Page 131 of The Jealous Girl

‘I wasn’t sure you’d show up,’ I said as David Harcourt walked towards us.

‘You didn’t really give me a choice,’ David said ruefully.

‘You don’t seem surprised to hear from me.’

‘I’m not,’ he admitted. ‘When I heard you and Ryan were back together, I knew it was just a matter of time before you were back at Blackwater and figured things out. How much do you know?’

Ben glanced at me and then back at David. ‘You’re not even going to try and convince us there’s nothing to know?’

David lifted his hands, his palms open. ‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ He looked around at the ruins surrounding us. ‘Corfe Castle.’ He sniffed. ‘How did you find out this is where we used to meet?’

‘I followed Charlotte.’

‘Ah.’ David nodded. ‘I’m surprised it’s you contacting me then and not…’

‘The police,’ I finished for him.

‘Yeah,’ he said with a grimace. ‘So how did you figure it out?’

‘I saw Charlotte meet you here. She handed you an envelope. You told her to be careful.’ I held his gaze. ‘Then I found my name on the sales agreements.’

‘That was Charlotte,’ he said quickly. ‘I told her not to, but—’ he shrugged ‘—she didn’t like to be told “no”.’

‘You have to tell the police,’ I told him firmly.

He shook his head.

Ben stepped forward. ‘Charlotte didn’t accept being told “no”, and neither do we.’

‘I’m not going to just hand myself in to the police to get you off the hook,’ he said, nodding towards me. ‘I’ve got a family to think about.’

‘You belong on that hook, not Kirsty. You were part of this, she never was. You and Charlotte framed an innocent woman.’

‘I never framed her,’ David insisted. ‘I told you, that was Charlotte. She forged the signatures.’

‘And opened a bank account in my name?’ I demanded.

David shifted, but said nothing.

I felt Ben tense beside me, as he clenched his fist by his side.

I put my hand on his arm and stepped in between the two men.

‘You owe me the truth,’ I said, my voice firm as I glared at him.

David ran his hand across the back of his neck. ‘Look, I’m not going to talk to the police, but I’ll talk to you.’

I nodded. It was a start.

‘Charlotte came to me a couple of years ago. Ryan was away. The stables were struggling; Martin had made some bad decisions. And then Atlas started having issues.’ He shook his head. ‘Everything was unravelling for them. But Charlotte had a plan to save the stables.’

‘Fraud? That was her plan?’

David paced back and forth in front of us.

‘The Blackwaters have been good to me. I wanted to help them. It was supposed to be just one foal. One lie. She wanted me to help her falsify the records to make it look like it was Atlas’s bloodline. It was worth far more that way. She was selling it to her father. It felt like some family vendetta.’ He shrugged. ‘A way to get back at her dad, while helping Martin.’

Ben nodded. ‘That makes sense. It was no secret that he was more like a father to her than her own dad.’