Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(76)

Now, the hard part. This was where she stalled. Sebastian saw it happen and put his hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “You’ve been doing all the lifting.”

He took an exceptionally long draw on the bottle.

The two of them proceeded on to the sitting room, where everyone was laughing and talking and eating bacon sandwiches. It was like Theo and Sebastian came from another world—they were ghosts in the world of the living, the world of the before.

Julian noticed them first, his face falling into a confused grimace.

“You all right there, Seb?” he asked. “Theo?”

The laughter and conversation faded as everyone became aware of the silent pair in the doorway.

“Something’s happened,” Sebastian began.

Later, people would tell Sebastian that he was the one who gave the news, but he would have no recollection of it. He had a distant memory of the reaction. A strange laugh from Yash. Silence from the others. Disbelief. Someone started screaming. Possibly Angela? Sooz said something about the police, which was when Theo blocked her way out the door.

“There’s something we have to do first, and we need to do it right now,” she said. “We need to clear out all the plants. They’ll arrest Sebastian otherwise.”

She didn’t need to say any more. The point was communicated around the room wordlessly. They could sense each other’s thoughts.

“How?” Julian asked.

“We touch as little as possible,” she said. “One of us goes up into the loft space to get them. We clean out that space, we get rid of all the plants and equipment, and then we call the police. We have to be quick about it. The gardener will be here this afternoon.”

Once she started on the plan, Theo found her mind clearing. It wasn’t that this was easy—it was not. But at least there was something she could do. Keep busy. Keep moving. Later, she would process. She would find a way to deal with the trauma.

“We need bin bags,” she said. “Lots of them. And gloves. Washing-up gloves will do. Bins, gloves, a broom, cleaning supplies, some gardening sheers or scissors, rope.”

The group, now seven, made their way through the gardens, propping each other up and carrying supplies. The scene was as Sebastian and Theo left it—the overturned wheelbarrow, the door hanging open. It had not been a dream.

“I’ll go inside,” Theo said. “I’ve already seen . . .”

She almost said it. It was them. Rosie and Noel. Noel and Rosie.

“I have to see,” Sooz said, stepping forward.

“Sooz . . .”

Sooz made it as far as the doorway, froze, and backed away.

“I . . . I can’t. You’re sure? Theo, you’re sure? You’re sure?”

She began to shake uncontrollably. Peter got to her first and moved her back, holding her tight.

Theo put on the gloves.

First, she put a trail of unrolled plastic bin bags on the ground between the door and the ladder. The floor was soaked from the lashes of rain that had come in during the night. Theo took off the boots to climb the ladder. No footprints. Once upstairs, she opened the little window. It was tiny, but they would be able to get the plants through it. The other things—the grow lights, the tarps—those might be harder. Those could go down the steps, if necessary.

They formed a brigade. Theo lowered the plants from the window in the bucket. Someone on the ground dumped them directly into a bin bag. Bit by bit, the room was emptied. When it was cleaned out, she swept it for any remaining cannabis on the floor. She tipped the dustpan’s contents into a bag. She considered closing the window, but there was still a smell of cannabis plants in the space. The window had to be open. There was a breeze today—anything they could do to air out the space would be good. On the way down, she wiped the ladder rungs clean.

When she was done upstairs, she cut the rope that opened the hatch and removed it, leaving only a small hole where it had been, and pushed the hatch closed with the handle of a shovel. She backed up out of the shed, taking the tarps with her as she went.

One last thing. The axe. It was on the floor where Sebastian had dropped it. She forced herself to look as she wiped it, picked it up in a bin bag, covering it so the others couldn’t see. She stepped out of the woodshed and walked several yards back, to the stream that wound through the woods into the garden. She shook it out of the bag, dropping it into the water, kicking at it until it was entirely submerged.

She stared at the axe for a moment, peacefully resting there among the rocks. Reality fragmented for a moment. She was cleaning up a murder scene. Rosie. Noel. She had a mental flash of Rosie’s body under the wood . . .

“Keep it together, Theo,” she said to herself. “You’re going to be a doctor. You do whatever needs to be done to help others. You have to do this.”

She shook her head forcefully, as if trying to knock the picture out of her mind. It worked, at least enough for her to pick up her chin and march back to where the others were loading the cars.

“Where do we go with these?” Yash said, regarding the bags. “The woods?”

“They might search,” Peter said. “They might find them.”

“There’s a lot of woods.”

“There’s probably going to be a lot of police.”

Peter and Yash, refining each other’s ideas even now.