Innocent or Guilty? by A. M. Taylor

Author:A. M. Taylor [Taylor, A. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-05-31T17:00:00+00:00

30.

NOW

“Why didn’t you tell us all this sooner?” Kat said, sounding breathless, urgent, and exasperated all at once. “This is huge, Olivia. Huge.”

We were back at my B&B, sitting in the small den adjacent to the dining room where we’d all eaten breakfast just yesterday morning. I was the only guest that weekend, so we had the place to ourselves, although I’d had to ask the owner for a little privacy once she’d brought through a platter of lavender and earl grey shortcake, and a huge jug of homemade lemonade. Ray was happily making his way through his second shortcake while Kat and I studiously ignored them. I’d just finished telling them about the fight I’d overheard the night of the party while hiding in Jessica’s bathroom. I’d been up there looking for a tampon of all things, when Tyler and Nick had burst into Jess’s bedroom, arguing about money Tyler owed Nick. I couldn’t remember exactly how much money it was that Nick had accused Tyler of owing, but I remembered it being a lot. So much that it had taken me by surprise; I’d known Tyler had become a more than prolific drug user by that point, but I had no idea just how bad it had gotten. Nick, for his part, had sounded on the edge of utter despair; for Tyler it was nothing, of course. Nothing ever touched him, nothing even came close to touching him.

Not until what happened to him in the woods.

But Nick’s fear over what might happen to him if he didn’t get his money had been real, and his frustration at Tyler for not taking it more seriously, had been even more real. I’d just finished explaining all this to Kat and Ray and I was afraid that the contents of what I was telling them was getting lost in Kat’s anger and astonishment that I could have kept it from them at all.

“I just don’t get it, Olivia,” Kat continued, shaking her head, “This is everything we’ve been looking for. Everything. You knew we were looking into Nick, you’ve known for ages, and you’re just telling us now? Hell, I’m starting to wonder why you weren’t the person to tell us he sold drugs in high school yourself? Why did we have to wait to hear about it from Morgan and Ethan?”

Taking a deep breath I leaned forward in my seat and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you immediately. About all of it. I guess I was trying to figure out what all this meant, and where I stood with you guys, how much I could trust you.”

Kat’s eyebrows shot up just as she let out a huge puff of air and held up her hands in disgust. “Don’t you see that all this does, is make us question whether or not we can trust you?”

“It doesn’t look great, Olivia,” Ray said quietly around his piece of shortcake.

“This whole thing is a two way street, we’ve said that from the very beginning,” Kat pointed out.

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