“Hurry up, I think I hear something.”
Footsteps, some shuffling, and the bedroom door opens and closes.
“Was the door closed when we came in?” one of them asks, but I don’t hear the reply, possibly because my heart is busy loudly trying to remove itself to a location somewhere outside my body.
I stay under the bed for as long as I can, until my legs have gone past prickly to pins and needles and landed on numb. Then I crawl out, dragging the boxes behind me. I pull the lids off, more for something to do than because I’m excited by the possibilities. One of them is full of old CDs, stacked three deep. Another is full ofWomen’s Weeklymagazines, each edition dog-eared and with slips of paper protruding from relevant pages, so maybe I wasn’t way off with the recipe prediction. The third has one of those stretchy exercise bands and apair of hand weights that look like they’ve done ten reps, tops. I repack the boxes and push them back under the bed. There’s no point in showing any of this to Dylan.
Worse, Dylan is now the last person I can talk to about what’s just happened. Until now he’s been the Watson to my Holmes: the sidekick with whom I can discuss my thoughts (mostly) and kick around theories (definitely). The conversation I’ve just overheard in GG’s bedroom has utterly wrecked that dynamic, however. How, exactly, am I supposed to tell himthat I just heard his mother and her boyfriend steal something out of GG’s wardrobe? And, even if I could overcome that particular obstacle, how, please tell me, am I supposed to bring the conversation around to the possibility that they had something to do with her death?
16
I tell nobody what Ioverheard. I realize how dumb that must sound to someone reading this from the safety of the couch, or their bed, or maybe on a bus, trying to tune out the guy listening to music without his earphones (why, my guy, why?). As an enthusiastic reader of crime stories, I’m aware that when the local village busybody finds a crucial clue to explain who it is who bumped off their neighbor or the bloody vicar (there’s always a vicar in these things, and I still don’t really understand if they’re the same as priests), they invariably decide it’s a great idea to keep what they know to themselves. Sometimes it’s because they want to blackmail the murderer or sometimes it’s because they can’t believe the murderer would have hurt anyone. Either way, it never ends well. Most of the time they become Body Number Two—and while that’s often the murder that helps the detective solve the first crime, that’s not much consolation to Body Number Two. (Thereisabout to be a Body Number Two inthisstory, in case you’re wondering,but it’s not me. How would I even be writing this if I’d been bumped off along the way?)
My first idea is to tell Dad. The child’s solution to every problem. Not only will he know what to do, but I know what hewilldo, which is call the police. He might even insist that we drive to the station together. The problem will officially be in the hands of grown-ups. Dylan will be devastated and feel betrayed and my family dynamics will be permanently shredded, but none of it will be my fault, exactly, and nobody looking at the available evidence could argue that I haven’t Done the Right Thing.
But! As I ponder my next move, it occurs to me (and maybe it’s occurred to you too) that I have nothing in the way of proof. Clearly, Aunty Bec and Shippy are up to something shifty. Clearly, they also took something from GG’s room, maybe something that incriminates them. But without that something, there’s nothing to stop them from denying they were ever in GG’s bedroom, suggesting I’m a crazy person, and, oh, I don’t know, murdering me and making it look like an accident. Worst-case scenario, obviously. Dylan might believe me (he knew I was in GG’s bedroom, after all, and he must have seen his mum and Shippy go up the stairs after me), but I’m not confident the word of two teenagers counts for a great deal with the Dunsborough police. Or in court.
Dylan asks me about the box the moment we’re alone together back downstairs, of course. But all I tell him is that I didn’t find anything. He’s so chuffed to relate how he smashed a plate to let me know Aunty Bec and Shippy were back earlythat I don’t have it in me to admit his warning went over my head.
“Shippy decided not to surf,” he says. “What were they even doing upstairs? They didn’t go into Gertie’s room, did they?”
“They didn’t see me” is as close to an explanation as I offer. Then I just act interested in the movie.
I spend the afternoon trying to put together the pieces I’ve got: the missing box, Aunty Bec and Shippy’s sketchiness, GG’s life-insurance policy, and someone sneaking around outside. I can’t find my phone (is it possible this house is a Bermuda Triangle kind of a deal, having made first GG’s box and now my phone disappear?) and so have to resort to making notes with pen and paper, which makes me feel a bit like I’m back at school. Then something happens to disrupt my puzzling. Actually, it would be more accurate to say thatnothinghappens, but maybe that’s too confusing? The thing that both does and doesn’t happen, if you see what I mean, is that Shippy’s new best friend, Rob, fails to return from the beach.
It takes a while for anyone to notice. Does that say something about Rob? Maybe. But, also, the house is big and everyone’s doing their own thing and it’s not until Dad comes back in the afternoon and asks where Rob is that everyone seems to realize, at the exact same moment, that they have no bloodyidea.
“Is he not back?” Aunty Vinka frowns.
Shippy just opens his mouth and shouts:“Rob?”There’s no reply.
“He’s not in thehouse,Shippy.”
“He must be still surfing, then.”
“I thoughtyouwere surfing,” Dad says to Shippy.
“Decided not to,” Shippy says, with a glance at Aunty Bec that probably only looks suspicious as hell to me.
“Rob, uh, wanted to stay at the beach for a bit, but I thought he’d be back by now.” Aunty Bec sounds concerned, maybe even guilty for having left Rob behind. Or is that just because I know she has something to feel guilty about?
Shippy pulls out his phone to look at the time. “He might still be surfing.”
“How exactly was he expecting to get back here without a car, or dare I hope that our time with Rob has come to a close?” Dad asks.
“He said he could get a lift back here with a friend.” Shippy is leaning against the door of the kitchen and studying his phone, like it might provide him with anything other than the time and an update on how long an iPhone battery can last when you use the phone for absolutely nothing at all (actually, ages).
“You just left him at the beach?” Dad says. I look for Dylan to see what he thinks, but, like Rob, he’s missing. Unlike Rob, I’m pretty sure he’s notmissingmissing and is, rather, hanging out in his tiny box of a bedroom.
Shippy shrugs. “He’s a self-sufficient guy.”
“He’s couch surfing at, what, forty?” Dad again.
“He’s a free spirit.”
Dad mumbles something that sounds like “a freeloading spirit” (which would be an aggressively on-brand Dad joke), but I can’t be sure.
“Have you packed your bag, Ruth?” Dad asks me.
