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“He what?” Tane jerked backward and an expression of pure rage slid across his face. “He did what?”
Leilah swallowed, out gunned by the testosterone surrounding her. She couldn’t look at the boys’ expressions, frightened of what she might see there. Anger. Guilt? Did one of them kill Malcolm? One in particular with a perfect motive? “Keep your voice down!” she hissed, glancing around at classmates socialising or playing games on the field. Miriama hung nearby as always, her gaze burning through the side of Leilah’s head like acid. Her gaggle of spiteful friends orbited her.
Tane threw his sandwich into his lunch box, appetite gone. Vaughan studied her with a blank expression which hid his emotion, a mask he’d perfected over the years. But his fingers tugged at a loose thread on his trousers, the knuckles white. Dante flopped onto his back and shook his dark head. “Bastard!” he breathed. He released a few other vile words and Leilah stared at her sandals. The whole thing made her feel sullied and spoiled.
Dante rolled over onto his stomach. “Can you take us up there tonight?” he demanded and Leilah shook her head.
“No. I’m not going back to the cave. I hope the mountain falls on top of it while I’m at school and I never have to think about it again.” She swallowed and let her teeth snag the flesh inside her lip. It smarted and she let go. The cut lip and the bruise on her forehead drew more attention from the art teacher. Dante sported skinned knuckles and a cut on his neck from a fight with his father’s boyfriend, but she didn’t single him out. Leilah shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Hey.” Tane slipped his arm around her shoulder and kissed her temple. “Don’t, Lei. We don’t need to see. How do we fix this?”
“I want you to tell your dad.” Leilah turned into his embrace, feeling the warmth radiating from his chest thawing her sense of violation. “Maybe my dad killed Malcolm, but I can’t spend the rest of my life protecting him. Maybe the courts will understand.”
“Hector didn’t kill Malcolm.” Vaughan lowered his voice and glanced sideways. “You know he didn’t, Leilah.”
She nodded. “I hope not, but I can’t be sure, can I?”
“What should I do?” Tane looked to the collected males for validation and met a series of shrugs. He squeezed Leilah’s shoulder. “The cops will go straight for your dad, Lei. You know that.”
She nodded again, the problem too big and insurmountable for her to fathom.
“Why didn’t the dogs bark?” Vaughan asked, his dark eyelashes fluttering over irises as brown as coals. “If Malcolm sniffed around your place robbing stuff, why didn’t they go crazy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t there when he visited.”
“Did he know them?” Vaughan persisted and Leilah shrugged, tired of the whole conversation.
“Patch might have. Dad visited the Donnelly’s place a few times. He did some training with a horse that Malcolm’s mother brought on last year. Patch goes everywhere with him but stays on the truck. Dad didn’t have Moss then.”
“Would Moss bark if the bitch didn’t?” Vaughan’s expression showed a flicker of interest as though he’d picked up a scent and wanted to run with it.
Leilah considered his question and shook her head. “No. I don’t think he would. He takes his cues from her and if she didn’t bark, he wouldn’t.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “This is too hard.”
“Should we tell her?” Dante’s question set Leilah’s nerves jangling and her chin rose.
“Tell me what?”
Vaughan looked guilty and Tane chewed his lip. Dante seemed to draw an unspoken consensus from the gathered males and leaned closer. “We checked out the area where the cops cleared the weed from,” he whispered. “They weren’t completely honest. It’s not on Horse’s land, but anyone coming from his place had reasonable access.”
“We already knew it was in the bush higher up the mountain.” Leilah’s fringe touched Dante’s forehead as she strained to hear every word. “So, why did they arrest Horse?”
“Tell her, Vaughan.” Tane jerked his head in the boy’s direction and Leilah followed his gaze. Dante looked irritated at being robbed of the punch line.
Vaughan glanced sideways, narrowing his eyes as Miriama’s little group edged closer on a pretext of following a skittering cockroach. Their proximity silenced him.
“Let’s move.” Dante hauled himself upright and pulled Leilah up next to him. Vaughan hefted her school bag and she experienced a sense of companionship. They cared for her and tears prickled behind her eyelids. It created a bitter sweet sensation in her chest.
Miriama’s expression darkened in response as the group rejected her as a unit. Only Tane’s soft heart sent a look of guilt spinning across his face, gone in a second as Miriama made a base and spiteful comment about Leilah. Dante retorted on her behalf. “Bugger off!” he snapped at the knot of females. The girl spat tacks from her eyes as Leilah’s cortege ambled away to a more private location.
“Tell me,” Leilah demanded, sitting on the grass in the centre of the playing field. Games continued around them, the danger of being overheard far less than the likelihood of getting a rugby ball in the face.
“They arrested Horse because they found an unlicensed gun under the house.” Vaughan winced. “It belonged to his brother and they haven’t spoken for twenty years. He forgot it was there.”
“Oh.” Leilah frowned. “But they turned your house inside out.”
“Yeah, because they got a tip off about the stuff in the bush and wanted to make sure. Tane’s dad knew it wouldn’t be ours, but then they found the gun. They had to arrest him for that.”
“Is that why they let Horse go so fast?” Leilah asked and Vaughan nodded.
“Yeah. He surrendered the gun and they found no evidence of drugs at our place. But they used our access to the bush to take it all away.” He raised an eyebrow. “They took ages.”
“So who planted it?” Leilah leaned back and rested her weight on her hands. It felt like the first time she’d uncurled since finding the cave.
“Dunno. But we know who gave the tip off.” Vaughan’s jaw tensed and his expression became hard.
“Who?” Leilah sat upright, alarmed by the tone of his voice.
“Your dad.” Tane delivered the verdict and the dirt seemed to hang over her head. Hector snitched. It didn’t sit right and she shivered.
“How would he know about it?” She leapt to her father’s defence, bristling with outrage and indignation. “He doesn’t listen to gossip and he’s too busy to go up into the bush.”
“Calm down!” Dante’s rebuke sent her temper spiralling out of control, as though his words diminished her and poured oil on her fire.
The bell rang for afternoon lessons and Leilah hauled herself to her feet, stamping back to class alone. She sensed the boys’ discomfort radiating out like a haze of confusion and recognised the root of their reticence in telling her.
Miriama held her up at the door to their tutor class, kicking backward at her shin and sending darts of pain through the bone. A red haze descended over Leilah’s vision and pent up fury poured from her like lava. Miriama took its full force as Leilah shoved her in the spine and then fell onto her with eager fists. She knew she’d gone too far when the cheering kids moved away in horror and left her in her lonely bubble of rage, beating Miriama into a bloodied pulp.