited for the punchline. The great reveal. Like a game of chess in my head, I set the scene for all the possible outcomes—not least how I’d languish in jail, or worse, have to escape the aftermath, the ones who’d come after me in revenge.
Nobody said anything. The triplets just studied my reaction. A triangle of shared emotions that made up this trio. Kate glared at me with a wintry gaze that suddenly seemed to me the true makeup of her face. Her cheekbones looked more prominent, her pupils darker—her hardness was staggering. Jen sat there, eyes green as a meadow, widened and expectant, hopeful, maybe, that I’d redeem myself by confessing all and then we could be friends again. I couldn’t work these three out. Did they know something or didn’t they? Unless they were tricking me into confession, it looked as if they had zero evidence of anything. Had they broken into the safe?
“I thought perhaps you’d found some kind of evidence,” I ventured, treading as lightly as I could.
Dan laughed. “What do you mean, ‘some kind of evidence?’”
“After all these accusations, I thought you were going to say you’d found something,” I insisted. “Something crucial. Something that would shed light on the whole story. Something not already in the newspapers.”
“Found something?” Jen asked.
“What is the whole story?” Dan spat out, turning on the heel of his boots so he was facing me.
But I couldn’t tell him the whole story or I’d probably end up dead.
Thirty-Five
Over the next few days, because of Dan, Kate, and Jen stirring trouble with their big wooden spoon, half of me expected the cops to show up at my door any second, but at the same time I knew the triplets didn’t want to burn their bridges. Cliffside was their home, and any trouble would jeopardize that. Anyway, they had no proof of anything, or they would have let me know. It could have all worked out. If they’d ever given a damn. We had lied to one another—well, I had never lied but omitted information. Little white lies, maybe, about being pregnant or whatever, but not black lies.
The paranoia of what would happen next—the aftermath of what could unfold if the truth were revealed—hung on my every thought, trickled into every vein of my brain. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. It was like a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up in my face. Half of me wanted it to all be over. I was tempted to tell them my secret. But it was just too risky.
I watched the weather and news on TV. Last year’s fires and drought—followed by all the recent rain—had caused sudden mudslides rendering several parts of Highway One impassable. Rain, rain, and more rain, flowing in torrents down to the ocean.
I imagined it washing away the burial site, revealing everything, leaving it naked and exposed. What would happen next? I envisioned myself with a team of lawyers, trying to explain it all away. “I did it for love,” I’d