Innocent or Guilty?
A gripping psychological thriller full of twists and turns! Is the right person behind bars? One morning ten years ago, the town of Twin Rivers changed forever when the body of Tyler Washington was found in the woods. Son of the mayor, star of the high school basketball team – his death struck right at the heart of this tight-knit community. For Olivia Hall, Tyler’s death heralded the start of her own personal nightmare – her twin brother, Ethan, was arrested for Tyler’s murder. Ten years later, Ethan is still in jail. Olivia is convinced he is innocent, and now, a true crime podcast has taken up his case. As the podcast digs deeper, secrets, lies and shocking revelations are all uncovered. For the first time, Olivia dares to hope that Ethan may be set free. But if he didn’t kill Tyler, who did? And how far will they go to keep their secrets safe? Perfect for fans of podcasts Serial, Happy Face and The Teacher’s Pet, and TV shows Making a Murderer, Staircase and Dirty John ‘A. M. Taylor hits her stride with this fast-paced flashback mystery where legal thriller meets true crime podcast’ Rachel Sargeant, author of The Perfect Neighbours ‘You think you know who's innocent or guilty in this book and then a disturbing new truth is revealed and you're wrong footed yet again’ June Taylor, author of Keep Your Friends Close
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Annie Taylor 2019
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Annie Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © July 2019 ISBN: 9780008312930
Version: 2019-08-23
For my parents
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Then
Chapter 2. Now
Chapter 3. Then
Chapter 4. Now
Chapter 5. Then
Chapter 6. Now
Chapter 7. Then
Chapter 8. Now
Chapter 9. Then
Chapter 10. Now
Chapter 11. Then
Chapter 12. Now
Chapter 13. Then
Chapter 14. Now
Chapter 15. Then
Chapter 16. Now
Chapter 17. Then
Chapter 18. Now
Chapter 19. Then
Chapter 20. Now
Chapter 21. Then
Chapter 22. Now
Chapter 23. Then
Chapter 24. Now
Chapter 25. Then
Chapter 26. Now
Chapter 27. Then
Chapter 28. Now
Chapter 29. Then
Chapter 30. Now
Chapter 31. Then
Chapter 32. Now
Chapter 33. Then
Chapter 34. Now
Chapter 35. Then
Chapter 36. Now
Chapter 37. Then
Chapter 38. Now
Chapter 39. Then
Chapter 40. Now
Chapter 41. Then
Chapter 42. Now
Chapter 43. Then
Chapter 44. Now
Chapter 45. Then
Chapter 46. Now
Chapter 47. Then
Chapter 48. Now
Chapter 49. Six Weeks Later
Chapter 50. That Night
Chapter 51. Now
Keep Reading …
Acknowledgements
Also by A. M. Taylor
About the Author
About the Publisher
They find the body on a Sunday.
He didn’t return home the night before, which isn’t unheard of, but when he doesn’t make it back in time for church and he still isn’t home by the time they return, the family begins to worry. His mother rings the police and they tell her to sit tight, while his father calls his brother and gathers up a few of the boy’s friends to set up a search party.
He’s lying in the woods.
He has been all night.
He’s face down in the mud. There’s blood on the side and the back of his head, matting down his hair, pressing it to his skull. It’s a friend who finds him, calling out for the boy’s dad when he does so, the father running wildly towards him, pushing him out of the way, slipping in the mud.
He makes the mistake of moving him. Grabbing him by the shoulders to shake him awake in desperation. When he pulls his hands away they’re covered in blood and as the stories soon will go, the father screams, grief curdling at his throat. The police are called again and this time they come, sirens wailing on the damp air, a parent’s desperate call. Friends and family are pushed to the side lines, forced to watch as the routines of a crime scene establish themselves and the detectives take statements, waiting for the medical examiner to arrive.
The boy’s uncle is sent back to the house with a female police officer in tow to break the news to the mother. Neighbors will go on to tell other neighbors about how she answers the door, arm outstretched, finger pointing at her brother-in-law’s broken face as she shouts “No, no, no, no, no,” over and over and over again, until the female police officer wraps her arms around the older woman’s shaking shoulders and draws her inside her own home.
Word spreads, text messages sent, phone calls answered, whispers met by gasps, grimaces of shock followed by the promise of tears.
Tyler Washington is dead they’re saying.
Murdered.
Found in the woods with his skull bashed in.
Less than a week later my twin brother is arrested.
My brother was born eleven minutes and 37 seconds after me. It was an easy delivery for twins apparently, or so our mom always told us. We were her second pregnancy, and we practically slipped right out; she and Dad barely making it to the hospital before I made my appearance. I came screaming into the world, face red and pink and white, covered in blood and placenta, all of it quickly wiped away to make me clean. Ethan slipped out silently though; maybe I was taking up all the oxygen in the room. In the womb. But Mom says the nurse just gave him a little slap on his small round bottom and he joined me in my new-to-the-world screams.
