“Then why didn’t he say anything?”
“I don’t know. Danny was supposed to find Dillon and persuade him not to go to the police. He told me he’d sorted it—that he and Dillon had burned the T-shirt, that Dillon wasn’t going to say anything. But he lied, Elsie. Danny never spoke to him because he’s a coward. I swear I didn’t know that he’d hidden the T-shirt in the cave until a few days ago. When I told him about Dillon being in the hospital, he went crazy—saying he’d warned me all along not to get involved with you. That’s when he told me where the T-shirt was. I didn’t think you’d find it—I was still trying to work out what to do.”
I walk back to the top of the boathouse where the T-shirt lies, and Tay follows.
“How did you even end up with it?”
I hold Eddie’s T-shirt up for Tay to see, like a criminal investigator on CSI, only this is real, and the evidence belongs to my twin brother. I feel hollow and heavy at the same time.
“It all happened so fast,” he cries. “My hands were slippery. As I let him go, my finger somehow got caught—there must have been a tear—but I heard a rip, and the next thing I knew, he was gone and I had his T-shirt in my hands.”
It all comes flooding back. My father telling Eddie that he couldn’t wear the red one because it had a hole in it. The phone ringing, Eddie disappearing upstairs. Then we were in the car and Eddie was grinning, wearing his favorite red T-shirt with the lion logo on it.
My throat tightens.
“So when did you write the note to Dillon?”
“After the party on the Point. I knew straightaway he was the boy from the beach, and then he said you were his sister. I felt sick. He came to meet me but didn’t even give me a chance to talk. He asked me for the T-shirt, and when I said I didn’t have it, he smashed his fist straight into my nose and told me to stay away from you. When I talked to Danny about it, he said if I stayed around, the truth would eventually come out and we’d all be in serious trouble.”
I piece it all together. Dillon’s bloody knuckles that I thought were the result of dehydration, Tay’s bruised and bloodied nose that he claimed had happened in his sleep, the argument between Tay and Danny, Tay disappearing. There were so many signs that I just hadn’t seen.
“Maybe you just weren’t looking,” Danny had said the day I jumped off the harbor wall.
He was right.
I think about that day at the party and how badly I wanted to kiss Tay. How embarrassed I felt when he ran off, how angry I was with Dillon for ruining our moment. All three of them were hiding the most awful secret from me.
“You let him go,” I say.
This is where Dillon’s nightmares come from. The boy I love was the one who let Eddie go. I can never forgive Tay. Never.
“Take your things,” I whisper. “And don’t come back.”
“No, please,” he begs. “I want to make it up to you. I love you.”
“Go. Now.”
Tay wipes his eyes as he forces his diving gear into a rucksack. He stumbles through the panel, and I listen to his footsteps on the pebbles fade away. Every part of me feels broken. The only thing that’s left is a tiny part of Eddie.
“Eddie,” I whisper into the darkness. “Are you there?”
“Down here,” Eddie says. But I can’t see him anywhere.
6
A MEMORY. A VERY OLD ONE. EDDIE AND ME LYING ON THE sofa together after one of his hospital visits. He has a bandage on his arm where they took blood.
“They put magic cream on it,” he says, holding his arm out for me to kiss it.
I kiss it.
I’m jealous that I didn’t have magic cream, or any blood taken.
Dillon lies on the floor by our feet.
“Do you want to watch a DVD?” he asks.
We say yes. Eddie wants Ice Princess.
“Mum,” Dillon shouts, “the twins want to watch a DVD. Can I put one on?”
Mum brings us hot chocolate and a blanket. She covers us.
“Yes. Then it’s an early night for all of you.”
Dillon joins us on the sofa, and Eddie snuggles into me.
“Ellie, if they take more of my blood, will I die?”
“I don’t think so. If they take more, you can have some of mine, because we’re the same.”
“Ellie, if I die, will you come with me?”
“Okay. And Dillon. You’ll come with us, won’t you?”
“Okay,” Dillon says. “Shhh, it’s starting.”
7