BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

‘What?’ DS Cavanagh said. ‘I don’t get that.’

‘Someone pretended that she was still doing it to those people. It wasn’t her. She was keeping her head down and just trying to get on with her life. Then this happens and it just destroyed her. She was a wreck. Julie couldn’t get her out of her room for a week, before I went in and started talking to her. But this was ages ago. At least a couple of months.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ Mark said, wondering how this would fit in, if at all, with what he’d discovered in the letter. ‘She wasn’t the one behind the catfishing, or targeting of people online? Someone pretended that it was her doing it, so she would get the blame for it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why? Why would someone do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rich said, his head lolling back and looking up towards the ceiling. ‘Maybe she was an easy target. She… she wasn’t the most switched-on girl. Not streetwise at all. Easily led, easily manipulated. She just wanted to be liked, but it never seemed to happen. It didn’t help that it came easy to her twin. She was forever in her shadow. So she tried to make friends, but ended up being bullied. She tried to be different, but that didn’t help at all. Nothing she seemed to do worked, so she stopped trying.’

‘And when someone came along and did this to her, it just made things worse.’

Rich sighed and looked at Mark. His eyes were red now, shiny with tears that hadn’t been shed in a long time. ‘She never had a chance to just… be. There was always something holding her back, or someone. She was going to college and changing her path, but then this happens and it all falls apart. I stepped in because I knew what was going to happen next. You see it all the time these days. All these kids being bullied who end up topping themselves because of it. I didn’t want her to be another one.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’

‘A couple of days before she went missing,’ Rich replied, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jumper. ‘She seemed better. I didn’t get much out of her, but she was excited about something it seemed. I thought she was finally seeing some kind of light out of the darkness she’d been feeling. I know what I am. I know what you think about me and what I do, but don’t for a second think that I don’t love my family – I’d do anything for them. I had nothing to do with what happened to Emily.’