‘I need you to take this over to Stan Delaney for me,’ his mother had said when he came over to check out the mysterious ‘beeping’ sound her car had been making, although it was suspiciously silent when Jacob drove it.
‘Why do I have to take it over?’ protested Jacob. This was the real reason he’d been summoned: to walk over the road and deliver a casserole.
‘Jacob,’ said Caro. ‘It’s possible that man murdered his wife.’
‘Then why are you cooking for him?’
‘Innocent until proven guilty,’ said Caro. ‘Stan has been very nice to me since your father died. Joy would expect me to send over a meal.’
‘Not if Stan killed her, she wouldn’t,’ said Jacob, but his mother’s eyes had welled with tears, so he’d sighed and picked up the baking dish and headed out the door.
‘I overcooked it,’ his mother called out, as he left. ‘Just in case.’
No-one answered when he knocked on the Delaneys’ front door but he could see that the driveway was filled with cars, so he’d come around the side of the house.
All four Delaney children were there, sitting at a table on the back veranda, talking animatedly and loudly. Jacob felt that familiar sense of awed trepidation he used to feel when he’d seen them together as children. There was a kind of glamorous violence to the Delaney siblings. At any moment a monumental battle could erupt.
‘They know all about Savannah now,’ said Troy. His luxuriant dark curly hair looked like he’d been running his fingers through it. Troy was the first boy Jacob had ever loved. His first experience of a flirtatious straight boy. ‘They know what Mum and Dad were arguing about now. They know Dad has a motive.’
Jacob cleared his throat to make his presence known and shifted the casserole. It was hot against his forearms.
‘Don’t use the word “motive”，’ said Brooke. ‘It is not a motive! Did you tell them about Savannah? I thought we’d agreed not to mention the Harry Haddad connection at all.’
‘I never agreed to anything, but it wasn’t me. It was Mum’s hairdresser,’ said Troy. ‘They’re trying to get in touch with Harry.’
‘I don’t see what Harry could tell them,’ said Logan. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. ‘Savannah was estranged from him.’
‘Did you think it was Mum?’ asked Amy. She spoke in a dreamy kind of voice. ‘When you heard about the body on the news?’
Oh God, this was an awful conversation to overhear. Still no-one noticed Jacob.
‘Hi, guys,’ he said, with a crack in his voice. Not nearly loud enough. He’d forgotten how you had to up your volume when all the Delaneys were together.
‘No, I did not think it was her,’ said Logan. ‘Not for a minute. She’s fine.’
‘It’s too long now,’ said Troy. ‘She’s been gone too long. We need to forget the whole “Mum is making a point” theory.’
‘All we can do is support Dad,’ said Brooke.
‘Not if he murdered our mother, we can’t,’ said Troy.
Brooke said, ‘Shhhh!’ She pointed at the back door of the house. Presumably Stan was inside. ‘Don’t say things like that. People can tell you have suspicions, or doubts, or whatever the hell you’ve got. They’re analysing our body language online. When we had the media conference you and Amy stepped away from Dad. It looked bad.’
‘I was not stepping away from Dad,’ said Amy. ‘I felt dizzy. I thought I was going to faint.’
‘If you’re so worried about optics, maybe you should have got Dad to join the search party,’ said Troy to Brooke.
‘Dad thought it was a waste of time,’ said Brooke. ‘He said there wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell Mum would have ridden in the reserve, because she wrote to the council saying it was the wrong place for a bike track and she never forgave them for not listening to her.’
‘Mum does get offended when the council don’t listen to her recommendations,’ commented Amy.
‘Do you even care about Mum?’ Troy suddenly turned on Brooke, and Jacob flinched at the fury on his face. ‘Are you even worried?’
‘Of course she cares,’ said Amy. ‘Don’t be so mean to her.’
‘I’m frantic about Mum.’ Brooke spoke through clenched teeth at her brother. She didn’t seem at all intimidated by Troy’s fury.
‘It seems like you’re more worried about setting Dad up with a fucking lawyer!’