Everyone Here Is Lying(82)

“Pardon?”

“I mean, if she was bringing you food every day—presumably her hands were full—I’m wondering why you weren’t able to push her down the stairs sooner?”

“I—I didn’t think of it.”

Casey’s eyes are still kind, but now more curious too. Her voice is gentle as she says, “Really?”

Casey is looking right at her, and Avery feels a surge of panic. She can’t think. Her eyes dart away, searching for her parents on the edge of the living room. But then she recovers and turns back to Casey and says, “She gave me sleeping pills. I was out of it a lot of the time.”

Casey nods. “I see. So you pushed her down the stairs and ran out of the house, ran for your life. You must have been so frightened, so angry.”

“I was angry. She double-cross—” She stops herself. Avery can hear her own heart thudding in the abrupt silence.

Casey misses nothing. “She double-crossed you, is that what you were going to say, Avery?”

Avery looks back at her, speechless and afraid. Casey’s eyes are still warm, still coaxing, and more curious than ever.

“How did she double-cross you, Avery? . . . What do you mean?”

Avery has messed up. Panicking, she again seeks out her mother, latches on to her mother’s horrified face. They stare at each other for an awful moment. Her mother will know now, she’ll know what Avery’s really like. She wants her mother to step in, put a stop to this, but she appears to be frozen. Now Casey is speaking again in her gentle voice, and Avery turns back to her, frightened, paralyzed. She doesn’t know what to do.

“There’s more to this story, isn’t there, Avery? Why don’t you tell us what really happened, from the beginning.”





About the Author



Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know, The End of Her, and Not a Happy Family, which have all been New York Times and The Sunday Times (London) bestsellers. Her books have been sold in forty territories around the world. She lives on a farm outside of Toronto. Everyone Here Is Lying is her seventh thriller.