Page 153 of The Jealous Girl

He nodded. The movement was slight. Barely visible. But I saw it.

I blinked furiously. I wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of them.

I kept glancing back at Ben. I wanted to go to him. Help him. But what could I do? Right now, I had to focus on keeping them talking until the ambulance arrived and I could get him out of here.

‘And the bank account?’ I asked, jerking my head at the statement in Ryan’s hand.

‘I didn’t know about this,’ he said, lifting the paper and staring at it again. ‘I swear,’ he added as his gaze met mine.

I studied him. Could I believe him?

‘Mum?’ he said, stepping past me towards Denise. ‘Why did you do this?’

She gritted her teeth and glared at me.

‘You don’t think you’ll get the truth out of her, do you?’ I spat the words out. I no longer had to hide my contempt for her.

‘Mum!’ Ryan said sharply. ‘Kirsty and Ben triggered the alarm when they broke in and I called the police when I saw the broken lock. They’ll be here any minute. You either tell us everything.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Or you tell them.’

‘You know most of it already,’ Denise said, her voice sounding defeated.

‘Clearly not everything,’ Ryan snapped. ‘Tell us. Now.’

‘Fine,’ Denise said irritably. ‘It started when you left for university. Charlotte was so desperate for you to come home… It was as though you’d left her.’

‘Left her?’ Ryan shook his head. ‘It wasn’t like we’d dated, not back then.’

Denise shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that mattered to her. Every time you left after the holidays, to go back, she became subdued. Irritable. The weeks leading up to your final exams were different. She was excited. And then you told us about Malta…’ Denise shook her head. ‘When you didn’t come back for graduation, she started to threaten the sale. The foal hadn’t been born yet. If she told her dad about the fraud, not only would he cancel the sale, but she said they’d report it, claim we forced Charlotte to be involved. We’d have been ruined financially. Reputationally.’

‘That’s why you kept calling Ryan. Kept pushing,’ I said with understanding.

Denise nodded. ‘We needed him to come home.’

‘Why not just tell him the truth?’

Denise glanced at Martin.

‘I didn’t want him to know how bad things were at the stables,’ he said, lowering his gaze. ‘How bad I’d let them get. And then I ended up in hospital⁠—’

‘And I came home anyway,’ Ryan finished for him.

‘With me,’ I added.

‘Charlotte was furious about that.’ Denise snorted. ‘At first, it didn’t seem like a bad idea, helping her run you off. She belonged here more than you did. More than you ever would. We were indebted to her. She’d always been more than just a yard hand – she was already practically part of the family.’

‘The daughter you’d never had,’ I repeated the words she’d said to me when I’d first arrived two years ago. ‘A role you were adamant I would never fill.’

‘But your arrival did give us an opportunity to protect ourselves, just in case Charlotte followed through on her threat to expose the fraud.’

‘By making it look like Kirsty was the one behind it?’ Ryan asked, the colour draining from his face. ‘You framed my girlfriend for your crime?’

‘I was protecting your father.’

‘That doesn’t make what you did acceptable,’ Ryan said, shaking his head, looking at his mother as though he no longer recognised her.

‘But that’s not all you framed me for, is it?’ I demanded. I had proof she was behind the fraud now. But that wasn’t all I’d been arrested for.

The police believed Charlotte had been murdered. That Atlas had been deliberately overdosed on his supplement to make him uncontrollable.