“I will be out most of tomorrow, making the funeral arrangements and getting my nails done. The children are still off school and are going to visit their aunt again in the morning, but I will need you to look after them in the afternoon. Then when I come back, you will pack your things and go.”
“What?” Cassie’s voice was high and shrill. Her mind reeled at what Trish was ordering her to do.
“Trish, I can’t leave. My bail conditions don’t allow it. I have to stay in the house. Or go out with an adult. That’s what the police told me. I mean, I signed for it and everything.”
She stared at Trish pleadingly, but Trish returned her gaze, icily composed.
“That’s your problem, not mine. You will leave soon as I get back. No negotiation, no second chances. If you refuse to go, I’ll turn the tape over to the police. So you have the choice. You’re with me, or you’re against me.”
She smiled at Cassie, and Cassie knew she’d never seen such an evil expression on the face of any human being.
She saw exactly what was happening here. Trish would hand the tape in regardless. And those recorded words, together with the fact Cassie had broken her bail conditions and fled the home, would hammer the final nails into the coffin of her guilt.
Trish stood up and collected the wine bottle and the glasses.
She glanced down at the shards by Cassie’s feet.
“Sweep that up before you lock up for the night, will you?” she said. “And leave that necklace outside my bedroom door.”
She turned and walked inside.
Cassie felt a stinging pain in her palm and realized it was wet with blood.
She’d thought it was just a scratch, but a fragment of glass had speared her skin.
Carefully she drew the bloodied shard out, aware that the sobbing of her own breath was the only sound on the quiet verandah.
She made her faltering way to the kitchen, feeling as if she was on automatic pilot as she rinsed the blood off her hand in the sink. Her mind felt bludgeoned by what had just happened and she felt sick with self-blame, because if she’d been thinking more clearly, she could have avoided it.
Blindly, she had trusted Trish, and now she would pay the price for the rest of her life.
Cassie swept up the glittering slivers of glass and tipped them into the kitchen bin and as they fell, she started to sob. Her legs gave out from under her and she sprawled onto the floor, unable to move, horrified at the calculated evil Trish had shown, and how she’d used Cassie’s desperation to achieve her own ends.
She didn’t know how long she’d spent in a puddle of tears on the floor before she heard a footfall behind her.
Clumsily she turned.
It was Dylan.
He looked down at her and his face registered mild surprise.
“You OK? I thought I heard something,” he whispered.
Cassie struggled to her feet. She was very clearly not OK and there would be no fooling Dylan. Her face felt swollen from crying and her eyes were puffy. The cut on her palm had bled and dried again, leaving a rusty residue. She was sure her face was sheet-white.
“You want some tea?” he asked awkwardly, and that made her start crying all over again.
“I think you should have some tea,” he said.
Dylan put the kettle on and for a while the sound of it boiling was the only noise in the room.
“Sweet tea for shock,” he said. “We learned it in class. You look shocked.”
He added two teaspoons of sugar to the cup.
“Is my bitch of a mother harassing you?” he asked in a low voice, sitting down at the table opposite her.
Cassie stared at him, appalled by his choice of words, and also the conversational way he’d said them.
What could she say back to this strange, sociopathic, twelve-year-old boy who had been at the top of her suspects list until tonight?
She gave the tiniest nod.
Dylan grimaced.
“Dad was cool. He had his issues, but he was a cool guy. I’m sorry he died. Mum is something different.”
Cassie’s stomach twisted with fear.
“You think so?” she whispered.
Asking the question felt like a betrayal, but at the same time, Cassie was comforted that somebody close to Trish could say such a thing.
“She’s mad in the head,” Dylan confided.
“Why do you say that?” Cassie could hardly breathe as she whispered the question.
“Well, look at Benjamin Bunny.”
Cassie blinked. She hadn’t expected Dylan to bring up that topic. She didn’t want to think about it. He’d admitted to killing his own pet. What did his mother have to do with that?
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I adopted him. Friends were moving, Benjy had nowhere else to go. Nobody wants rabbits, they’re not popular pets anymore. I researched it. All he was going to do was stay in a cage in my room. He’d be no harm to anyone. But she freaked out.”
In a high whisper, he mimicked her.
“What have you done, Dylan? You know I’m allergic to fur. I won’t have a furry animal living in this house. I’m the main breadwinner, I pay the bills. This is my home and my rules and I say the rabbit goes.”
“And then?” Cassie asked, fascinated and appalled by the story.
“Before she left on her recent trip, she told me that if Benjamin was home when she got back, she’d poison him. She would have done it, too.”
“No!” Cassie breathed, as the implications of what Dylan was saying hit home.
Dylan nodded.
“I thought of letting him go free, but tame rabbits can’t survive in the wild, especially older ones. I looked it up.”
His face hardened.
“So I broke his neck. I found out how to do it online. It was painless and he died immediately. He didn’t know a thing. It was better that
