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Vaughan swallowed. “It doesn’t matter, Leilah. I’ll say it’s mine.” He wagged the old cut on his hand. “They won’t know.”
“But it’s the blood from my lip. Red smacked the gate into me and everyone saw it happen. Tane’s dad even saw it bleeding afterward.”
“How could you not think they’d know?” Dante laughed out loud, the sound echoing around the bush canopy. “They’re using that new science to identify people. DNA testing or something like that. It’s been in the news for a while. They’ll know it’s Leilah’s blood.”
Vaughan swallowed, his master plan flattened as easily as an unfortunate possum under truck wheels. His gaze darted to Leilah and then away again as he floundered. “I didn’t think about that.”
Dante snorted. “You think Leilah offed Malcolm, don’t you? You’re trying to protect her.”
Vaughan shook his head. “I know she didn’t. But her blood at our place could complicate things. I didn’t think about the science of it, just that they’re looking for someone to pin Malcolm’s death on.” He sighed and slumped back into his crouched position. “Shit.”
“Did you already tell them it was yours?” Leilah asked, her tone soft. “Are you in trouble?”
Vaughan shook his head. “Na. Just you.”
Dante inhaled, a smirk on his lips. “You clown.” His brow narrowed and he joined Vaughan in his crouch. Leilah peered over their heads, trying not to knock them into the gully although admitting she felt a little tempted.
“What?” she demanded, staring into the swirling water.
Vaughan pointed a slender finger at the opposite bank. The impacted mud on the ridge appeared scuffed and jagged as though someone had scrabbled in the dirt before sliding into the water. A tuft of yellow thread waved in the gentle evening air, the effect of any wind negated by the tree canopy overhead. The branch it clung to stretched out clawed fingers over the water.
Leilah gasped. “He died here.” She backed away until the ridged trunk of a punga pressed into her spine. Glancing down she saw she’d disturbed a family of weta and jumped sideways.
“Why are you bouncing around like a kangaroo?” Both boys turned to watch her antics, each with confused, knitted brows. Dante spoke, his ready rebuke causing Leilah’s cheeks to flush with embarrassment and pique. When she couldn’t think of a suitable reply, he turned back and followed Vaughan’s direction as they spoke in hushed tones about the find.
“We have to move it.” Leilah raised her chin and tried to follow through with a determined edge to her tone. “It has to be destroyed. Or hidden.”
“Why?” Dante’s expression of openness pricked her conscience, but Vaughan spoke for her.
“Because Malcolm wore a yellow tee shirt to school the day he died. It was under his uniform shirt. Cloughie told him off in tutor group, remember? He let him keep it on because he said his dad’s friend brought it back from an overseas trip and he promised not to wear it the next day. He probably took his shirt off after school and slipped his denim jacket over the yellow tee shirt. Somehow the tree branch has snagged it as he’s fallen. And look, the thread is on her dad’s side of the gully.” He jabbed a finger at the other bank. “The cops have arrested Horse about drugs above our property, but they’ll go after Hector for murder.” The conflict hung in the air, balancing on the dank atmosphere of rotted leaves and a summer of baking heat. Both men out on the night the boy died. Both not above using their fists to settle an argument. Both bull headed and opinionated. Both propping up a family of sorts single handed. The weight of choice created an air of tension. To release one man from suspicion would incriminate the other.
Leilah sighed. “You see why we have to move it?” she whispered.
The boys stood and turned to face her. Dante pursed his lips as though considering her request, but Vaughan shook his head. “It’s not right, Lei. We have to leave it and let the cops do their job.” He swallowed as though knowing his change of team would rile her. It did.
“Are you kidding me?” Her voice rose an octave and desperation oozed into her tone. “You wanted to lie about blood on a tee shirt and now you won’t move a stupid piece of thread?”
“No.” Vaughan’s voice hardened. “I won’t. And neither will you.”
Leilah’s eyes narrowed and she felt herself bridle at the challenge. Vaughan took a step forward and his fingers closed around her wrist. “I mean it, Lei. You don’t go near it. And tell no one about it.”
“He’s right.” Dante rose and formed a guard on the other side of her, edging Leilah away from the bank. She ground her teeth at the futility of their efforts, knowing she couldn’t cross until the lower slopes, anyway. It was as though they’d forgotten the thread dangled from a branch on Hector’s side of the gully. Leilah made up her mind to get it later. She made a mental note of the location using the jagged, fallen tree as a landmark and allowed the boys to herd her away.
“You go back with Leilah.” Vaughan spoke into the silence a few minutes later and jerked his head towards Dante. “Make sure she gets home safe.”
Leilah halted and dragged her forearm away from Dante’s fingers. “Where are you going?” she demanded.
Vaughan snuffed out a breath. “To take a look at whatever they’ve found. I need to know what we’re up against.”
“I’m coming,” Leilah insisted, chewing the inside of her lip. Vaughan shook his head.
“No. Go home. You’re in enough trouble already with your father. I’ll let you know what I find.” He turned his back on her and took a fork away from the bank of the gully, following a pig trail and disappearing from view within seconds.
Dante met her look of accusation and held his hands up, palms facing outward. “Hey girly, don’t blame me,” he jibed. “Let’s just do what the man said.”
Leilah tripped and stumbled through the bush until they reached the top of the paddock. Her world tipped on its axis and she hated its newness. They’d never treated her like a girl in their games and adventures. She’d been one of them. Dante’s label irritated her, mimicking her father’s easy dismissal of her feelings. “I’m not your girly,” she snapped as they reached the paddock containing the mares. “And don’t you forget it.”
Dante laughed, his easy smile bursting forth from the serious expression like sunshine. “Took you long enough, Lei. I figured you must be sick, or you’d have smacked me long before now.”
She pouted, readying herself to clamber over the fence onto Hector’s property where the gully became narrow enough to jump across. “I still might,” she bit. Her shoulders slumped and she felt her chest deflate. “I know Hector didn’t do it,” she said, an edge of pleading in her voice. “Please don’t tell anyone about what we found?” The harried look left a vertical line in her forehead and Dante’s expression softened.
“Promise,” he replied. “Do you think Vaughan will squeal?”
“No.” Leilah thought of his dark face with its blank expression, myriad secrets piled beneath the mask of boredom. “No, he won’t.”
She gave Dante a wave before breaching the top rung of the post and rail fence. She saw him smirk as she gave him an accidental flash of white knickers turned grey with washing. With a wave over her shoulder, she set off up the hill towards the paddock where the red appaloosa paced. The sunshine picked up the colours in his summer coat, turning him a shade of burnished gold. His scrubby tail stuck upright from his muscular rump and he strutted his stuff on the ridge hoping to interest Horse’s mares in the paddock near the road.
“Don’t even think about it!” Leilah snapped, pushing open the gate to his paddock and stamping to make him shy away. “They’ve had enough of you.” Red snorted his derision and whirled aside, hormones raging at the promise of another round of dizzying booty calls. His long penis extended beyond its sheath, dangling from beneath his stomach and gathering hay and bits of grass. Leilah made fake retching sounds and pushed on up the hill, readying herself for Hector’s wrath.
“I need to get away from this place,” she sighed, conjuring idyllic images of herself and the boys at Auckland University. “I’ll never come back,” she promised. Her gaze strayed to the bush line and the incriminating yellow thread hidden beyond. The boys wouldn’t tell and she’d retrieve it before it could do any harm.
But one of the boys did tell. And the person he told just couldn’t leave it alone.