“You and Asher killed people because you wanted revenge?”
Olivia’s face fell. “Ruby, Sophie, Martin and Jacob were all complicit in my brother’s murder. How do you not get that? Are you stupid? After everything I’ve shown you today. Are you that blind?”
“Liam’s death was an accident.”
“No.” Olivia slammed her clenched fists onto the table, which shook the entire platform.
Emma’s stomach lurched, but she kept her attention on her ex–best friend as she fought to maintain control of her nerves.
“Your father ordered Liam’s murder.” Olivia stabbed a finger at Emma’s parents. “And Maria knew about it. They are both responsible.” She spat at them and shouted, “A plague on both your houses.”
44
Emma stared at Olivia, and took a minute to compose herself, as the day’s events struggled to snap into place. She then glanced down at Nightshade, wishing she’d wake up. Nightshade would know what to do or say; how to pick apart this mess and make sense of it.
If any of it is true, then why have Liam murdered? If her sister and Olivia’s brother were really planning to move to America, they wouldn’t be a threat anymore.
“Liam never did drugs, Em,” Olivia said in a low voice. “Never. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.” She lifted her chin. “Alice knew the truth.”
Emma balled her fists, and strained against the tape. “Get my sister’s name out of your mouth.”
Olivia laughed. “Wow. Look who finally grew a backbone. But too little, too late. Now your parents get to see their precious, gifted angel die right in front of them.”
Emma levelled her gaze at Olivia. “You think that will bring you closure?”
“I might let Maria live so that she can feel the pain of losing a child,” Olivia said. “Like my father.”
Another child. They’d already lost Alice.
She glanced down at her parents again. The water was at the top of their chests and rising. Emma took a deep breath, and focused back on Olivia. “All this is just about Liam?”
“Just?” Olivia leaned forward. “Let’s get one thing straight: Liam deserved better than someone from your sick family. He should’ve stayed the hell away from Alice. She was poison, and as weird as you are.” She waved a dismissive hand. “You’re all a bunch of mental freaks, and I’m sick of pretending you’re not.”
Emma bit her lip and held in the rage. “You thought Mum would investigate, didn’t you?”
“When you came to the warehouse, I knew it was fate. Dad wanted us to call it off.” Olivia shook her head. “I told him to wait for you to follow the cryptic clues and see how you got on.” She stared at Emma. “He thought you’d fail because they were originally designed with Maria in mind. We both knew your mother would figure them out in a snap and come here, but you?” Olivia’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m really impressed.” She grinned. “And glad, because this way is much more fun.” Olivia sighed. “You had us a little worried when you got arrested though, but it bought me time to set this up.” She gestured around them and then glanced at her watch.
Emma frowned at her. “For all you knew, I could have been in police custody for days. You couldn’t know that Mac would take the blame.”
“Mac?” Olivia tipped her head back and laughed. “You really are crazy.” She composed herself. “Remember those photographs of you at Café in the Crypt? The ones I gave to the cops?” She made an explosion motion with her hands. “They magically deleted themselves a couple of hours later.” Olivia grinned. “Poof. Gone. Magic.” She lowered her voice and said in a loud whisper, “The police have got no hard evidence against you now.”
Emma frowned at her. “Why did you do that?”
“Because this is between us. It’s about the Greco and Hernandez families.” Olivia’s face hardened again. “It has got nothing to do with the cops. They can carry on chasing their tails and scratching their heads for all I care. The only thing they have now is a word: Nightshade. Ooh, a name to strike fear. Ha.” Olivia’s lip curled. “I told them to hunt for your mysterious friend. They have no idea.”
Emma shook her head. “I meant, why did you give the police photos of us at all? What was the point?”
“I did it to keep you moving,” Olivia said. “Used them to add pressure. Without a bit of cop motivation, you would’ve stagnated. Plus, I was curious how your investigation was going. Thought I’d help steer you on the right path.”
Emma glanced down at her mum. “Where’s the casket?”
“What casket?” Olivia laughed again and rubbed her hands together. “Now, I thought we’d play a game. How does that sound?” She lined up the shot glasses in front of her, obscured from Emma’s view by the briefcase. “Seeing as you’re so fond of drinking games.” She lifted Nightshade’s pill case to her ear and shook it. “Time for your medication. Doctor N’s orders.” She looked down at Maria and Richard. “I hope you’re watching this? Paying attention?”
Emma worked her right foot back and forward, left and right, loosening the tape at her ankle a fraction at a time. She had to keep Olivia talking. Maybe Neil would realise something was up and come looking. “Why are you doing all this now?” Emma asked Olivia. “Liam died a long time ago.”
“Like you, I thought it was an accident. Dad only told me what really happened a year ago.” Olivia opened the tin, plucked out a purple capsule and broke it open. She stared at the powder within. “What is this stuff?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s hope it kills you slowly.” Olivia tipped the powder into one of the glasses. She hesitated, then added the contents of another purple capsule. She nodded at the turntable. “You see the numbers?”
Emma leaned forward. Chalk lines divided the lazy Susan into equal pie slices, numbered one through six.
Olivia then opened the bottle and filled each of the glasses with a shot of vodka. As she screwed on the cap, she smiled again. “Let me mix these up a bit. It’s only fair.” Olivia took the glass from her far right, the one with the dissolved pills, and placed it among the others. Hiding her hands from Emma’s view, she shuffled the glasses before setting one at each number of the turntable.
Emma tried to concentrate on Olivia’s movements, but the vertigo, restraints, and harsh, bright light made it almost impossible for her to focus, and her mind kept swimming in and out of reality. It was all set up to disorient her. A mind game, designed by someone who knew her well.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Olivia pulled a knife from her belt and waved it in front of Emma’s face. “No sudden moves.” She cut the duct tape at Emma’s left wrist, freeing it from the arm of the chair, then sat back. “Now, let’s make this fair.” Olivia reached toward the turntable.
“How do I know it’s random?” Emma’s right calf muscle burned as she continued to work the tape at her ankle free, but she kept her face neutral. She glanced down at her parents; the water was up to their necks.
“I tell you what,” Olivia said. “I’ll allow you one swap.” She held up a finger. “Just the one. To show that I’m not cheating.”
Emma shook her head. “Is this how you made Ruby drink cyanide?” No way was she playing Olivia’s game.
“You’ll hurt my feelings, saying stuff like that. I didn’t give Ruby the chance I’m giving you. We’re friends, after all.” Olivia spun the turntable. “I injected poor naïve Ruby and told her that she could have a painful, slow death, or take the fast way out. The poetic way. The Shakespearean way.” Olivia licked her lips. “I allowed her to die with dignity, by her own hand, but she didn't die. So, I pretended the police had arrived to make you leave.” Olivia’s face darkened. “And then I strangled her.”
45
Anger tore through Emma’s body. If she and Nightshade had stayed with Ruby, if they hadn’t believed Olivia’s lie about the police being outside Wilton’s Music Hall, Ruby would have lived. Instead, Emma had allowed the monster to take another life.
The turntable stopped with the n
umber two nearest to Emma, but she remained still, focusing all her energy into her right leg and foot as she wriggled them back and forth to loosen the duct tape.
Olivia picked up glass number five and nodded at glass number two. “Take it. We both drink at the same time. As soon as we’re done, I’ll tell you a secret about your sister.”
At that moment, Emma wanted nothing more than to leap across the table and punch Olivia in the face.
“Oh, for goodness sake, Em.” Olivia laughed. “I’m not lying. Learn to trust once in a while, would you? No one’s capable of lying all the time.” Olivia snatched up the gun and pointed it at Emma’s parents. “Don’t make this boring for me. I said drink.”
Emma didn’t move. “Is that the gun you used on Sophie?”
Olivia rolled her eyes and pulled the trigger.
There was an earsplitting bang, followed by a muffled roar of agony. Blood ballooned across Richard’s shirt from a bullet hole in his shoulder.
Emma ground her teeth.
“Next one goes in his head, and then we’ll move on to your mother.” Olivia set the gun down. “Drink.”
With a trembling hand, Emma picked up shot glass number two and raised it to her lips.
“There’s a good girl.” Olivia lifted her own glass. “Cheers, Em: to your good health. On three; one, two, three.”
They both knocked back their vodkas and Olivia smacked her lips. “You’d better have swallowed.”
Emma glared at her and opened her mouth.
Olivia tossed her shot glass over her shoulder and it smashed on the tiles twenty feet below. Emma stiffened and imagined her own skull following the same path.
“Alice secret number one.” Olivia cleared her throat. “When I was little, Liam told me about their plan to go to America. Once there, they’d fake their own deaths.” Olivia scowled at Emma’s parents, then looked back at her. “Before you say anything, Em, I have proof.” She pulled a phone from her pocket, scrolled through the pictures, and held one up to Emma.
It was an image of a letter in Alice’s handwriting, outlining their plan to do just as Olivia said: once in America, the pair of them would fake their own deaths and go into hiding.
Emma’s heart sank, but she refused to believe that her sister would have gone through with it. Alice would have told her. Mum, too. She loved them. No way Alice would have kept Emma in the dark. Olivia was delusional, trying to manipulate Emma’s feelings to justify her and her father’s killing spree.
Olivia spun the lazy Susan again and Emma continued to work her right leg under the table. The tape stretched and peeled away from the fabric of her jeans.
The turntable stopped with glass number three in front of Emma, and six for Olivia.
Emma stared at the shot glass.
“This is so much fun,” Olivia said. “Same as before, and if you’re a good girl I’ll tell you secret number two about Alice.”
Emma’s stomach clenched in a tight knot.
Olivia raised her glass and so did Emma.
“One, two, three.”
They both knocked back the vodka shots. Emma winced and wiped her mouth on her arm.
Olivia shuddered. “Could do with a chaser.” She threw the glass over her shoulder and it smashed against the wall. “Your sister is alive.” Olivia spun the turntable.
Emma’s vision blurred.
Olivia gazed at her. “You’ve always known that’s true, deep down. Your mum, too.”
Emma shook her head. The world had drained of colour and all that existed was Olivia, bright and fuzzy under the harsh light.
“You knew from the very first day she vanished, didn’t you?” Olivia leaned forward. “Remember what you said to me? That Alice was ‘too big a personality to die,’ and ‘there is no way it’s possible.’ You do remember that, Em, don’t you?”
Emma stared at her, thoughts numbed into silence.
The remaining two shot glasses slowed and stopped, with number one nearest Emma. And despite all of Olivia’s games and her deliberate disorientation, Emma still saw it. The shot glass in the number four position, the one closest to Olivia, held the poison.
“Once we’ve drunk these,” Olivia said, “I’ll tell you what really happened to Alice on that cruise ship. I bet you’d like to know. Would you like to know, Em?” She raised her final shot glass, grinning. “And, as a bonus, when we’ve finished the game, I’ll show you an email from a V-for-very-reliable source to prove it.” Olivia snatched her phone with her other hand and waved it back and forth. “A four-digit passcode unlocks all the details you want.”
In a daze, Emma picked up her glass and lifted it to her lips.
“One, two, thr—”
“Wait.” Emma set her glass down.
Olivia eyed the gun.
“I’ll swap,” Emma said in a level tone.
Olivia blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll swap with you.” If there was the slightest chance that Olivia was telling the truth about Alice, Emma had to see that email.
Olivia shook her head. “We drink the shots we have.”
“You said I could swap.”
“Not happening,” Olivia snapped. “This is the end game.”
“You’re breaking your own rules.”
“Drink,” Olivia said through tight lips.
“I want to know about my sister. And I want your glass.”
“You can’t have it.”
Emma was about to ask why Olivia was so adamant when an image of Uncle Martin’s collection of magic tricks flashed through her mind. She walked through the sitting room, stopped at the display cabinet, and peered at the book on sleight of hand.
Now it made sense. Shot glass number four was not the one with Nightshade’s poison. It couldn’t be. Olivia had planted that grain of powder on the rim when she mixed the glasses, knowing Emma would spot it. The height off the ground, the bright light, the whole setup gave the impression that Olivia was trying to confuse her, when all along Olivia knew Emma would see that grain of powder.
Number one, Emma’s glass, was the real poisoned chalice.
Olivia snatched up the gun and aimed it at Emma’s parents. “Drink, or they die.”
Emma worked at the tape around her ankle; it stretched under the strain. Back and forth, back and forth, side to side, loosening, working . . . She raised the shot glass to her lips. “Your dad is dead.”
That wiped the smirk from Olivia’s face. “You’re lying.”
Emma kept her gaze on her ex–best friend. “Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself.”
Olivia’s cheeks drained of colour.
“It’s true,” Emma said. “Learn to trust once in a while, would you? No one’s capable of lying all the time.”
Olivia glanced at her phone.
“He won’t answer,” Emma said. “We found him on his houseboat; he’d cut his own throat with a razor. Obviously couldn’t see your plan through to the end. Guess he grew a conscience. Pretty pathetic way to go, if you ask me.” She sighed. “Asher must have finally realised what you two were doing. What murderous, insane pieces of crap you both are, and that sent him over the edge.”
Olivia’s face twisted with rage, and her finger tightened on the trigger of the gun. “Drink, or I'll shoot them both.”
Emma raised her glass, and in one swift move she pulled off her shoe and slipped her foot through the loop of stretched tape. She brought her knee up and slammed it into the table. Pain shot through her leg as the table crashed into Olivia, sending her toppling backward.
Olivia screamed as she fell, and the boards beneath Emma vanished. She screamed as the rope tightened around her midriff.
A loud crash echoed off the walls, and Emma swung back and forth on the end of the rope, face screwed up with the pain, still twenty feet in the air.
Olivia lay in a crumpled heap, the table, chair, and planks lying around and on top of her.
Emma looked over at her parents. They stared at her, the
water up to their chins, heads tipped back as they took their last gasps of air.
“No.” Emma struggled against her bindings.
With her left hand she tugged at the tape securing her right wrist, then found the end and unwrapped it. All the while, she swung like a pendulum.
Both hands now free, Emma worked at the tape around her left ankle. As she worked to free it, Emma dropped five feet and came to a jarring halt, which sent a bolt of pain through her ribs.
The rope slipped up her body and under her armpits, and the chair fell to the floor. Emma dropped a few more feet on the end of the rope, sending another stab of agony through her torso.
A wrenching of metal made Emma’s head snap to the side, and her eyes widened. The other end of the rope had slipped up the water pipe, but it had now reached a wall bracket, and the whole thing was about to come away from the brickwork.
Before she had time to react, the pipe broke free and Emma dropped once again. She screamed in agony as she hit the ground. Pain shot up her legs and she rolled forward, absorbing the remaining impact as best she could.
A few seconds passed while Emma lay on the floor, gathering her senses, panting, dazed, happy to be alive. She mentally checked herself for broken bones, then wriggled out of the rope, snatched up Olivia’s knife and ran to the swimming pool.
Richard and Maria were barely hanging on, their mouths and noses only just above water.
Emma jumped into the pool, winded by what felt like thousands of needles stabbing at her flesh. She fought against the frigid water, gasped for breath, and swam to her parents. “Hold on.” Emma ripped the tape from their mouths then dove beneath the surface, cut the tape at her mother’s ankles and legs and burst back into the air. After she freed Maria’s wrists, Emma asked, “Can you swim?”
Maria breast-crawled to the nearest steps.
Death in London: A Nightshade Crime Thriller (Emma & Nightshade Mystery Series Book 1) Page 24
