‘You’re my sister,’ Milla says simply.
‘And later, after we knew Amber was dead, you figured I must have killed her,’ Lucy says quietly. ‘That’s why you wanted Mum and Dad to pay Jess, and why you didn’t want me to talk to the police.’
‘I know how bad you are at lying.’
‘It was my blood, Milla,’ Lucy says. ‘Not Amber’s. Yeah, I pretended to be dangerous, poking the vodka bottle at her. But she grabbed it off me. Then she cut me. My hands first; then she sliced my stomach. It wasn’t too deep, but it was long, all the way across, and God, it hurt so much. I collapsed on the mud, and she ran away. Completely fine except for a few cuts on her fingers.’
‘Your blood?’ Milla repeats, getting her head around it.
‘Yeah, what a warrior I turned out to be. Do you know, I took the rolling pin with me, as sort of a defence weapon. But that never made it out of the plastic bag. I lay on the ground for ages after she left. I think I was in shock, or just exhausted. But eventually I found the energy to get myself up.’
‘But if Amber attacked you, why didn’t you just tell us what she’d done?’
Lucy looks away, out of the car window, but pulls her school shirt out of her skirt, and opens the bottom few buttons. The material slips apart and Milla stares at the long thin scab splitting Lucy’s midriff in two. ‘It was a warning,’ Lucy explains, still not making eye contact. ‘I knew something about Amber, and Jess. Something Bronwen had found out and told me in her letter. I was trying to figure out what to do about it, but then Amber stole the letter. She threatened me. Said that if I told anyone else what I’d learned, my family, the school, then she’d kill me.’
‘But Amber’s dead,’ Milla murmurs. ‘She can’t hurt you anymore.’
Lucy turns back to face Milla. ‘I know. But I couldn’t have predicted that when I was bleeding everywhere and trying to work out what the hell I was going to say to Mum, could I? And then afterwards, I suppose it felt easier to keep it to myself. I’d cleaned up by then; found a dressing. Realised that the wound wasn’t too bad. And I didn’t want anyone to know I even saw Amber that night, let alone fought with her. Plus, there was always the chance that Jess would act on Amber’s threat if I did say something. It was easier to stay quiet.’
Milla thinks for a moment. ‘I get that in the beginning,’ she starts. ‘But what about later, when everything came out, and Jess was accusing you of killing Amber? Surely you could tell that Mum was suspicious of you then? Didn’t you want to explain?’
Lucy bites her lip, looks towards the window again. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight.’
Milla studies her sister in profile. Her pale skin and dainty nose. Long, light eyelashes. We judge people on their appearance, she thinks, however hard we try not to. And Lucy looks like she needs protecting. But is that really true? Or is she stronger than that? ‘I don’t believe you,’ she says.
Lucy turns to face her.
‘It’s because you thought I killed her, isn’t it?’ Milla presses. ‘That’s why you kept quiet. Because when I was busy covering your tracks, you thought I was hunting Amber.’
‘I was more grateful than horrified,’ Lucy whispers. ‘I didn’t think about you being a killer, just an incredible sister. That’s bad, isn’t it?’
‘I didn’t kill her, Luce.’
‘I know that now. Hopefully I always knew it, and that’s why it was easy to accept, because it was only ever a story I made up.’
‘But someone did.’ Milla pauses for a few seconds, but she needs to say this. ‘This thing you’d found out about Amber, what was it?’
Tears glisten in Lucy’s eyes. ‘Bronwen couldn’t believe anyone could hate me enough to bully me like that,’ she says, looking straight ahead. ‘So she tried to find out more about Amber and Jess, what had happened to make them such bitches, and why they were picking on me specifically. It took her a few months, but Amber eventually accepted a follow request from one of the Instagram accounts she set up.’
‘Did she find out that Amber and Jess went to Dad’s old school?’ Milla asks. ‘And that Jess was probably the anonymous witness in the case against him?’
Lucy’s head whips round. ‘How did you know about that?’
‘The police know,’ Milla says. ‘They came to the house.’
‘Shit.’ Lucy’s brow creases.
‘That’s why I came to get you. Why I had to ask if you killed Amber.’
‘Because you think …’ Lucy starts, but can’t finish.
‘Dad was the last person to see Jess before she went missing, wasn’t he?’ Milla says. ‘And he was out, in the car, on the night Amber was killed. We all were. But maybe he found Amber instead of you.’
‘But he didn’t know who she was. At least, I hadn’t told him …’ Her voice trails off, perhaps realising that if Bronwen could find out the truth, so could their dad.
‘How was he when he got back that night?’ Milla asks.
‘Well, he didn’t come back straight away,’ Lucy admits quietly. ‘And when he did, he seemed distracted. But that was understandable; he was exhausted from his trip, and he’d thought something bad had happened to me. He went for a shower, and I went to bed, so I didn’t see him again that night.’
‘Luce,’ Milla says, taking a breath. ‘Do you think he could have killed her?’ She forces herself to look at her sister, sees the tears, now snaking down her cheeks. But Lucy doesn’t answer her question.
‘Where’s Mum?’ she says.
‘I … I don’t know,’ Milla stutters. ‘I tried calling but she didn’t pick up.’
‘Try again,’ Lucy begs. ‘Please.’ Milla does as she’s asked and switches to speaker mode, but it goes straight through to voicemail again. She frowns. She’s left a couple of messages now, and her dad must have left dozens. She phoned her mum’s work too, and they said she wasn’t in the office.
So where is she?
Milla opens Find My iPhone, but her frown deepens at the No location found written underneath her mum’s contact. ‘That’s weird,’ she murmurs. ‘She never turns her phone off.’
‘Dad said she left before he woke up,’ Lucy whispers. ‘You don’t think she’s left him, do you?’ Her eyes widen. ‘Do you think he confessed to killing Amber and she ran?’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Milla throws back. ‘She’d never leave us.’ Not Dad would never kill Amber, she realises with a stab of guilt.
‘Well where is she then?’ Lucy whines.
Milla thinks. This is 2024. There must be some way of finding her. Not Snapchat – her mum’s never been near it – but some way. She feels the cold metal of Felix’s car key in her hands. ‘Fuck, I know!’ she calls out, then checks if the app from that impulsive Christmas present is still active on her phone.
