Poppy’s cheeks burn. She’s startled at the rawness of his drunken candor. He’s also clearly in pain, and lonely, even in his relationship, and it hurts her to see it, because in some strange way she identifies with it. Still, she takes the gap.
“Patrick, what if it’s not a sexual liaison that Arrabella has with the man on the ship? What if they’re planning something?”
“Planning?” he asks. “Like, what?”
She hesitates, then plays her hand. “That man from the bar—Mr. Mega Muscles—I saw him at the airport in Edinburgh. And again inAthens. Now he’s on the ship. He’s been following Lillith and me since Scotland. And I just saw him conversing with Arrabella at the mural.”
Patrick’s gaze locks on hers. His face changes. His eyes turn hard.
“I see,” he says quietly.
Silence descends. Wind gusts and turns cool. The tempo of music slows. A few couples dance slowly, intimately, beneath the bunches of grapes and lanterns swaying in the wind. Lillith is still in a deep conversation with the man.
“What is it that you see, Patrick?” she prods softly.
He doesn’t answer. He raises his hand and waves the waiter over, then tilts his chin to Poppy’s glass. She shakes her head.
He orders another drink, takes two big swallows, and finally he says, “Arrabella claims you ousted her, Poppy. She saw herself in that role—as Lillith’s assistant, business manager, ghostwriter. She was going to help compile those award-winning photographs from conflict zones around the world, and tell the story of Lillith Ravenscroft’s rise and fall and rise. She wanted to subsume Lillith, her life, the castle, the fortune. Everything.” Another long pause. “She wants to become the wife of the next McGregor media mogul. His name just happens to be Patrick.” He pauses. “I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to face the fact I’m just a tool. A means to her end. She’s always been ambitious. This is why she thinks you are dangerous, Poppy. You’ve messed with her plans.” He meets her gaze. “Are you? Dangerous?”
“Doyouthink I am?”
He studies her. Wind gusts. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. “Perhaps I will stay on the ship—just to find out.”
Arrabella
Outside the windows of Arrabella’s suite, moonlight beats a molten path over the black Aegean. But the romantic view is lost on Arrabella. Her blood thrums with a different kind of excitement. She’s been googling late into the night and has found hundreds of old media references to the 2004 Peter Doyle murder trial.
Peter “Paz” Doyle was found deceased in his Liverpool home fifteen years ago. A football mate discovered his body. According to the news reports, Doyle had been increasingly ill several days before he went into cardiac arrest. He’d visited a doctor, complaining of shortness of breath, weakness, and confusion. He told his physician he believed his wife was poisoning him. The doctor dismissed it—Doyle was notorious for exaggeration, and for berating and gaslighting his spouse.
Arrabella rereads an archived Liverpool newspaper article. An autopsy had been ordered because the death was unexpected. The pathologist determined the cause was cardiac arrhythmia, with underlying acute digitalis (cardiac glycoside) toxicity. Doyle had a large amount of digitalis in his system.
His wife was nowhere to be found. She failed to arrive at her job as an administrative assistant in retail. Investigators learned she’d fled the country around the time of his death. Foxglove plants grew in her small garden, and dried foxgloves leaves were found in her kitchen cupboard.
The wife was later located near Porto, Portugal. Neighbors testified that the Doyle couple fought loudly and often, and Doyle allegedly both physically and psychologically abused her. Neighbors also testified thecouple had threatened each other’s lives. She was charged with murder, but acquitted at trial, just as Avi Galev said.
Her defense had very effectively raised reasonable doubt. There was also evidence of other people in Paz Doyle’s orbit—all with strong potential motive and access to foxglove leaves or other forms of digitalis. He was in serious gambling debt, and he’d borrowed from notorious loan sharks, plus he dabbled in petty, organized crime.
Arrabella rubs her mouth as she stares at her monitor. She doesn’t like to be reminded of gambling addictions. Her ex has the same problem. She understands—it’s complicated. But she also doesn’t want to feel any sympathy for Poppy, so she pushes this from her mind, along with the fact that Paz Doyle abused her.
She clicks on the photo of Paz Doyle’s wife. Enlarges it. Her pulse quickens.
Mrs. Doyle is clearly Poppy Buchanan.
After her acquittal, she vanished from media radar. Arrabella can find only one tiny follow-up mention—Paz Doyle’s wife applied to legally change her name after leaving town.
Arrabella leans back in her chair and blows out a long breath as she stretches her arms over her head.
“Poppy Buchanan” was once Mrs. Helen Doyle. A killer—because police and media still believe she poisoned her husband, even if she wasn’t convicted. Her lawyers were that good. She never did time for a heinous crime.
And now she’s working under an alias, entrusted with the well-being of one of the UK’s wealthiest widows, who happens to tend a “poison garden” of toxic plants in her own Scottish glasshouse adjacent to her castle. Poppy has access to that greenhouse. She has access, possibly, to foxglove—and she knows how to use it.
Angus’s heart stopped suddenly after Poppy’s arrival. There was digitalis in his system. Arrabella finally has her ammunition. Now that she’s located and read these articles herself, she doesn’t need to reveal to Patrick that she hired a PI.
Poppy Buchanan is about to be blasted out of the Lillithsphere.
Poppy
Poppy leaves Patrick sitting silent and morose and goes over toward Lillith and her gentleman friend at the table near the railing. She intends to learn his name, and remind Lillith about Dr. Gideon Marsh’s midnight talk. But as she nears, she spots Maxine checking her tablet near the bar.
