“Yes.” I sighed and leaned back in the chair. “Can I ask you something elsenow?”
“Of course. You can always talk to me about anything,” she said, eyes anxiously wide. “I hope you still knowthat.”
“I do.” I hesitated and cleared my throat. “Did you ever have a problem with Lindsay when she was stillalive?”
“No. She wasn’t around much, because she was a very popular girl, so I hardly ever saw her,” she replied. “But when I did, she was lovely. Not just to me—to all thestaff.”
“So there was never any sort of issue with her? No false accusationsituations?”
Mom looked mystified. “No, like I said, she was a lovely girl. Her parents used to talk about her being quite wild and irresponsible, but I never saw any of that. I think she saved all the drama for them and herfriends.”
“Right.”
“I know you’re probably wondering why I never mentioned anything about her death to you,” she said, looking down at her coffee cup. “But the thing is, you’ve gone through so much in your life, with your father and everything else that’s happened.” She looked up at me again, eyes glistening with emotion. “I didn’t want to add to it all by making you sad about a girl you never even met. So I was upset when she died, because it was such an awful tragedy, but I kept it tomyself.”
I reached across and took her left hand. “You don’t have to hide things from me,Mom.”
She wiped her face with her other hand. “I know. But all I’ve ever wanted to do is protect you. I messed up by not seeing the signs with your father while he was still alive. Not until it was too late. So I could never bear the thought of adding any more suffering to your life. Not when I already caused somuch.”
I got up, went over to her side of the table, and leaned down to give her a hug. “It’s not your fault,” I murmured. “You didn’t cause any ofit.”
“I certainly feel like I did.” She let me hug her for another moment, and then she broke away to grab a tissue and blow her nose. “I’m so sorry,” she muttered. “Someone’s just tried to kill you, and I’m making everything aboutme.”
“Mom, it’s fine. I understand,” I said. “But I have to gonow.”
Her eyes widened. “But… you only just got here. You’ve barely even touched yourdrink.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I really need to sort something out,” I saidhurriedly.
“What’s wrong? I’llhelp.”
I shook my head as I grabbed the necklace and phone. “I don’t think you can. But I promise, I’ll come and see you again as soon as I possibly can, and we can talk morethen.”
“Okay.” Mom gave me a watery smile and hugged meagain.
I raced outside and got back into the car. Hunter was staring at the windshield with his jaw clenched. His hands were on the steering wheel, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles had turnedpale.
“Did you hear all of that?” I asked in a soft voice, reaching over to touch his rightleg.
He didn’t move or respond. He just kept staring straight ahead, like he was shellshocked. Then he finally closed his eyes and bowed his head, face crumpling. I’d never seen him look so tiredbefore.
“I heard,” he muttered. “It’sAdam.”
I nodded, lips pressed in a thin line. It all made a sick, twisted kind of sensenow.
After Adam pushed Lindsay off the roof, he must’ve decided to give her necklace to my mom in order to frame her if the police determined that the death was suspicious. No doubt an anonymous tip would’ve made its way into the inbox of one of the investigating officers, from a person stating that they’d seen one of the Connery maids’ daughters wearing the dead girl’s jewelry. If my mother tried to tell them that Adam gave it to her, he would deny the whole thing and act like she was simply lying to save her ownass.
That never happened, though, as Lindsay’s death was presumed to be a suicide from the very start, so Adam never had any need to frame mymother.
After that, he must’ve thought he got away with the murder scot-free… but then I told him right to his face that I was going to look into it with hisbrother.
Given that I had the key to the awful crime literally hanging around my neck, he must’ve realized that he had to get rid of me to save himself. All it would take was me finding out that the necklace used to belong to Lindsay (and then asking my mother where she really got it) for his house of cards to come tumbling down around him. So he did whatever he could to throw me off for a few days. He pretended to be super-invested in the search for Lindsay’s killer, and he ‘helped’ me come up with a list of possible suspects, all of whom were people other thanhim.
He made Trina seem suspicious—in a very sneaky, roundabout kind of way—along with various other people from Royal Falls, and he also lied to me when he said that Lindsay had accused my mother of theft a few days before she died. That was why Hunter didn’t remember the incident happening… because it never did. It was just another lie Adam made up to make me focus my suspicion on literallyanyonebuthim.
While I was caught off guard with that inaccurate list of suspects, Adam was plotting ways to get rid ofme.
First, he posted that video of me at the school assembly, hoping I’d immediately drop out of RFA due to the sheer humiliation, run back to Silvercreek with my tail between my legs, and forget all about the investigation into Lindsay’sdeath.