“What the hell are you doing, Jack?” It’s Sean, standing in the doorway.

Jack steps away from me and looks at his brother. “Why don’t you ask little miss schoolteacher here? Turns out she knew Dad a lot better than we thought.”

“Is it true?” Sean asks quietly after Jack has left the room.

My heart is still thudding and my legs are shaky, so I sit on the bed. Sean—does Sean know as well? “Not like he’s insinuating. I helped him out in the garden for a while, that’s all.”

His eyelids flicker. He glances out onto the landing, then pushes my door closed. “I knew,” he said. “Dad let it slip once.”

“So you know all I was doing was gardening! You can tell Jack and—”

“Dad said you had a crush on him. That things were awkward and he didn’t know how to deal with it.”

My face floods with color. “That’s not true. I never…God, your dad was old. It was Max I…”

“Yeah, that’s what I said to him at the time. We all saw the way you were with Max, it was pretty obvious. I guess…my dad always liked to think women liked him. That’s probably what it was, right?” He pauses. “I mean, he never…”

He stops and shakes his head. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” Then, as he turns to leave, he says, “Watch out for Jack. When he gets something in his head, he’s pretty relentless.”

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

I’m back at the police station in front of Detective Levinson—a polite request to make a formal statement. Again, it’s been stated I’m here entirely voluntarily, but that casual call set off a thrum of fear that hasn’t gone. I was expecting it—of course I was, after Jack’s threat. There’s no way he wasn’t going to go straight to them about my…relationship with Greg. I was so stupid to lie to them about knowing him. How’s it going to look if I tell the truth now? But if I don’t…if I don’t, then I have to sit here and lie to the detective’s face, tell him Jack’s the liar, not me.

Sophie’s face is in my head, the worry and wariness when I tried to explain. Shit. I’ve made something so small, a lonely teenage girl helping out in a garden, into something huge and suspicious. And if it’s true—about Greg and teenage girls…

My throat is dry by the time I finish going through my statement and I’m ready to get up and go when Detective Levinson stops me.

“So, Tess…I wanted to ask again. How well did you know Greg Lewis?”