The rest of the statement read exactly the same as the first. With my hands trembling, I handed the statement back to Vincent. I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to be a part of his lies.
“Why?” I gasped, although I knew the answer already.
“I guess it was easier to say it happened like that,” Vincent said. “The old guy – Jonathan Smith – suspected that his daughter had gone to meet someone that night, a man who she had been having a secret relationship with. We know from your father’s first statement that really was what happened. I guess once the old guy started kicking up a fuss, it was easier to change the statement...”
“So as not to point the finger at any of the good townsfolk of Cliff View,” I whispered. “After all, the Smith family was seen as just a bunch of thieves, drifters – witches.”
“And I guess the local police didn’t want to go asking all sorts of questions and unearth some secret relationship between one of the Smiths and a law-abiding member of the community,” Vincent said. “I guess it could have been any man Molly Smith was meeting that night. They could’ve been married – they could’ve been a cop. How would that have looked in the eyes of the local community?”
I felt numb all over and sick to the pit of my stomach. Now I could understand how easily my father, Mac, and Woody had got their stories straight – how they had twisted the truth about the accident I had been involved in. They had done it before to protect someone from the local community, like they had lied to protect me. They had made Molly Smith look as if she were out that night committing thefts, just like they had made out that Jonathan Smith was reckless enough to cause that accident out on the road. But I was a part of that lie. I had gone along with it to protect myself. So was I any better than my father, Mac, or Woody? I guessed not. However wrong my father’s actions had been, I could understand him risking so much to protect me – I was his daughter. Who could have meant so much to him that he would have lied all those years ago? Who had he been so desperate to protect, and why?
“Whatever happened in the past is done now,” Vincent said. “We know your father changed his statement and I’m not saying that is right. Whatever way you look at it, Molly Smith’s death was an accident. What good would come out of digging up the past just to find out who it was she met up with that night?”
Slowly, I lifted my head and looked at Vincent. “I don’t believe her death was an accident,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked right back.
“Molly Smith was pushed into that well,” I whispered.
“How can you be so sure?” he frowned at me.
“Because she told me,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As soon as the words were out, I wished at once I could take them back again. Vincent looked at me. There was a long, uncomfortable silence and I wished that The Black Eyed Peas were roaring from the speakers again. Maybe the music would have drowned out what I’d just said.
Finally Vincent said, “What do you mean she told you? Molly Smith is dead.”
I got up and went to the window and folded my arms across my chest. “I dream about her,” I said, my back to Vincent. “They’re more nightmares, really.”
“What happens in these nightmares?” Vincent asked, sounding as if he was genuinely interested.
“I’m down in that well with Molly,” I said, unable to turn and face him.
“How long have you been dreaming about her?” he asked, and I could hear him getting up from the sofa.
“Ever since I wiped out her family on that road,” I whispered. “At first I thought I was dreaming about the old man because of a guilty conscience. Then you mentioned the death of a young girl in a well and I thought I’d dreamt of her because of what you had said.”
“Why don’t you think that anymore?” he asked, and I could see his reflection in the windowpane as he stopped just behind me. Part of me wanted to turn to him and be held in his arms. I felt scared all of a sudden. But I couldn’t turn around and face him.
“I found out where that well was,” I started. “So I went there today, and it’s the well from my dreams. How could I dream about a well I’d never seen before? Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that I kill Jonathan Smith and his family, only to end up dreaming about his daughter who died in a well ten years before? What are the odds of that happening?”
“There could be any number of reasons why,” Vincent said softly, that joking manner of his now gone.