Apples Never Fall

He stopped, and she saw him swallow: an involuntary, convulsive swallow.

“On Christmas Day, I did think, it kind of shocked me, that I would think this—”

He stopped again, and Christina gritted her teeth. Up until now he’d been answering her questions in a comfortable, urbane manner, like a successful man being interviewed for a magazine profile, but now his veneer had slipped. She wanted to grab him by his stylish linen shirt and yell, Just tell me! Your dad did it! We all know he did it!

His hands were locked as if in prayer. “For the first time in my life I thought…”

He looked at her pleadingly, as if he needed exoneration.

“What did you think?” Christina weighted her voice with authority.

“That my parents might truly hate each other.” He turned his gaze back to his shiny harbor view. “It was mutual, by the way. The hatred was mutual.”

Chapter 48

“I told the police what happened on Christmas Day.”

“What do you mean? Nothing happened on Christmas Day.”

“Oh, come on, Brooke.”

“Nothing relevant happened.”

Jacob Azinovic could hear voices, loud and clear, as he walked around the side of the Delaney house carrying a slow-cooked lamb casserole.

“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.