The Trees Smell Like Lemons

14. Vanished one by one

"Are you serious?" Lila asked for the tenth time.

Bea, Lila and Tom were sitting in the park by school. Tom and Lila had both been shocked when Bea told them about Sara's secret pregnancy. Bea hadn't told them that Adam had been there with her. After she found out Sara was pregnant Bea wanted to go and lie down and Adam left. She wanted to thank him but she hadn't seen him at school today.

Bea got up and flapped the piece of paper with the results of Sara's autopsy on it in front of Lila's face.

"Lila you've read it yourself. Sara was pregnant. I can't believe she didn't tell me and what's more I didn't even notice. Don't you have morning sickness when you're pregnant? Or get weird cravings? She didn't even look any bigger!" Bea realised she was shouting and sat down.

"Maybe she was good at hiding it," Tom suggested. "You know like wearing baggy clothes."

Bea thought back to the weeks before the accident, but she couldn't remember Sara changing the way she dressed. In fact she and Sara had grown distant. She felt like someone had poured wet cement into her chest.

"I think the bigger question is who the baby daddy is," Lila announced.

"We're not calling him the baby daddy," Bea stated in a matter of fact tone.

"Who do you think it is?" asked Tom.

"I have no idea. I didn't even know she had a boyfriend. God Sara had this whole secret life I wasn't a part of. I feel like we're talking about a stranger," Bea put her head in her hands. She felt Tom shift closer to her to pat her on the back.

"Bea everyone has secrets and I'm sure Sara had a good reason for not telling you," Tom smiled at her reassuringly, but it did nothing to ease Bea's nerves.

"Oh! What about Max?" Lila exclaimed suddenly.

Max had been Sara's boyfriend, they dated for over a year but broke up about six months before Sara died. Sara told Bea she realised they didn't have a lot in common. They had both taken it pretty hard.

"Maybe. They might have gotten back together and Sara didn't want to tell me because she knows I never liked him much," Bea frowned.

"Do you think your parents knew she was pregnant? They must have found out from the police?" Lila asked.

Bea was about to answer of course not, if her parents knew something that big they wouldn't have kept it from her. Or would they?

"Maybe the police didn't want to upset them further," Bea said weakly.

She sifted through the pictures and came to focus on the one of the car wreck. She gasped. She realised what had been bothering her about the pictures when she'd first seen them.

"Bea what is it?" Lila asked.

"When I looked at these pictures before, something was bugging me but I couldn't think what. Where are the pictures of the other car? All of these ones are of Sara's car and the area around it."

Tom had been looking through the case file and his brow was furrowed. "There's so many black lines drawn in a lot of the pages."

"Black lines?" asked Bea, reaching for the file. Tom was right. Last night Bea had skimmed over the accident report but now she saw that a lot of sentences were blacked out. "What does this mean?"

"It's been redacted. It means some information has been deliberately withheld," Tom said. Lila and Bea both looked at him, eyebrows raised. "What? I watch Law and Order. Let me have a look again."