Just Keep Breathing, GS Rhodes [best book club books for discussion TXT] 📗

seemed to put his more professional hat on, which meant he was going to let Kidd do the talking, which certainly appealed to him. It was getting on for two o’clock, lunch was long since over and Nicholas would likely be hoping he could get out of school and away before the rest of his classmates finished. At least this way, he might not get into more trouble.

“I heard about Sarah this morning,” he said quietly before Kidd could even get a word in. “I…I felt terrible. The news said you’d arrested someone but wouldn’t say who. But I just felt awful for what I posted. I didn’t…this isn’t my fault, is it?”

Kidd hesitated. He didn’t know whose fault it was at this stage, that’s what he was trying to figure out. All he knew was that it was possible this had sparked off the chain of events that had caused her death. But he didn’t want to lay that on someone who was barely sixteen years old.

“We’re trying to figure that out,” Kidd said. “I just had a few questions to ask you. I need to know what your movements were from Friday to today, if possible.”

“What? You don’t think I killed her, do you?”

“We need you to answer the questions so we can figure that out,” Kidd said firmly. “It’s not about tricking you into a confession or anything CSI: Stupid like that, it’s about getting to the truth.” Kidd didn’t want to bring the next part up, but maybe tugging on his heartstrings would be the right way around this. “We’ve arrested Dexter on suspicion,” Kidd continued. “And I have enough evidence to charge him with it, so I’m looking to find out what really went on.”

“So you’re trying to prove him guilty?”

“I’m trying to get the bloody truth,” Kidd said, raising his voice a little. “So, Mr Ayre, tell me what the bloody truth is, alright?”

Nicholas sighed and sat back in his chair. Kidd could see the goose pimples on his arms. Either he was cold, or he was nervous. Kidd would put money on both.

“We were together on Friday night,” Nicholas said quietly. “My parents were out, and they’re never out, and we never get any alone time so…he came over to mine, it got really late, and then he went home. There’s no way he could have done anything to Sarah.”

“And did you see him over the weekend?”

Nicholas shook his head.

“Or this week?”

“He wasn’t coming into school,” Nicholas said. “Something happened with his parents when he got back on Friday, they took his phone away but he managed to message me on an old computer. I…I didn’t really know what to say to him.”

“Why’s that?” Kidd asked.

“He and Sarah were really close and the fact that she had gone missing right after I’d posted that thing…it felt like it was my fault,” he said. “So I didn’t know how to be with him. He probably thought it was because I was trying not to get him in trouble. He’s sweet like that, always thinking the best of me, but actually, it was because I was just being an asshole and distancing myself because I felt bad.”

And now came the million-dollar question.

“So why did you do it?” Kidd asked. “You say that you regret it and that you feel terrible about what you’ve done, about what you posted. But why did you do it in the first place?”

Nicholas shrugged. “I’d heard what was going on and investigated it. I took the pictures and…I don’t know. I didn’t like the way she was treating him. Sure, they were best friends and she was keeping his secret for him, but he had to be available to her whenever she wanted him and it…it just…”

“It pissed you off?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Were you maybe a little jealous?” Owen chimed in. Kidd didn’t shoot him a death stare because he actually had a good point for once.

Nicholas shrugged again. “Maybe a little,” he said. “We couldn’t hang out because she wanted to hang out with him, or they were doing something as a group and he had to be there to play the perfect boyfriend.”

“And he played it a little too well for your liking,” DC Campbell said. “I take it you also had to see them in school as well, canoodling on the playground and such.”

“Yeah,” Nicholas replied, his cheeks going a little pink, his eyes seeming to fill with tears. “And it didn’t seem fair. It was like our relationship was part-time, a second thought.”

“It wasn’t a second thought to Dexter, I don’t think,” Kidd said. “I think we’ll need to take you down to the station, get you to write a proper statement for us, and then we can wrap this up. Is that okay?”

He nodded and started to gather his things. DC Campbell went and told Ms Lu that they were taking Nicholas with them to the station and that they would make sure he got home safely, something DI Kidd wanted to make sure happened to Dexter too. He felt a weight lift from his chest knowing that he had likely just saved Dexter from being charged, and managed to cross two names off of his suspect list. But he knew that this was far from over. If it wasn’t Dexter or Nicholas, who did that leave?

◆◆◆

It took a good few hours to get Nicholas’ statement down and to convince DCI Weaver to let Dexter go once he’d seen it all. CPS wouldn’t be able to charge him with Nicholas’ statement on file, and if his parents confirmed that he was in the house with them all weekend, they would be more than fine to let him go.

He took it upon himself to drive Dexter and Nicholas home, dropping Nicholas off first so he could accompany Dexter to his front door and have a word with his parents. When they pulled up outside Dexter’s house, he seemed nervous. Incredibly so. He was practically shaking the screws