AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There was a crunch of leaves behind me, and I pivoted on my heel, turning in time to meet a savage slap across my face that sent me sliding down the sapling trunk, woozy.
Rodney rubbed the pain out of the palm of his hand, a mocking apology in the rise of his brow.
“Sorry, Millie. I really didn’t want it to come to this, but people just can’t follow instructions.” He took off his soaking flat cap, folding it and tucking it into his pocket before running a hand through his wet hair, dark as earth with rain. “My bleeding heart sister was giving you too little too infrequently. Unfortunately, you’re fucking half-immune by this point, so that nice little dose I gave you back there probably won’t kill you.”
I wiped blood from my mouth, trying to focus.
“Did you kill Callum’s wife?” Words were gravel in my throat.
“His—” He interrupted himself with another bark of laughter. “You poor, stupid thing. No. I didn’t kill her. I did poison her though.”
“You were Callum’s friend.” I knew this was untrue, but I needed to keep him talking long enough to figure out how to defend myself. I spread my fingers into the dirt, looking for a stone, a branch, a sharp stick, anything.
“Never,” he replied, disgust like acid at the edges of the word, and he spat on the ground. “Our parents worked for Callum’s family for years. Dedicated. Then Dad gets a little drunk on the job—who wouldn’t working for the stuck-up Hughes family—falls off a dormer and breaks his leg, but also knocks the damn ladder over onto the Hugheses’ precious car. Dad gets fired and we have to leave the only home we’ve ever known. The bastard was mean after that, beat Mom something terrible until he died with a curse on his lips from alcohol poisoning. My bitch of a mother followed right behind with a heart attack, too weak to stick around for her kids. Felicity and I had to fend for ourselves for years while the rosy Hughes family lorded it on the hill.”
This is home, Felicity had said.
“When the elder Hughes finally kicked the bucket and left everything to their eligible bachelor son, I had a few ideas. Felicity isn’t bad to look at, and I figured with Callum and her being friendly as kids they’d hit it off nice. We got jobs at the house again, and he and Felicity were getting on fine.”
This sounded maniacal, but Rodney’s sure tone made it clear he believe his idea to pawn his sister off to the heir of Willowfield was coherent. Possible.
He kicked a bevy of wet leaves in my direction just to make me flinch.
“But a few months later that ridiculous bitch arrived, all delicate and nervous. She took away our chance of having our lives back.OurWillowfield.” He slapped his chest in emphasis. “But then, see, I happened to come up on a nice patch of bell flowers growing by the greenhouse. Dad taught me a thing or two, I knew what they were, and I got my better idea: poison Mrs. Hughes to death and frame Callum! Not an easy job, but I don’t shun hard work. A bit of datura in her meals here and there, a packet of dried petals tucked into Callum’s jacket. And now this.”
He produced the paper Mrs. Hughes had written with all of her fears.
“The nitwit was so ready to believe it was Callum. Well, she had a little help. A suggestion here, a warning there. You know how it goes.”
“You’re a lunatic.” My fingers finally closed around a stone about the size of my palm, not heavy but sizable enough to be a last resort.
“Oh no, not me. I’m just a simple Machiavellian man. I get what I want at whatever cost, and I want Willowfield.” He cast a look around and chuckled. “Now, I don’t really believe in luck, but I’d say this is pretty damn lucky, because I get another shot at this, in the exact place you should’ve died two years ago when I pushed you into that ravine.”
My lungs ceased to work, pinpricks traveling up my spine.
“So, you see, it’s you who’s crazy, I’m afraid. Mad Millie Foxboro.” He approached until he was standing close enough to look down on me with all his psychotic glee present on his face. “Mad Millie Hughes.”
My consciousness lurched, two worlds colliding in all the violence of a train wreck, sending shards of memories screaming through my head like shrapnel, rending my senses.
“Remembering now, sweetheart?” He knelt. “Dr. Hannigan made it clear we were to be very careful springing it on you like this, in case it fractured your poor mind. Seems he was right. You don’t look well.”
“They found a body.” I pulled myself together enough to tighten my fingers around the rock.
“Obviously wasn’t you, was it? Must have been some other dozy bitch who happened to drown and wash up on shore a week later. They never let Callum or anyone see the corpse, it was so decomposed. So we say a big thank-you to the police for being complete fucking morons and tying everything up so neatly. They were happy to assume you’d killed yourself. We were in the clear and you were dead.”
He took my chin in his hand as Callum had often done, making me want to retch.
“How inconvenient for you to show up again,” he said. “Well, anyway, let’s give it another try.”
I swung the rock toward his temple but was too sluggish and he caught my wrist, tsking, wrenching me up by my arm. He’d meant to get me on my feet, but I collapsed in dead weight, nearly pulling my shoulder out of place, but preventing him from moving me.
“Don’t be like this,” he said, bending to take hold of my hair. He dragged me through the mulch of the forest floor this way, by arm and scalp, toward the raging water of the ravine. I tried to catch my feet on trees or rocks, slow him down, but it was in vain.
A roar broke through the white noise of the storm and the river, and with it came an impact that ripped Rodney’s hands away from me, felling him to the ground.
Callum had found us, perhaps followed our voices through the wildwood of his home, and he’d heard enough. Despite Rodney’s stocky build, Callum had caught him unaware, and his significant advantage in height left the groundskeeper grappling uselessly on his back to gain the upper hand. He landed only one impotent blow to Callum’s chin before being pinned under all the rage of a man who had nearly lost everything he loved twice. Callum’s fist found purchase again and again, even as Rodney twisted his body to strike the side of his head with his elbow. Just as the other, the blow barely registered, and the onslaught continued, turning the face of my would be murderer into pulpy rubbish.
I climbed unsteadily to my feet, legs trying to buckle, forgetting how to carry my weight. I tripped twice on my way toward the brawling bodies. I had no idea what I was going to do when I made it there. A gunshot shattered my hearing, and Callum seized backward, clutching his shoulder, screaming in pain. In a few unstable lunges I was by his side, falling next to his body, rigid with agony. His breath came in hard gasps, blood seeping through his fingers before washing away in thin red streams. The bullet had caught him just beneath his left clavicle, but I couldn’t determine how close to his heart. I touched his cheek, too scared to do any more lest I harm him further. Bits of old memories of him merged with new ones, confusing me.
