Tell the Truth

About
Tell the Truth

Paramedic Stacey Durham has an idyllic life: her dream job, a beautiful house, and a devoted husband. Until her car is found abandoned and covered in her blood.

Detective Ella Marconi knows information is key in the first twenty-four hours, questioning frantic husband James, jealous sister Marie, and Rowan, the colleague who keeps turning up in all the wrong places.

Just as Ella starts to piece together the clues, a shocking message arrives for James:
You won't see her again if you don't tell the truth
.

As she sifts through the ties, Ella's relationship with Dr Callum McLennan is under siege, and she doesn't know if it can survive the overenthusiasm of her family or the blind hatred of his mother.

With the investigation hitting dead ends and new threats being made, Ella must uncover the truths buried beneath the perfect façade before the case goes from missing person to murder.

Contents

Cover

About Tell the Truth

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Acknowledgements

About Katherine Howell

Also by Katherine Howell

Copyright page

For Benette

ONE

R
owan Wylie drove into the Playland car park just after ten on a Monday morning in early April, his granddaughter, Emelia, wriggling with excitement in her car seat in the back.

‘We here!'

‘We are indeed,' Rowan said.

Playland was two months old and Emelia's favourite place. It was part of a small new development in Homebush, a U-shaped collection of precast concrete buildings facing each other across an asphalt car park. Most of the business spaces were still being finished, so the majority of the ten or so cars were parked outside Playland, the remaining few on the facing side outside the wholesale nut shop and the lighting and electrical store. An array of utes and vans stood parked at angles outside the spaces being fitted out.

Rowan switched off the engine and stepped out of his car into the morning sunlight and the muffled sound of children shouting. Playland's door was firmly closed but it didn't stop the noise. He turned to set Emelia free, then stopped to look twice at a car parked across the way.

Emelia smacked a hand against the window. ‘Pa!'

‘Coming,' Rowan said, and released Emelia's harness.

He lifted her out, then closed the door, looking again at the car. Silver Astra, paramedic sticker on the back window the same as the one on his own, SD 177 numberplates. Stacey's. He looked around. If she was here, he could talk to her. Apologise.

‘Down,' Emelia demanded.

‘Just a sec.' He couldn't see Stacey. She might be checking out one of the empty spaces for James, but she had nothing to do with his IT business, so that made no sense. Besides, Simon would've mentioned it if James had any plans for expansion or moving.

Emelia kicked in his arms.

‘Hold on.' He crossed the asphalt and went inside the nut shop.

A man in white smiled and offered him and Emelia samples of candied peanuts. Rowan shook his head and looked down the aisles. Stacey wasn't there. He walked outside and into the lighting place. The ceiling was hung with banners advertising opening specials, and a saleswoman was demonstrating something on a light fitting to a couple in their sixties, but Stacey wasn't there either. He went back outside, Emelia complaining and trying to lean out of his grip.

‘Okay, okay, we're going inside,' Rowan said.

He had to walk past Stacey's car on the way to Playland's door, and glanced in. There was a big dark stain on the passenger seat and floor. A stain that had spattered and trickled. A stain that looked unnervingly like drying blood.

The cool autumn day got cooler.

He tried the passenger door. Locked.

‘Pa,' Emelia whined.

‘Just a minute.'

He took out his mobile, scrolled through to Stacey's number, and pressed to call.

Emelia struggled in his grip. ‘Go in!'

‘I know, buddy. Just hang on.'

Voicemail picked up. ‘
Stacey here. Leave your deets and I'll bell you back.
'

‘Just me,' Rowan said. ‘I'm standing by your car outside Playland. Are you here somewhere? Let me know. Thanks.' He hung up, then called her home number. The machine answered and he left the same message there.

‘Pa!' Emelia fought his grip. ‘Down!'

‘Stop it.' Worry made Rowan speak more harshly than he'd intended. ‘Be quiet or we'll go back home.'

‘Not fair!'

‘One more sound and we leave.'

Emelia started to cry. Rowan put her on the ground and grasped her arm while scrolling for James's mobile number.

‘Rowan,' James answered. ‘How goes it?'

‘Do you know where Stacey is?' Rowan said, trying to moderate the tension in his voice.

‘It's her day off so she should be at home,' James said.

‘Have you talked to her this morning?'

‘I texted her earlier to say I was back, but she didn't reply. I figured she was asleep. Why?'

Emelia squirmed. ‘You're hurting me.'

Rowan loosened his grip. ‘I'm standing by her car and it looks kind of abandoned. I tried to call her and she didn't answer.'

There was a pause. ‘What do you mean, abandoned?'

‘Maybe not abandoned.' He didn't want to mention the blood. ‘It's in the car park next to Playland. I thought you might know why she'd be around here.'

‘The only person we know who goes there is you,' James said. ‘She probably decided to meet you there.'

That could be it. It was common knowledge at the station that Rowan brought Emelia here on most if not all of his days off, and it was loud enough inside that Stacey might not hear her phone ring. It was best to check inside before he crashed James's world.

‘She probably thought it'd be a big surprise for Emmy,' James was saying. ‘Speaking of, how is the little munchkin?'

‘Dragging me to the door this very second.' Rowan forced a smile into his voice. ‘You're right; she'll be in here somewhere. Sorry.'

‘No problem.'

Emelia tugged at the heavy door. Rowan put his phone away and helped. The noise inside enveloped them and Rowan smiled at the girl behind the counter. She smiled back, then leaned over to talk to Emelia who had pulled off her shoes and was jumping up and down on the spot.

‘How are you today, Emelia?'

‘Going in the ballpit,'
Emelia
shouted.

‘Off you go then,' Rowan said.

She thrust her shoes at him, then ran into the centre. Rowan tucked the shoes under his arm and took out his wallet. The girl gave him his change and he walked in. Be sure, he told himself. Despite that sick feeling, make sure.

Emelia was already in the pit and called out as he passed. ‘Look where I am, Pa!'

‘Yes, right where you said you'd be.'

He looked around. Adults talked and drank coffee and watched their kids from the cafe area. He walked around all the equipment. He lingered outside the female bathroom until a woman came out.

She looked startled for a second, then smiled. ‘Rowan, right?'

‘Hi.' He couldn't remember her name. ‘I'm looking for a friend. Is anyone else in there?'

She shook her head. ‘It's empty.'

‘Thanks.' He headed off on another lap.

‘Pa, I'm up here now. Look, Pa!'

‘I see you.'

Stacey wasn't here. He went to the bathroom woman – Sarah, that was it – who was talking to her child through the ballpit net.

‘Find your friend?' she asked.

‘Not yet,' he said. ‘I have to nip outside and make a call. Would you mind keeping an eye on Emelia?'

‘Love to.' She squeezed his arm, then took the shoes from him. ‘I'll mind these too. You take your time.'

He called Emelia down and explained to her, then went out. He looked in the window of Stacey's car again. He walked up and down the rows of business spaces, looking in at the plasterers, the painters, the electricians bent over their work. He went to the street and looked both ways. It was busy with people going about their day in cars and utes. It was all so ordinary.

He took out his phone.

‘You find her?' James answered.

‘No,' Rowan said.

James cut in before he could go on. ‘I called her mobile and got no answer, then I called home and got the machine. I rang Marie, but she hasn't talked to her since yesterday. Her phone has that tracking app on it so I looked it up – it's turned off now so the app can't find her, but the last place it was turned on was near that Bicentennial Park in Homebush, at ten past six last night.'

‘Do you have a spare key for her car?' Rowan asked.

‘At home. Why?'

‘Because there's something else . . . It looks like blood.'

‘Say that again?'

‘In her car, on the seat and the floor,' Rowan said. ‘At least, that's what it looks like.'

There was a pause. ‘Like if she got her period?'

‘No. It's a big pool,' Rowan said. ‘Like something bad happened.'

‘Jesus,' James said. ‘I'm coming down.' He hung up.

James's shop was in Strathfield, James and Stacey's house in Haberfield. James wouldn't arrive with the key for half an hour or more. Rowan looked inside the car again, then checked on Emelia. She shrieked down the slippery dip. Sarah caught his eye and gave a thumbs up, and he went back to pace beside the car.

When did you make the decision to smash the window? When did you call the police? He thought it was blood, but he couldn't be absolutely certain without getting closer, without smelling it. If he was certain, he'd have been onto the cops already. If he called them and it was something else – though he couldn't think what – he'd feel a total idiot. A paramedic freaking out, ha ha. If he broke the window to find out more before he called them, and it was nothing, he'd feel a fool in front of James, and, even worse, in front of Stacey when she did turn up.

Wait until the key gets here, he thought. Once he smelled it he'd know. A pool of blood that size smelled like nothing else on this green earth. But he couldn't help remembering patients who'd waited before calling for help for one reason or another and got much sicker as a result. He was always telling them to stop worrying and get on the phone. Now here he was, doing the same thing.

Possibly. Don't panic.

The stain was just in the car – no drips outside, none leading anywhere. It could be motor oil. It was that dark, after all. He looked in and tried to make himself believe it. And twenty minutes couldn't make that much difference when he was lucky to even have spotted the car. It could've been here who knew how long otherwise.

You're assuming something bad has happened to her.

He was, and he couldn't stop.

Simon's dinged-up white Camry sped into the car park. James leapt from the passenger side, and Simon, Rowan's son, got out from behind the wheel. He'd worked for James in his computer shop for close to a year.

‘Where's Em?'

‘Inside,' Rowan said. ‘She's okay. A friend's watching her.'

James cupped his hands against the glass of Stacey's car window. ‘Jesus.'

‘You got the key?' Rowan said. ‘I can't be sure what it is from here.'

Simon shook his head. ‘We came straight over.'

James looked around the asphalt. ‘I need a rock.'

‘I've got a tyre lever.' Rowan went to get it from his boot. His hands were clammy on the metal. James's urgency made it real and he wished he'd broken in himself.

‘Do the back window,' he said as James grabbed it. There could be evidence in the front, he was thinking, but didn't want to say.

James moved to the rear driver's side without asking why. He struck the glass hard and it shattered into the car. A meaty metallic smell billowed out and he fumbled at the door lock with shaking hands.

Rowan eased him away and looked over his shoulder at his son. ‘Call the police.'