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)
But Phoenix never forgot anyone. Even if it took him time to place the recollection, he always did in the end.
I’d teased him about it being Zurich. Had I jogged his memory without realizing it?
My heart hitched.
“Make sure Bea knows I did everything.” Another whisper, Grace’s gaze boring into me. “It’s all on me.”
Nodding slowly, I touched her curls once again. “You’re a good friend, Grace.”
The sound of a nearing footstep.
I rose just as the cop walked in, coffee in hand.
When I looked from him to Grace, she’d closed her eyes. Pretending to sleep. This conversation was over. Never mind. We’d talk again. I’d visit her in the next place where they locked her up.
I slipped out with a smile for the officer, then grabbed my outdoor jacket from Kaea’s room before heading off the ward and down the hall to the section that held patients considered stable, in only for observation.
How ironic that Grace’s intricate plan had begun to fall apart due to a chance encounter. Every other thing, she’d planned. Including her choice of target to gain entry into our friend group.
That she loved Aaron, I didn’t question. He was eminently lovable. But he was also the most vulnerable to a beautiful, sweet woman who wanted all the same things he did—which she knew, because Bea had known. Bea who, in her prison, had shared everything with the only person she felt she could trust there.
Including the details of a grand old house with secret passages, complete with a map drawn with crayon during an “art therapy” session that showed Grace the locations of those passages—and where Bea had hidden her keys.
Grace had never counted on Bea being physically present when she set her plan in motion.
“It was just icing on the cake when Aaron told me about the suggestion we go there,” she’d shared with me in the Land Cruiser. “I had plans for Darcie in the city, but it was so much better out on the estate. I could make her so much more afraid. I looked up the weather on our way to the estate, prepared to make use of it, but I had contingency plans in case the storm never landed.”
Darcie and Ash had been her two main targets.
Kaea’s injury and later suffering had been enough to satisfy her for the time being, though she’d planned to kill him at some point in the future, but the rest of us would’ve been safe enough unless we got caught in the cross fire.
Phoenix had been collateral damage.
I struggled with myself. Nix had been an innocent victim, as was Vansi, my friend a broken shell that might never be repaired. That, I finally understood, was why Grace refused to confess to Nix’s murder. And why she was willing to confess to everything else, be committed for her crimes.
Penance.
Because some part of her had the capacity to feel shame.
My chest tightened.
I felt shame, too, but not for what I’d done. For being willing to forgive Grace for the choices she’d made. Because without Grace, we’d have soon been commiserating with Darcie on her miscarriage, and hoping for the best for her—for a life that she’d gained on the back of her sister’s corpse.
As I walked along the wide corridor between wards, I saw nothing of the cold hospital tile, heard none of the medical chatter. My mind was back in the Land Cruiser, the rain slamming onto the metal and glass and Darcie bleeding out in front of me.
“No one will ever know.”
“She’s pregnant,” I’d said, accepting in that moment that I’d have let Darcie die had she not been responsible for the embryo within.
Grace’s laughter, so amused. “Oh, Luna—I can’t believe you fell for that. She’s a liar. Her and Ash were having trouble before a sudden birth control failure and pregnancy, weren’t you, Darcie?”
“I wouldn’t lie about that.”
“So you mean that wasn’t your husband who walked into a divorce lawyer’s office three months ago? Couple of weeks before you ‘discovered’ your pregnancy?”
Darcie’s face draining of what little color it had retained, her eyes round orbs and her voice mute.
“Yes, I watched you,” Grace had whispered with cheerful glee. “I watched all of you. So I know you haven’t been to the doctor once in the past two months. Surely, a woman in the first trimester of pregnancy should be under the care of a physician? I think I’ll send Ash an anonymous text telling him to take you to the doctor for a blood test.”
Desperation in Darcie’s gaze. “Please, Luna, don’t let her tell him. I just need a bit more time. I’ll get pregnant. We’ll have a baby and it’ll make us like we were before. We’ll be happy again—and you can be an honorary aunt like we always said.”
I’d just stared at her, wondering if she’d taken another hit to the head. “Even if you confess, even if they put you in prison,” I’d said when she went silent at last, “it won’t be for long. Nowhere near enough for what you did to Bea . . . and what you did to the rest of us.”