Eliza felt a surge of relief. Tom was here to confess. He’d take the decision out of her hands.
He took her up in a big hug and turned to the police. ‘She’s not saying another word until she has her lawyer. Her relationship with Cierra has nothing to do with this.’
Detective Tran turned her dark eyes back on Eliza. ‘Miss Ellis, if you please?’
Eliza’s relief had deflated in Tom’s squeezing arms, but she kept her spine straight.
‘Remember Wren, please,’ whispered Tom in her ear.
‘Don’t say a word,’ said Murphy into the other.
Eliza walked, tall and proud, down to the waiting patrol car. Ignoring the journalists, she climbed into the back seat, pulling her phone from her pocket. She saw the missed calls and texts from concerned friends and family – Monica and Tom included. She ignored all of them, opening YouTube.
As the car pulled away from her house, the media snapping photos in through the window, Eliza watched Madison’s latest video.
Madison sat in her usual spot, in front of her bed. She was wearing the same green jacket as at the hospital: she looked stunning, the perfect mourning internet icon.
‘I have something to confess to you all . . . something I was not fully honest about before . . . I know who my sister, Cierra, was having sex with.’
Madison took a deep, shaky breath.
‘Cierra is loving. Incredibly loving. She builds relationships faster than anyone else I know. With friends, family . . . teachers.
‘I should’ve known from the start. I mean, Miss Ellis has always been closer to us than any other teacher . . . after her niece died last year – Denni King, you all remember – we became even closer. We’d lost a friend, but she’d lost a family member. I didn’t know at the time, but . . . Cierra and Miss Ellis began to comfort each other . . .
‘Now, I’m not a homophobe. Cierra is free to love whoever she wants to love . . . but I can’t sit back and let people like Jack Michaels and Mr Murphy take the blame when the one who was sleeping with my sister was Miss Eliza Ellis. And . . . if you needed any more proof . . . here’s Cierra herself.’
The scene cut to another face: identical but in a different part of the room, different make-up, wearing a violet wig. Eliza knew, though. It wasn’t Cierra, it was just Madison trying to look like Cierra.
‘. . . I love her. And I know she loves me. Maybe it won’t last, but isn’t this the time to experiment? Miss Ellis makes me feel happier than I’ve ever felt . . .’ said Cierra/Madison. ‘Why should that be anyone’s business but my own?’
Eliza turned her phone off.
How could she fight that? How could she convince people that Madison was pretending to be Cierra?
And if she did . . . what would happen to Wren? Everything always came back to her. She felt deeply, deeply exhausted.
Eliza sat at a metal table in one of the station’s interview rooms, the fluoro lights sparking the beginnings of a headache at the back of her skull. Tom had arranged and paid for a lawyer – an old, thin-faced woman called Rosalie – who sat beside her, lips pursed.
Detective Melinda Tran sat across from them, taking her jacket off, eyes dark and foreboding. She was alone.
‘Have you had sexual relations with Cierra Mason?’ said Detective Tran, her lips pressed in a hard line.
‘I think she needs a moment,’ said Rosalie.
‘I’m afraid she’s had long enough,’ said Detective Tran.
‘Eliza, dear, you are going to need to answer them – just tell them the truth,’ said Rosalie.
The truth . . .?
You have permission to be strong.
‘Yes.’ Eliza had to force herself to say it. ‘Yes, I have.’
‘What? Eliza, did you understand the question?’ said Rosalie.
‘I think she understood the question perfectly,’ said Detective Tran. ‘How long has this been going on? Who else knew?’
‘I don’t know. No one.’
‘Did you conspire to have Cierra kidnapped?’ said Detective Tran.
‘Of course not.’
‘Then who do the condoms belong to? The marijuana?’
‘The weed is mine. The condoms were from my last fling.’
‘With a man?’ said Detective Tran.
‘Obviously.’
‘You identify as bisexual?’
‘That is not pertinent,’ hissed Rosalie.
‘You’ve had no sexual relations with women before this?’ said Tran.
‘No – I mean, yes, I have . . .’
‘How is this relevant?’ demanded Rosalie.
‘We are still building a profile for the kidnapper, including sexual appetite. What other women have you slept with, Miss Ellis?’
‘I haven’t.’
‘So Cierra was the first girl you had sex with? You lied?’ said Detective Tran.
Eliza looked away. It was getting hard to speak. She felt claustrophobic.
I am a good person! she wanted to shriek.
‘We need to know,’ Tran continued, leaning forward. ‘We have three girls still missing, and you’re the last adult in contact, and you were sleeping with at least one of them. Now that we can see some motive . . . Did you find Bree attractive? Jasmine?’ She paused. ‘Georgia?’
‘Detective, I don’t think that’s a reasonable line of questioning,’ said Rosalie.
‘I didn’t take the girls,’ said Eliza.
‘You were the only one with them on that mountain,’ said Detective Tran. ‘What was it about Cierra that attracted you?’
‘This is completely inappropriate,’ said Rosalie.
‘Well, Miss Ellis?’ said Detective Tran. ‘No answer?’ She tapped her long lacquered fingernails on the table. ‘Then the next question is going to be very uncomfortable for you. Remember, this is all being recorded and transcribed, so please be very specific and explicit: what exactly did you and the very underage Cierra Mason, your student, who trusted you, do during your sexual encounters?’
‘This is ridiculous!’ cried Rosalie.
Eliza quietly agreed. The questioning was offensive, unnecessarily vulgar.
And then, in a crashing instant, Eliza realised why.
These questions were not trying to draw anything out of her: they were designed only to put her off balance, to make her misspeak, to find flaws in her story.
She doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t believe I was with Cierra.
She had a brief moment of relief, followed by outrage – how dare she – followed by unease.
She glanced up at the camera. This wasn’t Detective Tran’s idea. She thought of Con’s deep blue eyes, back in the hospital room on that first day: his knowing gaze, his attempt to make her uncomfortable, to draw truth out of her.
Con knows I’m covering for Tom.
CHAPTER 31
CON
On the monitor, Con watched Eliza make eye-contact with the camera. She knows we’re on to her, he thought.
‘What do you see, Cornelius?’ said Commander Agatha Normandy from her seat beside him. She had arrived from Hobart an hour before and quickly made herself at home. She was a short woman, with a bob of grey hair, and wore a woollen cardigan. She sipped a cup of tea, her lipstick not marking the china.