Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I had no argument with any of that. Grace had done what she had because she loved with obsessive, protective loyalty. “Did she tell you why she ended up in the institution in the first place?”
I’d shared everything I could with him the first instant I saw him. Uninjured as I’d been, I’d ridden back to the estate with the fire crew. There had been only one available fire truck. It had carried on to the estate, while Jim and a member of the fire crew trained in first aid took charge of the Land Cruiser and raced out to meet the ambulances that had been dispatched from the closest medical facility.
In a place that isolated, everyone pitched in, and decisions about limited resources had to be made on the fly.
The rescuers going to the estate hadn’t wanted me with them until I’d pointed out that the house was a maze; the chances of them managing to locate Ash and Aaron, even with instructions, were dangerously low.
I’d also warned them about the bridge, but following an examination using high strength flashlights, they’d made the call to go through.
Afterward, Aaron had ridden out with me in the fire truck—the fire crew had made the decision to load all remaining survivors into their appliance and power through the weather toward the one ambulance still heading in our direction. Vansi’s breathing had been even, her pulse fine, but Ash and Kaea . . .
“Ambulance won’t make it in time,” had been the fire chief’s grim determination. “Roads are still dangerous and the air ambulance remains grounded.”
Aaron had listened to my words in unmoving silence, a shell-shocked frontline veteran of a war he hadn’t even known was occurring. Now, I waited for him to tell me why Grace had ended up in the facility.
“Psychopathic personality traits,” he said at last. “I looked it up, but the stuff I read doesn’t fit her. It’s all about cruelty and a lack of empathy. You’ve seen Grace. She has so much empathy.
“I think the shrinks just wanted a label to put on her. Something for her father to justify locking her up in that place. She’d still be there if he hadn’t died, and her half brothers decided they didn’t want to be on the hook for the fees to keep her locked up. They signed her out on the agreement she wouldn’t contest the will—she’s taken care of herself since.”
Her father still being alive was another thing Grace had lied about. As for how she’d funded her life outside the facility without access to familial money, I had a feeling that a woman who could hack into a judge’s computer with such stealth wouldn’t have found it difficult to access money.
As for the rest . . . I wasn’t so sure I agreed with Aaron. Because the Grace who loved Bea enough to avenge her was the same Grace who had pushed Phoenix down the stairs. The odd thing was that while she’d accepted the blame for Kaea’s poisoning, and the stabbing of Darcie and Ash, she wouldn’t admit to that push.
“He fell” was all she’d say when I’d asked. “You saw that rug. So easy to get tangled up in it.”
Grace had stonewalled the police in the same way; oh, in between sleeps to heal from the wound Darcie had inflicted, she was talking plenty, giving the cops more than enough to get her committed to another facility for life. Except when it came to Nix.
And it wasn’t like she was attempting to blame Bea, either. No, Grace had been clear that the revenge plot had been all her. “No one pushed Nix,” I’d heard her say to the detective in charge of the case. “It was a terrible accident. He wasn’t on the list of people I planned to hurt.”
The question of why Phoenix had to die haunted me. Not just for myself but for Vansi, who was in a sedated sleep on a different ward. She’d snapped after learning what had taken place, begun screaming and screaming and screaming.
I wasn’t sure if my friend as I’d known her would ever come back.
Meanwhile, the storm broken, the police were currently processing the estate.
It was an unmarked gray hearse that had driven Phoenix’s body away from the cellar where he’d lain so cold and alone. But his peace wasn’t to last. Soon, they’d cut him up in a search for the truth.
54
Did Grace say anything about Phoenix?”
I knew it was the wrong subject to bring up as soon as the words left my mouth.
Aaron’s back went stiff, his spine rigid. “She didn’t hurt Nix.”
I knew he was wrong. The same way I knew that Aaron loved Grace as much today as he had yesterday. “I’m sorry, Aaron,” I said again, because he was innocent in all this; all he’d done was fall in love with a woman who was funny and sweet and kind.