All Our Secrets

We All Must Feel the Rain Sometimes

"What it is," she sighed, "to have to choose between self and security.

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

Jordan was at my house earlier than usual as we had agreed. Leaving no room for Russell or Rachel to offer to drive me to school.

Michelle had stayed for dinner and kept the table engrossed in her stories enough for them to not notice how quiet I had gotten after overhearing the story between Russell and my father.

So many things ran through my head as I tried to figure out what the hell it is that my mother had kept hurried all these years.

Mr Yardley hadn't gotten back to me and I had the urge to go back to the restaurant and put more pressure on him to get the contact of this lady he had said knew my mum.

But I was forced to put all that somewhere in the back of my mind as Jordan explained his sequence of events that night.

How quiet dinner was. How both Adrian and Giana had gone straight to their rooms. Even Elle, who usually lingered to talk had retreated not giving Jordan any opportunity to look at her phone or ask her any questions about the party.

We only had today to collect enough evidence to prove Adrian innocent according to Alana's blackmailer.

And it was a Friday so we wouldn't even be seeing Alana, Dante, Tinashe and Paul until morning.

Especially since Michelle had explained over dinner that the boarders movements had been restricted out of campus while the police still investigated Phoebe's disappearance.

As Rachel had explained, usually everyone who wasn't a freshman was allowed to leave campus without supervision on Saturdays.

Jordan and I were hunched over at a table in the cafeteria.

The boarders were having breakfast and he had bought a muffin and I had gotten some granola and yoghurt.

"So no luck?" I asked.

Jordan frowned as he looked around uneasily.

We were far away from everyone not to be heard and the other kids in here's voices surely drowned out everything else.

Jordan leaned in closer.

"I spoke to Jim - our security guard. So apparently when the police came over to ask Adrian a couple of questions, they asked to look through the security footage too."

"Because of the video." I guessed.

Jordan nodded. He fiddled with a band around his arm.

"But that's just it, there was nothing there."

I furrowed my brows. "What? Like the cameras didn't pick up anything strange?"

I saw the worry and concern on Jordan's face.

"Nia, there's no footage from that night. Or the rest of the week."

I leaned back in my chair.

The footage we needed to prove whether Adrian had been with Phoebe when he came home that night had just magically disappeared.

"What, how?"

"I don't know. Jim just said maybe there had been a glitch that we didn't notice before? Apparently it had happened before."