I’ve been here overnight. I know I will have to wait for Dan to find out I’m here, but I’m sure it won’t take him long. Someone else comes—someone I’m not expecting.
It’s Paula.
“This is so kind of you,” Mom tells her. “I wouldn’t leave Jemma with someone she doesn’t know—but you know Paula well enough, don’t you?” Mom looks at me and squeezes my hand. “It’s just for a while. I have to go to Olivia’s school.”
I wonder briefly what’s happened with Olivia. Has she hit someone else? Then my thoughts turn to Paula. My vision is clear again now, thank goodness. Paula’s chunky-knit sweater does not disguise how thin she’s getting. Her cheekbones are almost poking out of her face, and her hands look so bony there is barely any flesh on them. I hope she’s not going to hold my hand. She shifts from one foot to the other anxiously.
It’s taken courage to offer to do this, and I admire her for that, but I’m not sure I want her here. Actually, I’m sure I don’t.
“It’s no bother at all,” Paula tells Mom. “You’ve been so kind to us. I’m glad to be able to do something for you.”
“I’ve brought a book, if you feel like reading it to her,” Mom tells Paula.
Paula nods.
Then Mom leaves.
Paula picks up the book and turns it over. I realize at once that she’s not going to want to read it. It’s not the vampire romance, though I’m not sure Paula would like that much either. It’s a murder mystery! I hope she doesn’t think Mom is too insensitive for suggesting it. Paula sighs and puts it down.
“Your mom says you understand everything, so I’m sure you do. I wish they’d catch Ryan’s killer. I want to know what happened and why, and I want whoever did it locked up. Is that too much to ask, Jemma?”
She sounds like she’s caught in a loop, like she’s said the words so many times. I wish I could speak to her. I could change things.
“Between you and me, there’s something I haven’t told the police, Jemma, and I don’t know what to do,” she continues, leaning forward and speaking quietly. I had slightly lost concentration as she rambled on, but now I am alert.
“Before it happened,” Paula tells me, “Ryan asked me to hide some stuff for him. I know I shouldn’t have. I should’ve at least asked what was going on, but he clearly didn’t want to tell me. I know I was stupid, but I did what he asked. I wanted to keep him out of trouble.”
She pauses, and I want to ask, “What stuff?”
She edges even closer, and her voice is lower, almost a whisper. “It was jewelry, Jemma—diamond rings, gold necklaces—and I think Ryan might have stolen them,” she says. “I didn’t want the police to know he was a thief. They already knew he was a drug user. They might have written him off, not bothered to look for his killer. So I hid the things. I’m sure I shouldn’t have, but I promised him and I hid them—and when the police came looking for clues, I didn’t tell them. I couldn’t cope with Graham finding out what I’d done, and I didn’t want to get myself in trouble too.”
I watch Paula. Her eyes look straight through me as if I’m not even here, and she’s constantly rubbing her fingers together as she talks. It reminds me of Dan when Mom said the police were looking for him. It looks as if this guilt has been eating her up.
“It didn’t occur to me at the time, but now I’m worried that the stuff belonged to the person who killed Ryan. What do you think, Jemma? I wish you could tell me. I bet you could figure it out better than me.”
Maybe I could figure it out. I need to think…
“The thing is, I don’t know what to do now,” Paula continues, sighing. “Should I go to the police and tell them? I’m scared I might get arrested for withholding evidence. I could say I just found them, but the police did such a thorough search, they might not believe me. How will Graham cope if I get thrown in prison? That’s why I haven’t even told him.”
Paula suddenly sits up straighter. “I’m sorry, Jemma. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this, should I? It’s terrible of me. You’re sick. You don’t want to hear about Ryan—especially when you have Sarah to worry about too. Let’s talk about something else.”
But she clearly can’t think of anything. She glances briefly at the book, but I can see she can’t face picking it up. So we sit silently and she twiddles her thumbs.
I think about Ryan. I didn’t know him well, but it sounds likely that he did steal the things Paula found. Why would someone kill him for that? Maybe he owed money for the drugs, and he stole the things intending to sell them. Could there be any link with Dan and Sarah? Maybe Ryan stole the jewelry from Dan, and that’s why Dan killed him. Then Sarah found out, and he had to kill her too. The black jacket comes into my head. Could Graham have been involved? Could he have found the jewelry and confronted Ryan? Or could Graham have stolen it and Ryan found out? Then I remember Dan’s face when Dad said I might be able to communicate.
Paula’s phone beeps, and she pulls it from her bag in relief and continues to look at it, touching different areas of the screen for what feels like a long time.