‘You’re a man, Danny. You can stand up for yourself.’ She gets up abruptly, knocking her hip against the tea tray, and I watch as the brown liquid spills from the tipped teapot onto the oak floor. ‘And that fucking memorial, what was that about? You knew I’d have hated that. That was to make you look good, wasn’t it?’
I go to reach for her, but she springs back as if she’s been stung.
‘Don’t you fucking touch me. You ruined your life, and you had no qualms about taking mine and leaving Joel without a mother. What the fuck is wrong with you? We had everything. People dream of having what we had. How could it even enter your head to have your son’s mother murdered?’
‘Jo, please,’ I plead. ‘I got scared. Your father would have ruined me, you know that.’ I struggle to hold back tears. I don’t want that prick Logan seeing me cry. ‘I love you, Jo, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing everything.’
Her eyes are dark and hard. ‘You’re a coward, Danny. You now have two options. You either hand yourself in to the police, and I might consider bringing Joel to see you in prison. Or you can disappear, but you will never see your son again. Don’t forget, you’ll be facing charges of kidnapping as well as attempted murder.’
‘And embezzlement,’ adds Logan.
Our eyes meet. His are mocking me, and it’s all I can do not to hit him. Jo calmly steps between us.
‘Listen carefully, Danny. This is the story: Logan rescued me from the kidnapper, Stuart King, when he came with the new pool cover. We have the transcript of your conversation online. Everything points back to you.’
‘Except I have all my conversations with Logan nicely edited on a flash drive,’ I say.
She smiles, and somehow it’s not my Jo I’m looking at anymore. ‘I’ve been back to the apartment and destroyed thatflash drive. I don’t imagine for one moment you kept any of the messages on your phone. Knowing you, you’ve probably bought a new phone by now.’
She knows me so well.
‘Jo, think of Joel. He’s everything to both of us.’
‘You didn’t think about that when you arranged to have me killed.’
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing coherent comes out.
Jo continues: ‘I removed all the money from the joint bank account, by the way, considering what’s left belongs to my parents anyway. How could you waste all our money like that, and take such risks when we have a young son?’
‘I… I just got pulled in and then…’
‘Yeah. I know what happened.’
I can’t bear to see the hate in her eyes.
‘Here,’ she says, handing me a bag. ‘Some mementoes for you. I believe they’re worth quite a bit; at least that’s what you told me when you bought them. You should be able to pawn them for a fair amount. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to hand yourself in or leave the country. Then I’m phoning the police.’
‘We’ll leave you to mull it over with a cup of tea,’ says Logan.
I give a cynical laugh. ‘That’s it, is it? All that we’ve been through together means nothing?’
She smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘When someone tries to kill you, Danny, you tend to forget all that you’ve been through together.’
I watch as they leave the room and sit in a daze after the front door closes.
The mementoes she has left are wrapped in tissue paper. I unwrap them hastily. Inside are the diamond bracelet I bought her on our first wedding anniversary, and her eternity ring. They will keep me going for a while, if I pawn or sell them. No way am I going to hand myself over to the police. But can I believe her?How can I be sure she wasn’t going to the police station right now?
I drop the jewels into my pocket. Has she really disposed of the flash drive, or was she bluffing? If she wasn’t bluffing, then I really have to move fast.
Then I remember what she said about the bank account. I am about to pull my phone from where it’s charging when the doorbell rings.
My heart leaps.
Jo has changed her mind.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Josie
