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But now Lydia’s mouth relaxed and her eyebrows creased. ‘Oh God, Georgia.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she threw her arms around me. ‘You don’t know. You really don’t, do you?’
I shook my head, stiffening. I couldn’t remember when I had last been hugged by another woman.
‘All these years and you thought that your mother had actually…’
I didn’t know what she was saying but I could feel the edges of it. Her warmth around me had me crumbling again and I leant into her and closed my eyes.
‘Mum, what are you talking about?’ said Rose. Both she and Jenna were looking at us like we were from another planet, and I remembered they didn’t know we knew each other.
‘The tape,’ said Lydia.
‘What about it?’ said Rose, jutting her chin like she was making no apologies at this time, thank you.
‘This… Miss Smith… Georgia Smith. She’s the friend I told you about.’
Rose’s eyes, as big as her mother’s, went wide. ‘She’s that woman’s daughter? Why didn’t you say she was Miss Smith?’
Rose and Jenna looked at each other.
‘What woman?’ asked Jenna. ‘The woman on the tape?’
And my heart went as still as a rock reaching the bottom of the ocean.
What tape?
80
NOW
I’m still staring at my brother, wondering what to make of his shock and bafflement.
He could be lying. He could still be T.
Could he have killed Jenna and be setting up Theo or Georgia?
Killed Jenna? But Jenna isn’t dead. My baby girl is still alive. She has to be. Just not here.
I turn to look at the message on the wall:
WHO KILLED JENNA BEAUFORT-BRADLEY?
No no no no no. It isn’t true.
But it won’t stop banging on my skull, shouting loud. There’s so much blood. The possibilities of who hurt Jenna crush on top of me. Georgia, Tristan, Theo, Ash, Ava, all the kids at her school – no, it has to be Georgia. Here we are in her old house, the last place Tristan would want us to be.
Georgia set this up to punish us. She got close to Jenna. She wanted revenge for her mother. But why Jenna and not the twins? Because she thought it would hurt Tristan as much as it hurt me? Because Tristan is T?
I feel like I’m crushed into a tiny space at the top of my skull, gasping for air.
My daughter is dead because of me.
‘Oh my God,’ Lydia whispers. She’s in the bedroom.
I stand and walk to the bathroom door. Lydia turns towards me, eyes wide. In her hands, I instantly recognise the fuchsia pink tape with the smiley face sticker.
How is it here? Did Georgia get it from Rose?
‘Is this what I think it is?’ Lydia says, walking towards the TV. It’s a pink, Disney Princess TV, just like mine. I just barely register that it shouldn’t be here but it doesn’t seem important now.
