Page 40 of Everyone Here Is Lying
Gully’s genuine sympathy for Alice in this situation is tempered somewhat by the other woman’s earlier eagerness to point the finger at Adam Winter simply because he’sdifferent.She knows that it’s not necessarily the ones who seem different that you need to be afraid of—it’s the ones who can carry off normal without anyone suspecting a thing. Gully ignores her. “Derek, were you ever in the tree house in the woods with Avery?”
The boy swallows again. “I don’t remember.”
“Of course you remember,” Gully says gently. “Avery’s brother, Michael, found you there with her a few weeks ago.” She adds, “You were alone with Avery in the tree house, with the ladder pulled up. What were you doing in the tree house with Avery, Derek?”
He looks petrified now. “Nothing.”
Alice looks as if she might faint.
“What were you doing there with her?” Gully asks again.
Derek begins to tremble. “She was just there. I went to the tree house one day when I had nothing to do. I thought no one was there. I climbed up, but when I opened the door she was inside. I didn’t expect to see anyone. We just talked for a bit. It was awkward. I was going to leave and then Michael came. She saw him out the window and called down to him.”
“And then you put the ladder down for him.”
“I guess, I don’t remember,” Derek says.
“I’m just wondering why the ladder was pulled up at all,” Gully says.
Twenty-eight
Alice observes her son, her heart in her throat. This has all gone very weird, very fast. She thought Gully was here to ask her son some routine questions, but that’s not the case at all. Gully seems to be accusing Derek of molesting a nine-year-old girl. Alice struggles to hide her dismay as she observes him. Her son is shaking; he looks frightened, and suddenly she feels sick to her stomach. She wants her husband here with her; she doesn’t know how to handle this. She wants to go get him, but she doesn’t dare leave. She’s so stunned that she doesn’t even call out his name to have him come join them.
“Why was the ladder pulled up, Derek?” Gully presses.
“It wasn’t,” he says.
“Michael says it was. He says Avery put it down for him.”
“She must have pulled it up then,” Derek says. “It wasn’t me.” His skin is flushed a dark red.
“I know why teenagers go to that tree house, Derek,” the detective says, as Alice watches in disbelief. Derek remains miserably silent.
Alice swallows, her throat dry. She thought the tree house was for younger kids. She doesn’t want to know about this.
“Derek?” Gully prods.
Alice is suddenly terrified that Derek will say something he shouldn’t. Something that she can’t bear to hear. She must stop this. “Peter!” she calls out loudly, turning toward the stairs. “Can you come down here, please?”
Gully sits back in her chair, as if annoyed at the interruption.
There’s a poisonous silence as they wait for Peter to appear. Her husband hastens down the stairs and arrives in the living room, taking in the atmosphere. He looks questioningly at her; he knows he’s walked into something.
“Detective Gully seems to be accusing Derek of something,” Alice says, her voice low. She sees the sudden alarm on her husband’s face.
“Sit down, please,” Gully tells him. “And I’m not accusing anyone of anything.”
He sits down on the sofa, on the other side of their son, glancing briefly at her over Derek’s head. She watches his face as the detective explains the situation. The same incredulity, the same fear. Then they all turn their attention back to Derek.
Derek says, “I don’t know what the other kids do. I never touched her. I just went to the tree house one day and she was there, playing by herself. I felt sorry for her, so I talked to her a bit and then I was going to leave, and Michael showed up. She musthave pulled the ladder up, I didn’t. I never touched her! Why do you believe Michael over me?” he cries.
“Michael has no reason to lie,” Gully says simply.
“My son is not a liar,” Alice says sharply.
Then Gully asks Derek, her voice casual, “I’m just wondering—where were you on Tuesday afternoon?”
Alice feels as if she’s been yanked out of her own life and dropped into someone else’s. The detective is asking her son for an alibi. This can’t be happening. Her husband seems too shocked to speak.
