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“That doesn’t mean anything,” I tell her, studying the stacking doll on Harry’s desk. I’d never noticed it before, and it’s the kind of random knick-knack that I would. Still, if she’s right and Lucy’s playing some game… “What would be her reasons for all this? It doesn’t make sense.”
Even though far too many coincidences are adding up to a picture that’s more guilty than innocent, the lack of motive for whatever plot this is becoming makes it hard to believe it. All the conversations we had where she alluded to the horrible things that happened to her—it just doesn’t add up.
The more I keep going over all the information Laura’s given me, the hotter my anger burns through me. If she’s right in all her suspicions, then I’ve been really fucking stupid.
“After that time you all took off to Antibes without telling anyone, my dad made a point of keeping our passports locked away in the safe.”
“What does that have to do with any of this? It was a spur-of-the-moment plan that Kit threw together. He was fine with Lucy then…”
“The day after she came back from the hospital, I went to check on her, and her passport was on the desk in her room.” With a groan, she stands and starts pacing the width of the room. “I know you think I’m mad, but I know in my gut that there’s more to it, and now my mum is here, and her new shadow is nowhere to be seen. What if she did it? She killed him because he knew she’s rotten. How does one helpless girl manage to kill two grown men that were meant to have taken her from a secure facility?”
There’s so much to take in, all these titbits that I hadn’t associated to one another because at the time all I could think was that I’d failed Lucy like I failed my dad. All the pieces that scarily fit together to form the picture that Laura’s been warning me about. That Harry warned me about. He wasn’t making sure I kept my eyes on Lucy to keep her safe; he was telling me to watch my back…
“Fuck.”
“Do you believe me now? Can you see it?” Pausing, she turns to look at me, blue eyes bugging with hope that I see things from her perspective.
“What’s going on?” Casper asks from the doorway, looking between the both of us while I try to digest it all.
“I need to get my hands on the footage from Number 10,” I tell him, getting to my feet and heading back to the boardroom.
“What the fuck’s happened?” he calls after me.
“Get me the fucking feeds and go through the visitor logs.”
The instant I walk into the boardroom, I notice the way Francis is looking at me, begging me not to rock the boat. But this has gone too far. I’m going to sink this motherfucker once and for all.
Chapter 24
FREDDIE
It’s sombre. The sun is shining ridiculously bright, as though it’s bearing down on this one spot of the cemetery. The setting is so old that the ancient trees make it seem unkempt and overgrown. Still, there’s this one gap that lights up the angel effigy holding the Stanton coat of arms up to the sky.
“All right?” Georgina looks up at me with a soft smile. The small crucifix around her neck catches the sun, throwing shards of coloured light over the black lace high neck of her dress.
I don’t know. There’s too much going on in my head, and I can’t drown out all the whirring thoughts that keep taking me back through everything that’s happened throughout the years. But it’s not the past that keeps flaring in my mind. It’s that one question that Laura asked me the other night…
How does one helpless girl escape captivity and fend off men that were strong enough to break her out of the clinic? How the fuck did she manage to wrangle a weapon from them before they could take her out?
“It’s almost over,” Georgina whispers, burrowing into my side as she laces her hand with mine, then wraps her other arm around both of ours, as though that’s a safety measure to make sure that nothing breaks us apart right now.
Grasping her hand tighter in mine as I look down at the programme in my other hand, I nod and inhale as deeply as I can to push down the memories. This is exactly how my father was buried, in the shadow of the trees and not a single prayer uttered for him. Nothing. Because it’s what happens when you relinquish your soul before your time is due. It’s the way of God and all his people, and I hate it. I hate that something that is meant to be so merciful and good turns its back on the neediest and pained.
My eyes flit across to Harry’s girls, and I’m still trying to understand what the doctors’ reports that I have pored over the last week mean. Why would Harry be looking into them so deeply? It doesn’t make sense, but the longer I study Lucy with her black veil draped over her face and her hands loosely clasped in front of her, the more I’m perplexed. It’s the impatient tapping of her foot that niggles at me.
It’s as if she’s waiting for something to happen, and although I know that the place has been secured, I scan the surroundings. Every rustle of every branch jars through me, and I really might be going insane because I can’t shake it off. The snap of sticks as people shuffle their feet. The simple call of the crows, loud and sharp. It all has my unease spreading through me, leeching every thread of sanity and control that I’ve been holding on to.
Benedict says his part, and I can feel the sorrow that’s cutting through Georgina at the sound of her father’s emotion-strained voice. It’s enough to lighten the weight bearing down on my shoulders. My focus on her is enough to distract me from the inner chaos until we’re heading back to the car.
“Want to take a walk?” I ask her as we reach the path that leads down to the trenched catacombs.
“Anything with you, my lord,” she replies with a light chortle that I can’t quite make out if it’s forced or not because I’m so fucked in the head about everything that’s going on.
Her hands are shaky though, and while we walk down the mossed steps, she’s clearly as lost in her thoughts as I am in mine. I wonder if she’s thinking of the funeral invite she got this morning for Jordan’s service in a couple of weeks.
“Are you sure you want to go to the wake?”
No. That’s the first answer that comes to mind. I don’t want to go, but… “I have to.”
