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“Be quiet!” Lucy commanded. Walking over to Alexia, she kicked her hard in the ankle, her heavy hiking boot zeroing in on the pain like a drone missile. Alexia screamed in agony. “You do not speak, do you hear me? You do NOT speak. You listen. You’re not in Parliament now. No one’s hanging on your every word. There’s no one left who even cares if you live or die. I’m talking now.”
The pain in her leg was so excruciating, Alexia didn’t even have the strength to nod. Instead, whimpering quietly, she allowed Lucy’s insane ramblings to wash over her.
“After that, I knew I had to kill you. Of course, in the end that taxi driver, Drake, almost beat me to it! Can you imagine if he’d succeeded? But the Lord didn’t let that happen. He spared you such a clean, painless death. He was saving you for me. He knew I had to make you suffer first, just like Billy had suffered. And that wasn’t easy, what with your position and all.” She spat the word out tauntingly. “For a while I wondered if I’d done the wrong thing by persecuting Billy Hamlin for all those years. But then I figured, no. Billy Hamlin lied for you. He protected you. He knew you were responsible for Nicko’s death and he did everything he could to help you evade justice. So now you both had to suffer equally. Billy had to know what it felt like to lose a child. And so did you.”
“Michael.” Alexia breathed the word softly.
“Oh, yes, well, Michael.” Lucy waved a dismissive hand. “Michael survived, unfortunately. Although I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that he’s as good as dead. Perhaps, in a way, that’s more painful,” she mused.
Alexia felt a rush of hatred so strong she could have choked on it.
“My biggest disappointment wasn’t that your worthless son survived,” Lucy continued. “It was that Billy Hamlin never got to see his child die. After decades spent patiently watching and waiting, biding my time, I was robbed of the chance to make Billy suffer the ultimate loss. Some junkie in London stuck a knife in his heart and gave him a clean, easy death.”
Lucy shook her head bitterly. The evil spewing out of her mouth was breathtaking.
“That was hard to take.”
“I’ll bet,” said Alexia, through gritted teeth. The pain in her ankle was unbearable. “But you had Jennifer Hamlin murdered anyway. Just for the hell of it. A wholly innocent young woman.”
“Aren’t you listening to me?” Lucy screeched. “That bastard never got to see his daughter’s death, her suffering, the way that my mother had to with Nicko. He’d already evaded so much justice. You both had. I had to put things right. An eye for an eye . . . it was what God wanted. One child’s death deserves another.”
There was no point trying to reason with Lucy. Alexia could see that now. Years of grief had been carefully nurtured till they morphed into hatred, then rage, and ultimately psychosis. Yet she couldn’t allow Lucy to end her life without striking back, without making Lucy suffer in some small way for what she’d done to Michael, and all the other victims.
“You talk about truth,” Alexia said. “But you still don’t know the truth. After all those years of watching and waiting, you missed so much! It’s pathetic.”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Billy Hamlin wasn’t killed by ‘some junkie.’ ”
“Yes, he was. The police report said so. He was stabbed by an addict looking for cash.”
“Rubbish,” Alexia taunted. “The police didn’t have a clue who did it. They still don’t. But I do. It was Teddy!”
A look of profound confusion passed across Lucy Meyer’s face.
“No. That’s not possible.”
“Of course it’s possible. It’s a fact.” Alexia relished twisting the knife. “He confessed to me privately, after he was charged with killing Andrew Beesley. He did it to protect me, to protect our family. Teddy thought Billy was trying to blackmail me, you see. He knew the truth all along and he forgave me. So after all those years of waiting, Teddy beat you to the punch!”
“Shut up!” Lucy shouted. “I don’t believe you.”
Alexia smiled. “Yes, you do.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Who cares? Hamlin’s dead, his daughter’s dead. And soon you’re going to join them.” Reaching into her backpack. Lucy pulled out a set of handcuffs. “Get on your knees.”
Alexia shook her head.
“DO IT!” Lucy pressed the barrel of the gun to Alexia’s temple.
Alexia said calmly, “I can’t do it, Lucy. My ankle. I can’t move.”
“Fine,” Lucy snapped. Lifting up her own left foot, she stamped down hard on Alexia’s ankle. The last thing Alexia heard was her own screams as her bones shattered. Then everything went black.
Summer stopped and listened, as still and alert as a deer in the forest.
Was that a seagull shrieking? Or a human scream?
She froze, hoping, praying to hear it again. But there was nothing.
