Lovely Girls(75)

I was already shaking my head. “You don’t know that. You might not have been able to stop them in time. And if they knew you were there, they might have turned on you.” The thought sent a chill through me. “They could have killed you too.”

“I still should have tried to help.” Alex drew her knees up, hugging them tightly to her chest. “First Dad, then Callie. People keep dying because of me. It’s why I didn’t want anyone to see this. To know that I was there and that I ran away. Like a coward.”

I put my arm around her and held her while she began to cry. Her sobs were loud and ragged, and she sagged against me. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d allowed me to hold her.

“What happened to Callie wasn’t your fault,” I said into her hair, which smelled faintly floral.

“I’m the one who took the video of Daphne and the coach together. I’m the one who gave it to Callie. In a way, I set everything in motion. If I hadn’t, Callie might still be alive.”

“Why did you give it to her?”

Alex shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I showed it to them that day they hung the doll in my locker. I was so mad. It was like something had snapped inside of me, and I just wanted to hurt Daphne back. To make her stop laughing. So I played the video and held it up for the three of them to see. That’s when Daphne smashed my phone into pieces. Then, a few days later, Callie asked if she could have a copy. I didn’t know she was going to text it to everyone at school, but honestly? At that moment, I didn’t care. I was angry.”

“Understandably. But we’re going to have to give the data stick to the police,” I said. “And you’re going to have to tell them everything.”

Alex nodded resignedly. “I know. I was hoping that they would find out that Daphne and Shae were lying about being home that night and then find out that it was Callie who texted out the video. Because I’m pretty sure that’s why Daphne killed her.”

“But what was Shae’s motive? Why did she help Daphne?” I would never forget the chilling almost black-and-white image of the two girls holding Callie down under the surf. It hadn’t been a quick death. They’d had to keep her there, pushed down under the water, for long moments. And although I couldn’t see Callie at that point, I knew by the way Daphne and Shae had struggled to keep Callie submerged that she’d been fighting back.

“Shae does whatever Daphne tells her to,” Alex said quietly.

“But there must be more to it than that. No one would kill someone just because their friend told them to.” But even as I spoke, I remembered Emma telling me the story about the girls going to dance classes when they were in middle school. How Shae had been the best dancer, and in return, Daphne had shunned Shae until she agreed to drop out of dance classes. Maybe Daphne had been grooming Shae to follow her orders for years.

“Callie talked about it with me once. She said that Daphne has a way of making you do things you don’t want to do. That it’s like this power she has. I guess Callie was right.”

“We have to go to the police,” I said. “They need to arrest those two girls before they can hurt anyone else.”

Alex hesitated. “I think there’s probably one more thing you should see before we go to the police.”

“I really think we should leave now. The police are just waiting on the coroner’s report. If it shows that Callie was killed—and after seeing how much she struggled, I have to imagine it will—they’re going to arrest you for her murder.”

Alex nodded. “I know, but there’s more. I need to show you one more video.”

My stomach curdled. How much worse could this get?

“I screwed up,” Alex continues. “I didn’t mean to, but I did. The law of unintended consequences, I guess.”

“What are you talking about? What’s the law of unintended consequences?”

“We learned about it in my economics class. It’s when someone passes a law hoping to accomplish something and something unexpected and unintended happens instead. Like when they banned alcohol and it resulted in the formation of organized crime.”

I wondered whether Alex could be in shock. She’d been fragile even before she witnessed a murder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetheart.”

“I was trying to get Daphne and Shae to admit to what they’d done. But instead, I warned them.”

“What did you warn them about?” I asked. “Something else happened on the beach that night?”

“Do you know how I was just telling you that Daphne has a weird effect on her friends? That people do things because she tells them to?”

I nodded, impatient to get this data stick to the police. Alex wouldn’t be safe until they saw it.

“I think Daphne has the reverse effect on me,” Alex said. “She just makes me so angry. And I end up acting before I think through the consequences.”

Suddenly, she had my attention. “What did you do?”

Alex picked up the television remote and selected another video from the data stick.

“Just watch this,” she said.





CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE




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VIDEO DIARY OF ALEX TURNER