Page 76 of Rich Little Liars

‘No—’

‘Dead rich husbands don’t fight for assets. Don’t demand explanations. Don’t make you feel guilty for your failures.’

‘That’s not⁠—’

‘Admit it!’ He’s screaming now, his composure finally cracking. Spittle flecks his lips. His eyes are wild, desperate – Daniel’s eyes, I think suddenly, the same warm brown that used to look at me with love, then confusion, then that terrible distance. ‘Say you killed him!’

The floor shifts beneath us – a proper movement this time, not just protesting. I feel the joist beneath my right foot dip, then stabilise. The sensation sends fresh panic spiking through me, layered on top of everything else.

‘Harvey, the floor isn’t⁠—’

‘I don’t care about the goddamn floor!’ But I see fear flicker in his eyes, just for a moment, before rage swallows it again. ‘Not until you tell me the truth!’

The gun barrel digs harder. The pain is sharp but distant, less real than the pressure building in my chest. The terror that’s been my constant companion for weeks has become pure and cold. This is it, I realise. This is how it ends.

In the same place where Daniel died, with his brother’s gun at my throat.

‘Say it,’ he hisses. ‘Say what you did, or I’ll cut your throat right now and we’ll both go down together.’

I look at him – really look, past the rage and the grief to the man underneath. He’s destroyed himself for this. Spent ages planning, watching, waiting. Thrown away his career, his integrity, everything he built as Joseph Harvey rather than Joseph Reynolds. All for a brother he hadn’t spoken to in fifteen years. All for answers that won’t bring Daniel back.

I hate him. God, I hate him for what he’s done to me. For Richard bleeding in a hospital bed. For the weeks of terror that stripped me down to bone, and for dragging me back to this house of ash.

But looking into those eyes – Daniel’s eyes in a stranger’s face – I feel something else too. Something unexpected. He’s wrong about me. Wrong about so many things. But he’s also a man who loved his brother. Who couldn’t let go of an unfortunate death. Who needed answers badly enough to burn down his own life chasing them.

I’m sorry, I think, though I don’t know who I’m apologising to any more. Him. Daniel.

Myself.

I’m sorry for all of it.

I didn’t want Daniel to die. Despite everything.

And something in me gives up.

‘I didn’t kill him.’

I say it quietly. Final. Defeated. Harvey’s expression twists with fresh fury, but I keep talking before he can interrupt.

‘I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t have saved him. By the time I understood what was happening, the flames were everywhere. There was no path through. No way to reach him. The fire had already spread too far, too fast.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not.’ Tears are streaming down my face now. Hot and shameful and unstoppable. ‘I didn’t save him. But that’s not why I feel guilty. That’s not why I can’t sleep. That’s not why I smell smoke everywhere I go and see his face whenever I close my eyes.’

Harvey has gone still. The gun is still pointed into me, but the pressure has eased, if only a little. He’s listening now. Actually listening.

‘Then why? If you couldn’t have saved him, why do you feel so guilty?’

The floor groans again – a low, threatening sound that seems to come from everywhere at once.

Neither of us moves.

‘Because I didn’t try.’ The confession tears out of me like something being ripped free. ‘The flames were too high, the heat was too intense, but I didn’t even try. I just stood there. Frozen. Watching.’

I’m sobbing now. Ugly, wrenching sobs that shake my whole body.

‘And the worst part – the thing I’ve never told anyone, the thing I can barely admit to myself – is that part of me was glad.’