The Secrets We Keep

The Thirty-Second Chapter

Hi, sorry for the delay with this part. I haven't been feeling well so here's a short chapter until I can get to the rest of the story. So sorry about this again and I hope you enjoy it!

Part Four: Insomnia

Hayden

If Johnson didn't do it, who did?

These are the words I think as I wake up the next morning. My whole body aches as I push myself up into a sitting position.

Usually, the first thing I've done the past few days is reach for Amelia's diary. My hands go to my drawer, but I find it empty of the thing I want. It's not here anymore. Christopher gave it up because neither he nor Nathan trusted me to do that.

I sigh as I rub the sleep out of my eyes. I know I've messed up if Christopher's the one giving sound moral advice. He's the privileged a-hole. I'm the detective's daughter. I should not be the idiot in this equation.

After my pity party, I reach for my phone but that's not there either. It's still at the station. Some techie is most likely downloading my recording or transcribing it. At least I did one thing right. I got a confession on audio.

Today's Friday. I pick up the pen I leave near my side table and cross out yesterday on the calendar I have hanging over my bed. Another day gone. Another day a killer walks free.

Despite what I'd promised my dad and Damien yesterday, I don't think I can just drop this.

I scrounge around for a scrunchie to pull back my hair as I start pacing around my room. I should drop this. Yesterday was scary. And my ears are still ringing from the words my mother and father shouted at me.

Reckless. Stupid. Selfish. Vain.

But I'm not doing this because I want the glory of solving a murder before the cops do. I'm not trying to impress my father or prove a point. I watched a girl fall out of a window and crack her skull on a paving I've walked over countless times.

This isn't about trying to one-up the big guys. Is it so wrong that I want to find out who killed her? Especially when it feels like the progress is at a snail's pace.

So then, who did it? I was sure it was Johnson. Why else would there be pages torn out of her diary after what he'd done?

But the only other people in the school at the time were me, my brother, Nathan, and Christopher. Sure, there were other people on the premises. The girls and boys who stayed on campus in the hostels. The groundskeepers and some of the coaches. But the people closest enough to have found her body, to have killed her, were the five of us and Johnson's adamant that he didn't do it.

So unless there was some other person there that managed to get the hell out of dodge without any of us seeing them in the school that day, it's one of us.

Before I can think about it further, there's a knock at my door.

"Give me a minute. I just need to get my uniform on," I say and head to my cupboard. But before I can so much as open it, my bedroom door swings open. I turn around to see my mom enter my room looking drained.

"Don't. You're not going to school," she tells me.

"Did they shut the school down for the day? Like they did after Amelia's death?"

Has news spread that quickly after Christopher went down to the station? I know detectives work hard to get a warrant for an arrest but surely the news of Johnson's debauchery couldn't have broken this soon.