Page 34 of Tell Me Your Lies

As we walk toward the family room, Max and another man, in his fifties with piercing green eyes and dressed in golfing attire, walk into the room ahead of us.

“David, thank God.” Linc moves toward him. “Thanks for getting here so fast.”

“I was driving to the golf club, went past and saw the cops and then Max called.” The man frowns. “What happened?”

We follow and sit down on the sofa as before. My heart pounds as the cops follow my every move but I ignore them and take a bottle of water that Lucas hands me, and watch Linc speaking to his lawyer outside on the deck. When they return, the man introduces himself as David Brunel.

“My clients will endeavor to answer some of your questions.” Brunel turns to the detectives and then sits beside Linc, pulls a legal pad out of the briefcase he’s carrying, and rests it on his knees.

“Who was the last person to see Allison alive?” The younger detective isn’t addressing Linc, she’s looking at me.

I explain my only sighting of her and give the approximate time. The detective turns her attention to Isabelle.

“Not me. I went to my cabin around midnight. I told her before ten that I didn’t need her for anything.” Isabelle shrugs. “I’m not sure why she insisted on coming. To be perfectly honest I didn’t even notice she was missing this morning. It was only when Linc told me that she didn’t disembark, we all became concerned.”

“As your assistant, wouldn’t it be unusual for her to be missing?” The male detective stares at her long and hard. “Wouldn’t she be at your beck and call every minute of the day?”

“No, not exactly.” Isabelle pushes a long strand of hair over one shoulder. “But that’s what personal assistants do, she assists me personally.”

The detectives go from one to the other asking the same questions. Everyone gives their answers exactly as we discussed previously but Lucas leaves out the part that someone had spiked my drink.

“You mentioned that there must have been fifty people or more on board last night—guests and staff.” The female detective turns her attention to Linc. “What time did everyone retire?”

“Retire?” Linc smothers a smile. “Not many retire. They usually leave the party deck around midnight and head to the main deck. It gets very windy at night and the main deck has more shelter. The bar on that deck runs until everyone falls asleep. The staff are on duty until two, then they crash, security runs around the clock in shifts and if anything happened, they’d tell me or Isabelle—but nothing happened.”

The cops alternate asking everyone where they were between the hours of two and six-thirty when Lucas went into the galley. At that time the kitchen staff were already starting to prepare breakfast.

“Where were you, Mr. Boswell?” The female detective moves her gaze over him.

“Read the newspapers.” Linc shrugs. “I slept on the pool table with three women, and about twenty or so other people were in the room at the time. There are photographs and likely footage of when Isabelle found me around seven.”

I look at Isabelle, who stiffens and the look she turns on Linc is pure hatred.

“Ms. Croft.” The male detective turns to Isabelle. “And you?”

“In my cabin—alone.” Isabelle flicks her nails, highly agitated. “I already told you I left the party at midnight. I didn’t see Linc until the morning.”

“Security helped me to my cabin around two.” Mia yawns. “I asked him to stay but he declined.”

I tremble as his attention moves to Lucas.

“I headed to my cabin before two, I guess. I don’t drink. I didn’t see or hear anything.” Lucas rests one bare foot on his knee and smiles. “Alani was with me, all night. We went down to the galley for coffee around six-thirty.”

“There’s one missing.” The detective frowns. “Your other son, Oliver. Where is he?”

“In his room.” Mia stretches like a cat and then folds her legs under her. “He left the party before ten and went to his cabin to play games. He lives in a games world and doesn’t like wasting time, talking to anyone. He eats in his room most times.”

“We’ll need to talk to him.” The detective moves his gaze to Linc. “Can you ask him to come down?”

Soon after Linc calls Oliver, he walks into the room, hair all over the place and with a “Why are you disturbing me?” expression on his face.

The same questions yield the answers Mia gave the cops. I wait, holding my breath, my heart pounding so fast I’m sure they can hear it. My shirt is sticking to my back, just like this morning when it was soaked in blood. I try to keep it together but the visions of my blood-soaked clothes keep replaying in my head. When the female detective uses my name, I jump and stare at her. “I’m sorry, can you say that again?”

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” She frowns at me. “You don’t look so good.”

I laugh. “I ate something that didn’t agree with me and Lucas was holding back my hair all night as I kissed the porcelain. I just went to spew again before. I went to school with Mia, Lucas and Oliver and these are good people. You need to leave them in peace.”

“Okay, that’s all for now but the medical examiner has found residue under the victim’s nails.” The male detective runs an accusatory stare across everyone in the room. “We’ll be back. If you’re as innocent as you say, you won’t mind giving us a DNA sample.” He looks at the lawyer. “We’re waiting on a search warrant for the vessel, and we’ll require the list of names of everyone that boarded and left the yacht including the staff.”