AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How long was this going on?” Steve asked, woodenly.
“At least a month,” Sally admitted. “I caved in and gave her some money. Mainly because Johnny told me to, I didn’t want to give the bitch anything. But then she still kept hinting that she’d tell Daniella.” Sally paused and stared up at the sun, which was peeking over the top of the escarpment.
“Then what?” Steve prompted.
“Then, on the day of the big storm, I followed her out to the shed. I only wanted to talk to her, you know?” Sally stared at Steve, as if daring him to argue. “She was already sitting on the ATV. She said Wazza had forgotten to take the driver, or something like that, and she was going to run it out to him real quick.”
Dale thought back to that day. He remembered Wazza saying he couldn’t finish the fencing because he’d forgotten the pole driver. Karri would’ve seen it as soon as she walked into the shed. It’d be almost impossible to get the posts in deep enough without it.
“It was the pole driver,” Dale said robotically.
Sally stared at him. “Whatever, I didn’t care what she was doing. All I wanted to know was, did she have plans to rat me out to Daniella? So, I asked her point-blank if she’d told anyone what she knew.”
“What did she say?” Daisy spoke for the first time. She was leaning forward, watching Sally with morbid fascination.
Sally flicked Daisy a contemptuous glare. “I’d already paid her more money than she’d ever earn working her sorry ass off here, but she never promised she wouldn’t tell. I wanted her to give me her word that I was safe. But she wouldn’t. The little bitch laughed at me and said, ‘Wouldn’t I love to know,’ and then flipped me the bird.”
Uh-oh, that didn’t sound like the Karri he knew, but he was fast discovering that people weren’t always what they seemed. Dale wondered what Karri had been planning to do with the money. They’d never find out now, he guessed.
“What did you do then?” Steve asked, a pained expression on his face, as if he didn’t want to know the answer but couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“She made me mad. I didn’t trust the little bitch not to go tattling. I got angry. You know how they say, I saw red. That slut was going to ruin all mine and Johnny’s hard work.”
“And?” Dale prompted, when Sally lapsed into silence again.
“And, so, there was a hammer just lying there on the bench. I picked it up and hit her over the head. And she slumped over the handlebars. It was kinda easy. Like, almost too easy.”
Shocked silence engulfed them all. Sally Tsun had just admitted she’d killed Karri. And she acted as if it was nothing. A rising tide of fury burned slowly up Dale’s chest. How could this woman take a life—the life of someone so young, full of such promise—as if it was inconsequential? Because it wasn’t. Karri had her entire life ahead of her, she should’ve been allowed to forge a career for herself, fall in love, get married, have that baby growing inside her. Wazza’s baby. Not to mention how devastated her family were at losing their only daughter; their only sister; their hope for the future.
Dale glanced over at Daisy and saw the outrage and revolt written all over her face. Dale felt all of those things and more. He wanted to go up and shake the woman until she realized what she’d done. How could he not have seen what a deceptive, lying, calculated killer was behind those dark eyes?
“Did you check for a pulse? See if she was alive or dead?” Steve asked, voice deadpan. Dale wished he could feel half as coolheaded as his stepfather seemed to be; on the surface at least.
“No, I didn’t need to. I could see she was dead. Her eyes were open and staring, you know? I was pretty sure she was dead.” She looked up at the sky then, as if choosing her words. “I panicked a bit, then.”
Surely, that had to be the understatement of the year. Dale would’ve been shitting his pants if he’d realized he’d killed someone.
“I needed to get rid of the body, and I remembered the creek was in full flood. So, I drove the ATV down there—it was easy, she was already on the bike, I had to push her to the rear a little, so I could drive it—and took it straight into the creek, with her still onboard. Then I ran all the way to the lodge, got changed into dry clothes, and no one else was the wiser to where I’d been, because all the guests were trapped inside by the rain and all the staff were madly running around securing things for the storm.”
“How dare you!” Skylar yelled. “How dare you think you have the right to kill an innocent girl? For your own benefit.” His sister’s face was going a deep shade of crimson. “I trusted you. We trusted you. How could you do this to us?” Skylar raised clenched fists and took a step forward. Dale got ready to tackle his sister to the ground if she tried to attack Sally. But Steve was ahead of him, grasping Skylar by the wrist, holding her back. Dale let out a relived breath. It seemed Steve also understood they couldn’t take out their rage on the woman in front of them, even if Skylar didn’t.
“We all feel exactly the same way,” he said softly. “But you need to calm down. Okay?”
Skylar stared at Sally, the hate palpable on her face. Dale didn’t think he’d ever seen his sister this worked up before. Steve grabbed her hand and turned her to face him. “I know how you feel,” he said, “Leave her, she’s not worth it.” Finally, his sister came to her senses, the hate bleeding away, to be replaced by white-faced acceptance.
There was so much more Dale needed to know, however. So many more questions, and they were running out of time; Robinson and King would be here soon. “What did you do once you returned to the lodge?” he asked. Apart from pretending that she hadn’t killed someone, he thought darkly.
“I phoned Johnny, of course. He was already staying at the gold mine by that stage; he’d been here for weeks. He came up here in case I needed help. I brought food to him whenever I could get away. Stole it from right under your noses, and you never even knew,” Sally snickered.
Dale suddenly understood where those steaks in the cool room had disappeared to. How much other food had Sally stolen without them knowing? Would they find the stolen ATV hidden somewhere nearby, as well?
“I told Johnny that Karris’ death was his fault, so he needed to get me out of this mess.”
“Why was it his fault?” Dale asked, wondering how she could possibly blame the girl’s death on the other man.
“Because he was the one who told me to get rid of her in the first place.” Sally spat the words like bullets at him. “He was the one who put the idea into my head. Johnny said she was a liability. A loose end that we couldn’t afford to leave untied. That she’d ask for more money. Start blackmailing us, you know? I didn’t believe him at first, but then when Karri got all cagey, refusing to promise she wouldn’t tell anyone, well, I got worried.”
It sounded as if Sally was trying to pass the buck. “But he wasn’t the one with the hammer in his hand,” Dale said quietly.
