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‘You don’t trust me,’ she says. ‘Why would you?’ And then she starts crying for real.
She was never the most beautiful of us girls. Lydia was always the stunner, then probably Georgia, though she never had the confidence to realise it. But now, after a lifetime of being taken care of by professional dermatologists and the odd bit of eye-bag removal and wrinkle tightening, Mina certainly looks the youngest. It has all been done so tastefully, but still there’s a slight artificiality to her, a touch of plastic, and I realise I wouldn’t want to look like that. She takes perfect pictures, but up close, you can see the effort, the lies.
She shakes her head. ‘Why did you stop being my friend?’
My mouth opens, but I’m not sure what to say.
She looks at me, the hurt in her eyes clear as day. ‘I worshipped you.’
‘You worshipped Tristan.’
‘Both of you. I thought we’d be best friends.’
‘We were best friends.’
She shakes her head again. ‘No. After Georgia, no one was your best friend. I thought we were, but then I moved in here, and it was like I was invisible to you.’
‘You kicked me out of my home and took all of my money. You broke my husband’s business.’ I hate the sound of this out loud. It’s so hard to admit how bad this has made me feel when none of it is really my money. Entitlement is such a twisty thing.
‘None of that was me.’
‘But you didn’t object.’
‘Of course I objected. I told you.’
I remember her telling me she didn’t think it was fair, but I’d thought she was just trying to keep me on side. ‘But you accepted it.’
‘What else could I have done?’
I stare at her.
‘This family, Frances… You could have warned me. We could have been here for each other.’
‘What do you mean?’
Does she mean that we don’t talk much about things? Or does she see what my father does to my mother? Does she see his control over us? What could I have said to her? I hadn’t even understood. Not till today. And what would a warning have done? Would she have left Tristan?
She runs a finger round the rim of her glass. ‘I know you don’t trust me. But I can promise that nothing you say will get back to Tristan. I think we’re done. I think we’re finally over.’
‘What?’ They’re over?
‘Did Tristan rape Miss Smith? Did he try to kill her?’
I blink. My cuts ache.
She leans closer. ‘What was on the tape?’
‘There wasn’t a tape.’
‘Tristan just told me. He says the twins said Jenna had something she could hold over him and that’s the only thing it could possibly be. He’s losing his mind. He and Theo are down there losing their minds together.’
‘I destroyed the tape.’
So, Theo knows my brother’s darkest secret. Or some version of it. And the lies keep pouring out of my mouth. There was a tape. I didn’t destroy it. But Mina’s right. I don’t trust her.
Mina brings her hand to her throat. ‘The thing is, I could believe that it could be any number of things, that there are a thousand different tapes showing Tristan doing any number of awful things, but this is the only thing Jenna could have laid her hands on, isn’t it? Because whatever else he’s hiding, it wouldn’t be here, within our reach.’
Mina thinks Tristan is hiding other things. Lots of things. I can’t think about that now.
