Kisses and Lies by Lauren Henderson Read Free Book Online

cunning. She’d be much more likely to stab someone in a fit of temper, or push them off a cliff, and then claim it was their fault for provoking her.
    Everything I thought I knew for sure has just dissolved. I slump further into the corner of the taxi seat, curling up in a ball. We’re no closer to solving Dan’s murder than we were at the start of the evening. All this for nothing. I’m so disappointed I could burst into tears.

four
    “ARE YOU IN THE POOL?”
    “Cannonball!” Taylor yells, and hurls herself into the air, arms wrapped around her knees. The next second there’s a gigantic splash that temporarily blinds me. Crossly wiping my eyes and blinking, I see water pouring over the edge of the pool and running into the channel cut into the marble drainage surround. Shock waves from the impact lap around me; it feels as if Taylor’s displaced half the water in the swimming pool.
    I’m not in the mood for cannonballs. To be honest, Taylor’s obsession with them is annoying me. I’m still pretty depressed about the fact that I thought I was getting close to solving Dan’s murder, and now I’m back to square one again. It’s okay for Taylor, because it isn’t personal to her. But this means everything in the world to me, and I’ve just been dealt a crushing blow. I really think Taylor could be a bit more sympathetic. Instead, she isn’t even noticing that I’m paddling around in the shallow end, dispirited and listless. She’s hauling herself out of the water again for another cannonball instead. I turn away so I don’t get a faceful of water this time.
    “Cannonball!” she yells again, just before another half-ton of water shoots out of the pool in her wake.
    I suppose it’s not her fault that investigating Dan’s death just isn’t as important to her as it is to me. For Taylor it’s something to do to relieve the crushing boredom of life at Wakefield Hall Maximum Security Prison, and, of course, a great opportunity to train up in those PI skills she wants to improve. And sometimes she forgets that to me, this is much more than just a way to kill time. I mop the spray from her impact out of my hair and reflect that, in the end, I’m the only person I can truly rely on a hundred percent. That’s only normal, I suppose. We’re all alone in the end.
    But I hate acknowledging it.
    Suddenly, watching Taylor cavort around in the deep end, a deep rush of loneliness washes over me. Am I over-relying on her? Maybe I am, if the fact that she’s not focusing on this disappointment as much as I am is upsetting me this much. Perhaps I need to lean less on Taylor and stand more on my own two feet. I was so happy to make friends with her because when I met her my old friends had dumped me (my own fault, so I shouldn’t really complain). Taylor doesn’t have anyone else either: she’s as much an outsider at Wakefield Hall as I am. After some initial mistrust and hostility, it’s amazing how quickly we’ve bonded. But have I rushed things too much? Do I need to get more balance in my life and not assume that Taylor will always be there for me?
    Ugh, too many questions, and all of them miserable. I dive underwater to shake them off, swimming slowly along the bottom of the shallow end, wishing I could stay down here forever and never have to come up to face the problems on the surface.
    Believe it or not, we’re in the basement of Lizzie’s house. Which, besides the heated swimming pool, has a private cinema, game room, and, for all I know, a bowling alley and tennis court as well. When we realized we would have to stay in London tonight—because we couldn’t go out late to a club Saturday night and get back to school at two in the morning—Lizzie offered to put us up. It took us both by surprise, as, to be honest, we haven’t really been that nice to her. But she was quite excited by the idea.
    “Lizzie doesn’t really have any friends, does she?” Taylor said earlier. “When I asked