Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(77)

“A few miles up the road,” Angela said. “There was a skip by some construction. I saw it as we drove in. Some building site, close to the pub. We could take them there, drop them in with the other rubbish.”

Everyone agreed that this was the correct thing to do.

“Who feels like they can drive?” Theo asked.

“I think I could,” Julian said. “I have no idea why or how, but I think I could.”

“You five go. Get rid of the bags and drive to the shops and get bread or milk or sauce rolls or something, so if anyone says they saw a car leave here in the morning there’ll be a good reason. While you’re gone, we’ll call the police. Once we start this, we need to stay together on it. Not just today. Always. Do we agree?”

One by one, each of the group nodded their assent. Julian, Sooz, Angela, Peter, and Yash backed out of the driveway with their terrible cargo, leaving Theo and Sebastian.

And Rosie and Noel.

Theo reached for Sebastian’s hand. The stage was set. Ready or not, showtime always came. You had to go on even if you felt underprepared.





22


THE FIRE CRACKLED AND LICKED THE DARK AIR. THE CLOCK ON THE mantel did its part and made a gentle, slow heartbeat sound. The Nine circulated a look. They spoke wordlessly to each other. It was weird how they could have an entire conversation this way. Stevie could feel it, even if she couldn’t hear it.

Her butt was way too hot. She stepped forward a bit.

“I didn’t start putting it all together until dinner,” Stevie said. “I didn’t know what I was looking at, at first. But a few things got me thinking. If you hadn’t said plant-based so many times, I don’t think it would have occurred to me what Angela was really saying. Plants. Then I started thinking about all the things Sebastian told me when we were outside. That he used to smoke a lot of weed. He learned about plants from the gardener. When you add it all up: plants, weed, the window closed one day and open after the murder, the rope missing from the pull—it all equals . . .”

“Grow house,” David said, breaking into a smile.

Nothing from the assembled. Too much nothing. She had stepped out into the void and . . .

Then someone sighed.

“This is my fault,” Theo said.

“Don’t you dare, Theo,” Sebastian said. “If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine.”

“It sounds like it was mine,” Sooz added. “Maybe it was my subconscious talking.”

“It’s not anyone’s fault,” Peter said. “No one’s fault. It was . . .”

“What we had to do,” Julian concluded.

. . . and she had landed on solid ground. Across the room, David had a strange look on his face. Not a smile, exactly—a kind of grimace of amazement.

“Do you know where my aunt is?” Izzy said to them.

Everyone shook their head. A chorus of nos.

“We don’t!” Theo said. “If we knew, trust us . . .”

“We would be there,” Sooz said. “We want to know as much as you do. This . . . the cannabis . . .”

“It has nothing to do with it,” Peter said. “Nothing.”

“There’s no harm in explaining now,” Sebastian said. “You seem to have a handle on the situation. And it’s all down to me anyway. You’re right. I had cannabis plants up there. Not many. I put in some lights and fans and grew a few plants—barely anything. I’d pick some up when I visited home. When we came upon the scene that morning, saw the door ripped open, the first thing that occurred to me was that someone must have found out and had come to steal the plants.”

“And had they?” Stevie said.

“No,” Sebastian replied. “Nothing had been taken. We just found . . . Rosie and Noel. So we got rid of the plants before the police arrived.”

“Carefully,” Theo added. “We tried to disrupt as little as possible. When we got there, the floor was soaked—there were puddles of water everywhere, so there were no footprints. We still used other objects to avoid stepping on the ground. We removed everything from upstairs, very carefully, and got rid of it. The only things we altered downstairs were the axe and the rope handle.”

“Where was the axe when you arrived?” Stevie asked.

“Exactly where it always was,” Sebastian said. “Standing upright by the door. It had a long handle, so I’d use it to hook the rope pull. That’s what I did that morning. I grabbed it and pulled the hatch down. I didn’t see Rosie and Noel until I had come back down the ladder.”

“We had to cut the rope handle because it had blood on it,” Theo continued, “and the police might go up there and find residue of the plants. We had to clean the axe because Sebastian’s fingerprints were on it. We cleaned the handle and threw it in the stream. I’ve never regretted what we did that day. We couldn’t help Rosie or Noel, but we could help Sebastian. If those plants had been found he would have gone to jail, and maybe he would have been accused of murder.”

“No regrets,” Sooz said.

This was generally echoed around the room.

“And my aunt knew?” Izzy said.

“Of course,” Theo replied. “It was all of us. She helped.”