I make myself a coffee with the fancy machine I bought a few months ago. I enjoy having money. It gives me power. Inheriting the family business was something that I never considered. You don’t, as a kid. You just imagine everything will stay the same, and then of course you hope like hell it won’t.
I had to be quick, that night with Ellen, but it worked out for the best. In fact, I was really just a bystander, hiding in the shadows. It was dark and crazy, and I knew she was in for a bad time, but it didn’t occur to me just how bad. It reminds me of fairy tales and that web of darkness that runs underneath the frosting and the fantasy. Who was in the wood that night?
For a crazy moment I wondered if I had blacked out and somehow killed her myself. But I knew the moment I saw him. He was edgy and not in the usual way. There wasn’t any blood or anything like that, but I just knew. It made sense. That didn’t stop me bringing up Ellen whenever one of the others started to annoy me, because you see, they weren’t sure either. Only two of us knew for sure who raped and killed Ellen – just him and me.
The drugs were blamed for memory gaps, and the panic afterwards. Once you have concealed a crime, it isn’t easy to confess, especially when you are worried, deep down, that you might be responsible. So you’re grateful to your friends for standing by you, for protecting you from the law, from your parents.
But your tight little group splinters, and the secret becomes heavier and heavier. You blame each other, you try to run, and maybe you even succeed. Detective Ava Cole, I’m looking at you when I say this. Finally it occurs to you that perhaps you helped to cover up a crime you didn’t do, and that your best mates didn’t do… Perhaps you helped to cover up a bigger crime, with far-reaching consequences. But perhaps you really aren’t meant to come to that conclusion because you would ruin everything.
My computer screen is covered in photographs, and I settle down to edit the best, ready for use. I’m good at what I do, and I get respect for that. It has never occurred to me to run away.
‘Dal ati, Ava Cole.’
‘Keep on trucking, Ava Cole.’