Читать книгу Innocent or Guilty? - A. Taylor M. - Страница 19

Kat was unable to resist striding over there, Ray a few steps behind her, muttering something about not having their recording equipment. I watched as Kat introduced herself to Morgan, but Morgan just stood there, arms crossed against her chest as she listened to Kat, while every few seconds her gaze flicked directly to mine. Despite having seen and talked to me just hours earlier, Cole’s eyes didn’t land on me once.

He was sat on a wooden bench, one leg crossed over the other, a bottle of beer in hand as he watched the interaction between Kat and Morgan. Clouds had scudded over the sky, but it was late in the day now, evening strolling in, and the combination of sunset and clouds turned the world yellow, meaning Cole was squinting as he watched his girlfriend talk to Kat. Morgan was gesticulating, her face twisting and turning, and I wished I could hear what they were saying, but I felt rooted to the ground, stuck in place. Morgan kept bringing one hand to her stomach, every couple of seconds or so, and my eyes instantly flicked to Cole, trying to read his face, figure out if what I was thinking could possibly be true.

“Is she pregnant?” I asked, turning to Kevin all of a sudden.

Kevin looked from me over to where Morgan stood on her porch, staring down at Kat and Ray who were talking full force at her now, giving her the pitch. “Don’t know. Why?”

“She just keeps … touching her stomach, I thought maybe …” but I couldn’t finish the sentence, and Kevin just shrugged and said lightly,

“Maybe she just had a really big burrito.”

“Thank you, Kevin. You don’t think maybe you could take this a tiny bit more seriously?”

Kevin made a face at me and sighed, “What would it matter anyway, Liv? If Morgan is pregnant, so what. What’s it to you? Or Ethan? Or the podcast?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing to me,” I said stoutly, turning away from him, “I was just curious.” And then after a beat I couldn’t help asking, “They’re not married though, right? Just dating?”

Kevin laughed, the sound running down the road and catching up to Kat, Ray, Cole and Morgan who all turned to look at us at the same time. “You worried about them having a baby out of wedlock, Liv?” He asked, still laughing. But when I didn’t immediately answer, he said, “No, they’re not married. They do live together though. So, a bit more serious than ‘dating’.”

Ray was strolling back towards us now, telling us that Morgan had miraculously agreed to an interview so he was going to go back and get their recording equipment from Kevin’s if that was okay? Kevin agreed and the two of them hopped on their bikes again, about to speed off when I said, “Can I stay? For the interview?”

Ray turned back to me, looking over his shoulder, eyes catching the eerie, watery yellow sunlight as they shifted over towards Cole and Morgan’s house, where Kat was following the two of them inside. “Um, I don’t think that’s the best idea.”

“Why? Did Morgan say something?”

“No, it’s not that. I just don’t think Kat would be cool with it. It might influence the interview, stop Morgan from saying certain things. You get that, right?”

I looked over towards the house. All three of them had disappeared inside now, and my gaze was drawn instead, inexorably, towards my old house. It had been repainted, and was now a cornflower blue with a bright white trim, whereas my mom had always insisted on keeping it all white when we lived there. When wisteria draped itself over the porch railings and trim, roses grew up the side, and alliums lined the pathway. I looked up to the second floor window I’d spent so much of my life looking out of, but just like with Jessica Heng’s house, it wasn’t ghostly figures I saw there, but the faint outlines of a desk pushed up to the window and a chair no one was sitting in. I said goodbye to Kevin and Ray and got back on my bike, pedaling back towards the B&B where Daniel was waiting for me.

“One or both of us is going to have to head back to work tomorrow,” Daniel said as soon as I opened the door to our room. The floor and coffee table were littered with papers Daniel had brought with him, but it was the phone in his hand that my eyes were drawn to.

“Why?” I said, “it’s Sunday tomorrow.” It wasn’t unusual for us to work weekends, of course, especially not during a big case, but it was still fairly early days with Reid Murphy’s case, and the all-nighters and long weekends didn’t usually begin until we were a lot closer to the trial.

“Reid’s just been charged with murder. James Asher died late last night.”

“Holy shit,” I said, the breath drawn right out of me.

“Yeah. That was Colin I just spoke to, Karen’s demanding all hands on deck from tomorrow.”

I looked behind me, towards the doorway I’d just walked through, as if, if I hadn’t come through that door, this wouldn’t have happened, and I wouldn’t have had to deal with the push-pull that was currently tugging away inside me. But that was wishful thinking, because Daniel would’ve called me regardless, telling me this news, and potentially cutting short this trip to Twin Rivers.

“You can stay,” he said now. “Stay until tomorrow evening at least, I’ll cover for you tomorrow.”

“You drove me out here, remember?” I said, frustration finding its way through my words. If he hadn’t insisted on coming with me, I’d have my own car here, and I wouldn’t be obliged to travel back to Portland so soon. I could’ve just pretended I’d never heard this news, and stayed here until Monday. But Reid’s charge being upped from attempted murder to murder really did change things, and I couldn’t help thinking about the conversation we’d had just the day before, and how much her life had now changed in the intervening 24-hours.

“How did you leave things with Kat and Ray?” Daniel asked, ignoring my petulance.

“They’re interviewing Morgan, Tyler’s older sister, literally as we speak.”

“You didn’t want to hang around for that?” Daniel asked, confusion creasing his forehead.

“They wouldn’t let me,” I said.

But they did let me listen to the recording later that evening, when both Kat and Ray came over for a drink.

* * *

Extract from transcript of Season 3 Episode 2 of Shadow of a Doubt:

Kat Thomas [voiceover]: If you listen carefully, the names Ethan Hall and Tyler Washington are still everywhere in Twin Rivers. Tyler may have died, and Ethan been convicted nine years ago, but the wounds are still so fresh they have barely begun to heal. It’s years later and while Ethan serves his sentence in the state penitentiary hundreds of miles away, Twin Rivers is still peopled by the players who were most severely affected by Tyler’s murder.

The Hall family may have long since stopped walking its streets, but Tyler’s classmates now teach in the very same high school they all attended, work in the bars and breweries they used to try to sneak into without being carded, manage the sporting goods stores they all bought their climbing gear from. His mother, Maria, is still mayor of Twin Rivers. She took a leave of absence for a while after her son died, but just a couple of years after Ethan was convicted of the murder of Tyler Washington, Maria was standing for election again. And she won.