by Sofia Daniel
“Just as we were about to board the ferry to Bilbao, Geraldine called.”
Our gazes snapped back to Ashley, who still sat by the sink with her knees to her chest.
“When?” asked Sebastian.
“About two weeks ago,” Ashley replied.
I leaned against the wall. “What did she want?”
“She said the kings had brought you to London to pig you at a house party. The queens and knights would be there, and she said I could restore my reputation if I came to help.”
The drop of sympathy I might have had for Ashley evaporated, and I folded my arms across my chest. “What happened next?”
“She gave me the address. Bones and the others wanted continue to Ibiza, but they didn’t understand how badly I needed to set the record straight.”
A hard knot formed in my stomach. Even if Geraldine had directed her into a trap, it still hurt to hear Ashley callously describe wanting to participate in an event set up for my pain and humiliation. Leopold placed an arm around my middle, and Sebastian wrapped an arm around my shoulder. The warmth of their touch filled me with the strength I needed to continue.
“Who was at the house?” I asked.
“Mr. Byrd answered the door and let me in.”
“You know him?”
Ashley stared at her knees and shook her head. “Not at that time, no.”
“What did he want?”
“He told me you’d blackmailed him, pushed Bianca off a building, broken up his marriage, and gotten his youngest daughter taken into care.”
“And you believed him?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It sounded far fetched, but I was prepared to listen.”
I shook my head. Was she so blinded by hatred for me that she hadn’t noticed Geraldine had tricked her into being alone with a bitter man with a grudge against me? “Did he kidnap you?”
“We made a deal that I would play hostage and get you to retract your statement and refund his twenty-five-thousand pounds.”
“But you took that from my room before setting my things alight,” I said.
Her head snapped up, and she twisted her misshapen face into a scowl. “See? Accusations like that are the reason why people hate you.”
“Of course,” I said, not meaning a single word. “Go on.”
“Mr. Byrd let me stay with him for a few days.” She swallowed. “But when he called, and you hung up on him, he turned weird.”
My eyes squeezed shut. “How?”
“There’s something wrong with him. He locked me in his bedroom all day and only gave me food and water if I wore Bianca’s clothes and did things for him.”
Leopold shook his head, and Sebastian blew out a breath.
Ashley continued a hair-raising tale that detailed her time with the erratic Mr. Byrd. Throughout her story, she continued to blame me for not responding to the madman’s demands. When Leopold pointed out that Geraldine had lured her into a trap, she brushed that aside to ask why I hadn’t taken the time to listen to Mr. Byrd.
She hiccuped. “I should have gone to Ibiza, but after everything you’ve done to me, I had to see you punished.”
Anger surged through my veins, and a dull roar filled my ears. I’d heard enough. It was time for Ashley to leave. But I would have to be careful with what I said next.
“Are you going to report him?” I asked. “That was false imprisonment. He can’t get away with that.”
She dipped her head. “Will you stay with me while I talk to the police?”
“As long as you don’t accuse me of crying-wolf syndrome.”
“Not this time,” she rasped.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called the local police station, making sure to give the operator Ashley’s name. Hopefully, someone would notice that she was wanted for murder, and they would send a squad car soon.
Leopold made a pot of peppermint tea, and we sat around the dining room table and waited. My heart quickened, but I forced my muscles to relax and hoped the police would come soon. I wondered if telling Ashley that Mom and Dad had died while driving through perilous mountain conditions had caused something in her mind to snap. She hadn’t once mentioned the batch of cannabis she had poisoned.
Cupping the mug between her thin fingers, Ashley glanced from one bookshelf to the other. “Thanks for saving the house. It almost feels like Mom and Dad are upstairs sleeping, you know? Being away from you has made me realize that you weren’t nearly as bad as I’d thought.”
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” I tried hard to keep the sarcasm out of my tone.
Leopold and Sebastian sipped their tea in silence, occasionally shooting Ashley furtive glances.
“Can we start again?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I said a lot of horrible things, but it was the pressure of being in Brittas Academy. DJ Bones said the place had bad feng shui.”
“How is he?” I asked.
Tears filled her eyes. “I lost my phone, and now I can’t get hold of him. The first place I went when I hitched back to Carlisle was his squat, but they were all on their way to meet him in Portugal with his girlfriend.”
Sebastian gaped. “The one who stole your money?”
She nodded. “They were in it together. Did you know he got one of his friends to break into the house? When I told him I had the key to a fortune, he thought I was hiding gold.”
“Someone from the squat told you this?” I asked, shuddering about that time I’d had to hide under Mom and Dad’s bed.
“Yes.” She lowered her head into her mug.
I rubbed my temples. “It must have felt terrible to be betrayed by someone so close.”
Ashley wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m going to need my share of the house back. Bones has left me penniless, and I have nowhere to stay.”
Sebastian harrumphed. “What about—”
I placed a hand over his forearm and gave him a hard squeeze. “Let’s get this business with the police finished, and we can discuss what to do about the house.”
Ashley sniffled and took a long sip of her drink. “You’ve lost weight.”
“Thanks.” My heart continued that steady thud. I had to keep her talking. To keep her unaware of what awaited her when the doorbell rang.
“I suppose you’re shagging all three of them?”
“Not yet,” muttered Leopold.
“It’s only a matter of time.” She blinked away a tear. “Do you know what Bruce said to me that day they had me out in the snow?”
“No.”
“When the kings finished with you, he would have you next to complete the set.”
I glanced from Sebastian to Leopold. “That’s…”
“Yeah,” she said. “I wish he was dead.”
The mint tea in my stomach churned, and I dropped my gaze to the table. Nobody spoke for several minutes. By the time light streamed in through the dining room window onto Ashley’s dyed hair, I mentally urged the police to hurry the hell up.
Ashley slurped at her tea. “I wish I could go back to the start. If you hadn’t brought me to Brittas Academy, I would never have suffered all that shit.”
“Willow dragged you by the hair, did she—” Leopold flinched. I guess Sebastian must have kicked him under the table.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be me,” Ashley said with a sob. “No matter what happens, Willow always lands on her feet.”
“Have you thought about not comparing yourself?” said Sebastian.
Ashley’s face twisted. “How can—”
The doorbell rang, and all the blood drained out of my face.
Leopold and Sebastian both shot to their feet. I pushed myself up and walked on trembling legs to the doorway and paused to take one last look at the girl who had once been my sister. The corners of her lips turned down, and she stared into her mug.
Sebastian walked around the room and positioned himself behind Ashley’s chair. Leop
old stood in the doorway that separated the dining room from the kitchen, and more importantly, the back exit.
They both gave me sharp nods as though to say I could do this. With a nod back, I turned toward the front door.
I advanced toward the huge figures standing behind the stained glass windows. Each step down the hallway felt like a hammer driving a nail in Ashley’s coffin. I was about to commit a betrayal she would never forgive, but after everything she had done, I couldn’t seem to muster up any remorse.
When I swung the front door open, I found another pair of officers standing six feet away from the two on the doorstep.
“Ashley?” asked a sergeant with a neatly trimmed, blond beard.
“She’s in the dining room.” I turned on my heel and led the police through the house.
Ashley’s hazel eyes—eyes the same color as Mom’s—widened at the sight of so many policemen. I slipped into the dining room, edged around the table, and stood by the bookshelf. Leopold remained at the entrance of the kitchen, and Sebastian backed away from her.
“Wh-what’s happening?” Ashley turned to me. “Willow?”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t take my eyes off the twin I had just betrayed.
“Ashley Evergreen?” said the blond sergeant.
“Yes?” She put down her mug.
He strode through the dining room. “Ashley Evergreen, you are under arrest on suspicion of sexual assault and murder.”
Chapter 17
The bearded sergeant gave Ashley a second for his words to sink in.
“What?” Her eyes widened, and she turned toward me. “I didn’t kill anyone. Willow, tell them!”
Another policeman appeared at her side. He pulled her out of her seat, clapped a handcuff on one wrist, and positioned her arms around her back.
Throughout this, the sergeant continued. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
As realization set in, Ashley fixed me with a glare that severed through my soul. There was no confusion. No hurt. Just understanding combined with an intense look of hatred that made me wonder if someone other than my sister had inhabited her body.
My throat dried. Maybe this was Ashley without the buffer of Mom and Dad. Without the ulterior motives and without the masks. If this was how she had felt about me all along, then all her hurtful actions made sense. Ashley had betrayed me over and over until it had become a way of life. Now that she had committed murder, I couldn’t show her any compassion.
She left without a fuss, without a word, without a backward glance. Perhaps her ordeal with Mr. Byrd had drained all her strength, or discovering that DJ Bones had swindled her out of a fortune had broken her spirit. Or maybe she could no longer look at me after what I had done.
Walking behind the black-clad officers surrounding Ashley was like being in the back of a funeral procession. The next time I would see her, it would probably be at her murder trial.
Leopold stepped out from the kitchen doorway, and Sebastian raced around the table. Both stared at me as though waiting for an eruption of grief.
It didn’t come.
“Willow,” said Sebastian. “Are you alright?”
“I cried my last tear over Ashley a long time ago.” My voice sounded distant, my insides hollow.
“But you’ve got to be feeling something,” said Leopold.
“Numb, mostly,” I replied. “And a bit relieved.”
Leopold wrapped his large hands around my shoulders and fixed me with a concerned, aquamarine gaze. “Really?”
I nodded. “Let’s lock up the cottage and return to the academy.”
The boys continued staring at me until I closed my eyes and heaved out a long sigh. “Maybe it’s a delayed reaction.”
Leopold placed the back of his hand on my temple, as though checking my temperature. “But you’re so calm.”
“Have you ever seen me fall apart?” I asked.
“No, but—”
“Leave her alone.” Sebastian wrapped an arm around my waist. His touch relaxed the band of tension that had wound around my chest and stomach. “Everyone deals with shock differently.”
While Leopold locked up the cottage, Sebastian walked me to the street. The morning sun bathed my skin, and the mingled floral scents of wildflowers from Mrs. Ochill’s garden filled my nostrils, and I turned to find all the neighbors huddled around the old woman’s doorstep, presumably talking about Ashley’s arrest. They turned around to stare, but none of them approached.
Leopold rushed ahead to open the back door. I lowered myself into the leather seat and stared at the house. Uncle Trevor’s words echoed in my skull—preserve the living, not the dead—but they felt now hollow. What more could I have done for Ashley? Most of her grievances were things I couldn’t change.
The memory of a large glass object crashing on my skull replayed itself over and over until I closed my eyes and felt the pain of the heavy blow and remembered the shards tearing through my skin.
Ashley had told me a story about losing a fallopian tube to an ectopic pregnancy. Apparently, she had fallen in love with Mr. Floo, our algebra teacher, who she claimed was more interested in raving about my math skills than in sleeping with her. Then Mom and Dad had uprooted us from London to move to Carlisle. Had that been the source of her hatred of me, or was it something deeper?
“Willow?” Leopold’s voice cut through the fog. From his urgent tone, it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name or even the third.
“Just thinking,” I murmured. “I’m fine.”
“You were spaced out for a while. I wondered where you’d gone.”
“Old memories.” I stared into the skirt of my linen summer dress.
“My sister, Beatrice, is a pain in the ass, but nothing compared to Ashley. If she did a tenth of the shit Ashley did to me, I would drown her in the River Caldew.”
I smiled. “Good to know.”
Leopold scooted toward me in the back seat and pulled me into a comforting embrace. The feel of his heart beating against my ear sent life through the numbness of Ashley’s arrest, and I gazed up into his concerned, blue eyes.
“Wills, it’s alright to be upset.” He brushed a lock of hair off my face. “Despite everything, she’s still family.”
I shook my head. “Family implies love and loyalty. Ashley wasn’t capable of either.”
With a sigh, he tightened his embrace. “I suppose you’re right. You, Seb, and Kash are the only family I need.”
“I’ll call Mr. Pinkerton’s office on Monday,” said Sebastian from the driver’s seat. “Ashley’s arrest might change how the Crown Prosecution Service views Kash’s case.”
Hope sparked in my chest. “Do you think so?”
Sebastian turned into the highway that led to the mountains. “Someone as vindictive as Ashley will want to bring down all guilty parties. I’ll bet she spent her time as a maid gathering facts about everyone, including whoever really killed Corrine.”
Leopold threaded his fingers through my hair. “This calls for a celebratory kiss.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Why?”
“We know the identity of the first intruder, who won’t return because he’s gone to Portugal to help that DJ spend Ashley’s money. Ashley has been arrested for assaulting you and for murdering Wilmington and Riley, and we have Claymore under our control.”
“True,” said Sebastian. “I’ll bet Ashley will tell the police what happened with Mr. Byrd.”
Triumph surged through my insides. If she repeated what she had told me about being imprisoned in the man’s bedroom, no amount of legal trickery would save him from getting locked up.
“When you put it like that…” I tilted my head and pressed a kiss on his soft lips.
“Very nice.” He swept the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip i
n a gesture that made my nipples tingle. “But I was expecting more.”
“Like this?” One of my hands snaked around the back of Leopold’s neck, bringing him down for another kiss.
His lips slid over mine in a series of toe-curling caresses that set every nerve ending alight. I moaned, and his tongue slipped between my lips, deepening the kiss. I ran my hands over his chest and bicep, enjoying the way his muscles twitched under my palms. Leopold was right. Getting Ashley arrested was a cause for celebration. It would be the catalyst to defeating many of our enemies and hopefully to freeing Prakash.
Leopold’s kisses made my head spin, and I broke away to catch my breath. He licked and kissed and sucked a path along my jawline and down the sensitive skin of my neck that made me squirm in my seat and squeeze my thighs together.
“You taste so good,” he murmured.
His hot breath made my skin tingle, and my response morphed from words to a breathless moan.
With the deftest of movements, Leopold unzipped the back of my dress and unhooked my bra. He pulled down the straps of both, revealing the tops of my breasts.
“I never, ever get tired of looking at you, Wills,” he muttered into my cleavage.
Each kiss he pressed on my quivering flesh sent sparks of arousal straight to my core. Leopold took his time in pulling down the fabric of my dress, and he placed kisses on each bit of exposed flesh. By the time he uncovered my nipples, they ached so much, I groaned.
Sebastian moaned. “This is so unfair.”
“Find a layby and join the fun, old boy,” Leopold said as he enclosed my nipple in his hot mouth.
A brief, electronic hum to our left and right told me that Sebastian was winding down the windows. The sounds of rushing vehicles filled the jeep, as did the scent of meadows from each side of the highway. Leopold’s large hand glided under the skirt of my dress and rested on my bare thigh.
Anticipation shivered up my back. Apart from that first time in the front seat of the jeep, I’d never made out with anyone in a car.
Cupping Leopold’s hardening crotch, I whispered into his ear, “Give me the big dipper in all its celestial glory.”
