“Hey.” He clears his throat. “So, I saw your message about Greta O’Donnell in the Oakpark group and I asked Nika about it and she said the almonds thing was a misunderstanding?”
She shrugs, to annoy him. He tries again.
“I know the O’Donnells aren’t our favorite people right now, but if it’s not true, maybe we shouldn’t say it…”
“So someone tries to harm your child and this is your response?”
“Celeste, a rational person knows you can’t just accuse people like that.”
“Oh, a rational person knows, do they? And would a rational person do what you did?”
“Is this about…the Bar Four girl?”
“Yes, Warren, the girl who happens to be dead.”
She carefully places her wine glass on the counter and leaves the room before he can reply.
• • •
Halfway up the stairs, she passes Cody, on his way down. His bruised knuckles have healed a little, but they’re still swollen. She needs to ask him what happened, but part of her doesn’t want to know. Sometimes it’s easier to say nothing. The missing knife pops into her head then. But Cody wouldn’t do anything with a knife, would he? She thinks again about the injured hand. About the message from Susan that lost him the work placement. The incident that started all of it, with Moira Fitzpatrick’s son. Cody is not…right. There’s something damaged about him. The realization hits her like a slap. On some level, she’s always known it, but she’s pushed it so far down, it was easy to ignore. Warren was trouble as a child too, she knows that from his mother. Not the pull-wings-off-flies kind of trouble, but she has the sense that his mother was always trying to cover for him. Celeste realizes that’s what she’s been doing too. She never asks Cody what he’s been up to because she doesn’t want to know. When he was small, she avoided playdates in case he’d hurt the other kids. When he was older, she let him out on his own and asked no questions. But she can’t keep her head in the sand any more. The sound of the TV wafts up from the den. Cody’s put something on. He’ll be flopped on the couch, zoned out.
Quietly, she pushes open his door.
62
Jon
Wednesday
Jon pulls up outside SuperValu but doesn’t get out. His brain hurts. He needs to order his thoughts, to buy the milk, to go home.OK. OK.
He is almost certain Susan knows what he’s been up to: the way she’s acting, the bangle in her drawer. But the new news from Leesa just now—that Susan went out somewhere last Wednesday morning—that’s freaking him out. The morning Savannah’s body was found.
So where was Susan? And crucially, does she know wherehewas on Wednesday morning?
Something niggles now. Something about the bangle. Something about the last time he was with Savannah. Cold dread trickles its way through his stomach. It can’t be. Can it? He casts his mind back. Sun streaming in through Savannah’s front door, dappling light across the hall floor, across his back and his damp work shirt, over her face and shoulders. Savannah in a loose-fitting pale pink tank top and green khaki shorts. A work-from-home outfit. Or work from the garden, as she liked to do on hot, sunny days. Her tanned shoulders. Her toned arms. Her slim wrists. The bangle,glinting in the morning sunlight. Sitting on her left forearm, twisting under her fingers as they argued. He blinks, as though to refresh the memory. To be sure. But he is sure. Savannah was wearing the bangle just before she died. And now, it’s in Susan’s night-stand drawer.
Needing space, needing to think, he pushes back the driver’s seat, ignoring a woman in a Jeep who’s gesturing to ask if he’s about to leave the parking spot. Something dislodges as he does so, jangling to the footwell. He reaches down. As his fingers close around the metal and plastic, it comes back to him. The keys. Savannah’s car keys. Shit. Why does he still have them? And what should he do with them now? The guards will be looking for them. This is not good. Not good at all. Almost subconsciously, he pulls the tail of his shirt from his waistband and begins to polish the keys, the fob, the XSGym keyring. Sunlight beams through the windscreen of the car and sweat trickles down the back of his neck on to his collar. A quick glance across the car park tells him there’s a bin just beside the entrance to SuperValu. OK. This could be a mistake, but the sooner the keys are out of his possession, the better. He gets out of the car. The woman in the Jeep is still looking for a car space. Evening sun hits him square in the eyes, but his sunglasses are missing. Not missing, he remembers now, but in Savannah’s house, on her kitchen shelf. She sent him a picture. Eight days ago but somehow also a lifetime ago. Will it matter if the police find them? He’s not sure, but right now, he needs to focus on the keys.
With the cuff of his work shirt pulled down over his hand, he strides across to the bin and tips Savannah’s keys inside. Then follows them with the burner phone. Gone for good. He hopes.
63
Celeste
Wednesday
Celeste steps into Cody’s room. It’s not dark yet, but the curtains are closed already. Actually, she realizes, they’ve probably been closed all day. When he was small, she used to come in and open his curtains, but in recent years, he just closes them again, so she’s stopped bothering. She’s stopped going into his room at all. She’s not one of those mothers who picks up after her children. If they have laundry or used glasses, they can bring them down themselves. She hears other mothers talking about picking through their teens’ bedrooms for PE gear to wash and she quietly eyerolls. Children need to learn independence. And she doesn’t spend all day at work to come home and do her children’s laundry.
Where did she go wrong, she wonders, gazing around the room. Posters she doesn’t understand on the walls. Not music posters like Nika’s nice Harry Styles ones. Dark images that look sinister. Skulls and devils and death. Posters of games or comics, maybe? Not very suitable ones, in her opinion. On the desk, Cody’s gaming monitor blinks, the screensaver swirling and dipping. His Xbox and laptop sit side by side. She opens the laptop, but it’s password protected. Even if she knew the password, sheprobably wouldn’t look. Snooping on her children’s devices has never been her thing. She tells her friends it’s because she trusts them. But in truth, she doesn’t want to know. If Celeste can’t see it, she can’t worry about it. And Celeste has enough to worry about already.
She steps away from the desk to examine his bookshelves. Mostly true crime, she sees now. She hadn’t known Cody was into that. Some graphic novels. Some dog-earedHorrorLandbooks, but mostly true crime. She slips a hand behind the top row of books and finds nothing but dust. She’ll have to have a word with the cleaner. Behind the next row of books, her fingers wrap around something. She pulls it out. A vape. Even though he’d promised after the last call from the school that he’d stop.For goodness’ sake.She knows it’s not the worst thing he could be doing. In fact, it probablyisn’tthe worst thing he’s doing. But it annoys her that he’s been expressly forbidden and yet he keeps going. Why don’t children today do what their parents tell them? She’d have been given a whack of a ruler if she’d been caught smoking as a child. And of course, now you’re not allowed to dothatany more either. She did when they were small. A light smack on the legs or the behind if they were misbehaving. And surely everyone did. People just don’t admit it because it’s not politically correct.
She slips the vape in her trouser pocket and tries the third shelf. Nothing there but dust and some other residue…she pulls her hand out and sniffs. It’s barely there, but she can just about pick up a herbal smell she recognizes from her own college years and one particular housemate’s room.Oh, Cody. It’s like he’s set out to be the stereotypical troublesome teen, just to get on her last nerve.
She turns to his bed, a mess of balled-up duvet and discarded clothes. How can anyone leave a bed unmade? She reaches to straighten the duvet but stops. There it is, glinting in the thin stream of sunlight that’s slipped through the crack in the curtains. Its tip protruding from under his pillow. Her missing knife. Now, what on earth is Cody doing with a knife in his bedroom?
A sound from downstairs stops her—the click of a door. Cody? Maybe he won’t come upstairs. She holds her breath, listening. At first, it’s quiet. Then comes the unmistakable creak of the third-last step at the top of the stairs. Too late.
