Lovely Girls(55)
“Tell me what happened last night,” I said.
Alex shrugged one shoulder and shook her head. “I already told you. I just went for a bike ride.”
I realized my hands had started to shake, and I braced them against my knees.
“Callie is dead,” I said. “Her body was found on the beach.”
Alex just stared at me. She didn’t gasp in surprise. She didn’t cover her mouth with her hand in horror. She didn’t even ask how Callie had died.
Maybe she already knows, I thought, and I had to push the horror of that realization away.
“Alex,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Lita told me that the police are already treating Callie’s death as a possible homicide. They think someone was with her at the time she died.”
Alex nodded solemnly. She began twisting a strand of her hair absentmindedly around one finger. I wanted to scream and forced myself to instead take a deep breath. She clearly wasn’t understanding the significance of the situation.
“Were you there?” I asked. “Were you at the beach last night?”
Alex stilled. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because you were out so late. And you didn’t tell me where you’d been. And now one of the girls you were having conflict with is dead.”
“Actually, Callie and I got along okay. Well.” Alex shrugged again. “We sort of did. She apologized for her part in hanging the Ken doll in my locker.”
I stared at my daughter. “You don’t seem to understand how serious this is.”
“Of course I do. Callie died.” Alex shook her head solemnly. “That’s awful.”
“And now the police are going to find out that you weren’t home last night, because there’s a doorbell camera on practically every house on this street. And probably on all the streets around here. Someone, somewhere, has a picture of you out in the middle of the night. Then the police are going to learn that those girls have been bullying you for months. Don’t you see how terrible this is going to look?”
“But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t kill Callie.”
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“We have to make a plan. I don’t know how much time we have until the police will want to question you. We have to figure out what we’re going to tell them about where you were last night and why you weren’t in school today.”
“I’ll just tell them the truth. That I went for a bike ride and got home late.”
I stared at her mutely, shaking my head. Was she really this naive?
“Where did you bike to?” I asked, hoping she’d come clean and tell me she’d been at a friend’s house. Or even a boyfriend’s house. It was against the rules for her to sneak out to see a boy, obviously, but it was by far the preferable alternative. “You were gone for hours.”
“Just around. I don’t really know. It was dark, and I didn’t really know where I was going.”
“Did anyone see you?” I asked.
Alex considered this and then shook her head. “I’m not sure. I mean, I saw a few cars go by, but I don’t think anyone was paying attention to me.”
“Did you talk to anyone?”
“No.”
I exhaled. “I think we should say that you and I got into an argument and that’s why you left. That you went out to blow off steam.”
“Why do we have to lie?” Alex looked at me blankly.
“Because we need to explain why you were out of the house in the middle of the night. What were you doing, anyway?”
Alex’s gaze skittered away. “Nothing. Just thinking about things.”
“You’ve never done anything like that before. Just taken off, without telling me where you are. I was worried. I called you. I texted. You ignored me.”
“Sorry,” Alex muttered.
“But why did you go out?” I pressed. “Were you planning on meeting someone?”
Alex shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. How do you not know what you were doing?”
Alex stood suddenly, her hands balled at her sides. “God! Stop interrogating me!”
“I’m trying to help you.” I spread my hands helplessly. “Maybe we should hire an attorney.”
“For what?”
To keep you safe, I thought.
But then I realized it might already be too late for that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
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VIDEO DIARY OF ALEX TURNER
* * *
OCTOBER 14
Alex sat in front of her window, the sky behind her a slice of brilliant blue. She held her phone up in front of her, and the picture was slightly shaky as a result. The rims of Alex’s eyes were red, as if she’d been recently crying.
Last night was . . . well. It was horrible. I can’t even talk about it. My mom has asked me, like, a thousand questions, but what can I tell her? If I tell her anything, even the smallest detail, she’s going to want to know more. And there are things that happened last night that she can’t know about. That she can never find out.