Cruel Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

knows
something
is about to happen –
something
lurking just out of sight. Here they all were dancing around in the glorious sunshine; it must look like some sort of skincare
commercial with loads of hot, skinny people partying around the pool. But the audience has the upper hand. They
know
that while the beautiful people frolic, they’re ignorant to the
alien invasion or impending train wreck or, in this case, the shadow of . . . murder?
    Ryan didn’t like being ignorant.
    Maybe he was being dramatic. OK, he was
definitely
being dramatic, but it just didn’t make sense. Some major drama had gone down at the leavers’ ball last year, but he just
didn’t accept that Janey had killed herself. He couldn’t get Janey out of his head.
    The media loves a missing white girl, so Janey Bradshaw’s death had been the biggest thing ever to happen to the sleepy seaside town in which they’d all grown up. Her only press
competition had been Tilda Honey’s prize-winning marrows – it was no contest. The suicide of a promising, beautiful teenage cellist had ‘stunned the community’ as the papers
were so fond of saying.
    According to the coroner, Janey had jumped from Telscombe Cliffs and was carried out on the tide. Her body had been found by fishermen almost four weeks later. Those weeks had been torture for
everyone. God, what her poor family went through: the TV appeal for witnesses, camera crews cluttering their front drive.
    Because of what had happened at the ball, people had jumped (no pun intended) to suicide conclusions, but Ryan knew Janey pretty well. If she’d killed herself she’d have left a note
– hell, she’d have left an essay! Janey loved the drama almost as much as he did. She’d have wanted the final word on the matter, he knew it.
    So while everyone else had been sobbing, he’d been suspicious. He figured there were only so many possible explanations for Janey’s death . . .
     
    1. Suicide. He wasn’t buying it.
    2. Random murderer. Ryan had researched this. People are very rarely killed or attacked by strangers, which brought him to . . .
    3. Family. Everyone always assumes it’s the dad, and Janey’s death was no different. The ghoulish townsfolk had seemed almost disappointed when it had turned out
     that Mr Bradshaw hadn’t molested his daughter; he had an ironclad alibi, as did her mother. That just left . . .
    4. Friends. Someone from school. One of them.
     
    Ryan squirmed on his lounger. It was such an awful idea, he almost felt bad for thinking it. And what was the motive? Why would any of them have wanted to kill Janey? It made little sense, but
then neither did the official version of events. Janey had
seemed
like a normal eighteen-year-old girl from a
nice
town with a
nice
family in a
nice
house with a
nice
dog. But Ryan knew it was never that simple; there’s always something going on backstage. Behind every smiling mantelpiece photo, there are secrets. Ryan wondered what secrets
Janey had had, and whether Greg, Alisha, Katie or Ben had known them too. Ryan hoped his Ray-Bans hid his suspicions.
    Greg sat on the other side of the pool, fiddling with his mobile phone. ‘Can anyone else get, like,
any
bars?’
    Katie replied, ‘Good luck with that. Reception out here is atrocious. Sometimes you can get a bar or two in the bedrooms. You’re more than welcome to use the landline,
though.’
    ‘We’re meant to be on holiday,’ Erin moaned, going over to the pool. Even in bare feet she walked on tiptoes like she was wearing invisible stilettos. ‘Not constantly
bloody texting.’
    ‘I wanna check my Twitter.’
    Katie gestured towards the villa. ‘There’s wi-fi in the house, just no phone signal.’
    A thought occurred to Ryan and he sat upright on his lounger. ‘You know what?’ he said, snapping out of his Janey funk.
    ‘What?’ Alisha replied. She took a picture of him and he poked his tongue out.
    ‘This is so the beginning of a horror film!’ Right on