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Lucy watched, horrified, as her daughter fell, screaming, her arms and legs flailing wildly like a puppet with its strings cut. Summer landed on an open ledge about halfway down the cliff face. Her head hit the ground with a sickening thud. The screams stopped.
Lucy looked out to sea. Alexia was almost completely submerged now. She turned back to her daughter, lying prone and lifeless on the ledge.
This isn’t right! It’s not supposed to happen like this.
She wanted to watch Nicko’s killer drown. She’d waited so long for this moment. All her life. But what if Summer were still alive? What if her baby needed help, desperately, and she stood by and did nothing? Irrationally, Lucy felt a rush of anger. Why did Summer have to come here? Why did she have to ruin it all?
“Police!”
Lucy looked up. Three men were at the top of the path. One had his gun drawn and trained on her. A second was scrambling along the ledge toward Summer. Lucy looked closer. Oh my God, is that Arnie?
“Drop your weapon and put your hands above your head.”
Lucy ignored these instructions, turning her attention instead to the third man. Rappelling down the cliff face, a life ring tied to his waist, he was clearly headed toward Alexia.
“Ma’am. I said drop your weapon!”
Lucy closed her eyes and tightened her grip on her gun. It was so hard to concentrate.
The man at the top of the cliff was still shouting. “Drop it now or I’ll shoot!”
Why won’t he be quiet? I can’t think with all this noise.
To her left, Lucy saw that Summer was sitting up. Arnie had managed to reach her. He was holding her now, talking to her.
That’s good. They have each other.
Below her, the rappelling cop had reached the ground and was unclipping himself from his safety rope. Lucy watched him dive into the water. Only the top of Alexia’s head was visible now, but it could take so long to drown. She was probably still alive. If he got her to the beach and resuscitated her fast enough . . .
It was then that Lucy knew what she had to do.
Taking careful aim, she fired a single shot directly at Alexia’s skull.
Arnie Meyer screamed.
“Lucy. No!”
Too late. It’s done.
Turning to face Arnie, Lucy blew him and their daughter a kiss. Then, before the cop at the top of the cliff had time to react, she slipped the barrel of the gun into her own mouth and pulled the trigger.
Down on the shore, the softly lapping waves kept up their peaceful, timeless rhythm.
Only now they were red with blood.
Chapter Forty-two
England. One year later.
Roxie De Vere gazed out of the train window in a reflective mood.
It was a beautiful line, the slow train into London from West Sussex, taking its passengers through woods blanketed with bluebells, past pretty flint cottages and impressive stone manors, across rivers and deep into valleys lined with lush green pastureland, some of the richest and most fertile in England. Signs of spring were everywhere, in the blossoming apple and cherry trees, in the plaintive bleating of the newborn lambs searching out their mothers, in the crisp, cool breezes gusting in across the Channel from France.
Roxie De Vere thought, It’s the kind of day that makes one feel lucky to be alive. And Roxie did feel lucky, albeit a luck that was tinged with sadness, and with regret for all that was lost. She only had one parent now. One person left living in this world with whom she could share her childhood memories. Reminisce over happier days. Cry over the sad ones.
Shared happiness, shared pain, shared regret. It wasn’t the easiest of foundations on which to rebuild a relationship. But it was all that Roxie De Vere had. That and a couple of days a month of visiting time. Contrary to popular belief, Her Majesty’s prisons were no bed of roses. Life there wasn’t all open-ended visiting hours and strolls through the grounds. A stark room, smelling of disinfectant and despair, full of tables with inmates on one side and visitors on the other. That was to be the setting for all their meetings from now until . . .
No. I mustn’t think about that.
