She looks down at me crumpled in fear and pain, and tilts her head. With a jolt she crouches down, and presses the tip of the knife against my throat. I whimper, pathetic.
She lifts her manicured finger against her lips, and I yelp as the knife nicks my skin. Her face is so close to mine, I can smell stale coffee on her breath. ‘It wasn’t meant to turn out like this,’ she says. ‘But one domino fell, then another, then another.’
‘Did you kill them?’ My words catch on my breath. ‘Maddie? Ruth?’
‘Yes. Yes I did.’ She’s so calm, proud of herself.
‘Please let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone.’
Blood pumps in my ears, as she shakes her head. ‘No can do, I’m afraid. And you might as well know, because I’m going to kill you anyway, that Elise is dead. I killed her too.’ She sounds triumphant.
‘Oh God, no. Why? Why would you do that? She was just a child.’
She screws up her nose. ‘In my defence, it was an accident. She’s buried in a field not far from here, where nobody will ever look for her. Not when they think she was abducted or killed at Drummondale House. And if DI Kate Beynon makes as much of a hash of Elise’s death as she did Lark’s disappearance, she’ll never work it out.’ A beat. ‘You look puzzled, Amelia. Do I have to spell it out for you?’
My head spins, my emotions in tatters. She’s right. I can barely make sense of what she’s saying.
‘Elise. Was. Never. At. Drummondale House.’
‘What? But I saw her.’
She shakes her head. ‘Nobody saw her. How could they? She was never there. Although it was fun pretending she was.’
‘But she phoned you. She saw someone in a mask at her window.’
She shakes her head. ‘She wasn’t on the other end of the phone line that day.’
‘There was no intruder?’
‘Exactly. No intruder that night. I made the footprints in the snow. I even set out the Monopoly game as though we were playing. I built the snowman, whilst wearing Elise’s hat and coat – hoping you and Finn – both early risers would see me. And I walked to the top of Vine Hill when you were tobogganing, wearing Elise’s coat and hat. I looked down at you – hoping you would think I was Elise. I even sent a couple of threatening text messages to myself from a phone much like Elise’s, and left it on the bench for you to find. Though, if I’m honest, I got lucky with that one. The signal up there was pretty awful.’
She moves the blade from my throat, and brushes the flat side against my cheek.
‘But why?’ I manage.
‘Elise died at my hands, Amelia. Neil would never have forgiven me for that. I couldn’t let him find out. He was away, you see. I was watching TV, when Elise appeared in the lounge. She was spiteful. Angry. She’d found a letter your mum sent to Neil.
‘I got up, angry too, yelled at her for snooping in my things. But she was so vehement.’ She lowers her head. ‘God knows why I didn’t destroy the bloody letter.’ A beat, as she looks up and into my eyes, hers vacant and lifeless. ‘We rowed and she pushed me hard. I fell against the corner of the coffee table. The pain was like nothing I’d felt before. I knew I was losing my baby.’
She’s no longer brushing my face with the blade, and there are tears in her eyes. And despite the awful position I’m in, I feel her sadness, her pain at losing her child.
‘I cried out to Elise,’ she goes on. ‘Told her I was losing my baby, but she spat that the baby deserved to die.’
‘Oh God, Rosamund. That’s awful,’ I find myself saying, but she straightens her shoulders and the blade is back at my throat.
‘I reached for a brass ornament,’ she says. ‘Struck Elise.’
‘But you didn’t mean to kill her.’
She smiles, and shrugs. ‘When I heard on Maddie’s video log that you were all having a little anniversary reunion at Drummondale House, I knew what I had to do. If I could convince everyone Elise vanished from the Scottish Highlands, at the hands of the same person who took Lark, Neil would never find out what really happened.’
‘So you set it all up?’
She nods slowly. ‘I knew Ruth would bring towels to the cottage and snoop about – she always did that – such an annoying woman. She totally deserved to die. I hid in Elise’s bedroom with the door locked. I heard Ruth call out, and pretended to be Elise.
‘When Ruth went into my room, the power finally came back on, so I dashed from Elise’s room and turned on the shower, giving the illusion that Elise had gone into the shower, then hurried downstairs to put on the mask.
‘My idea was for Ruth to think she’d witnessed the masked intruder, before being knocked unconscious. When she came round, she was supposed to think Elise had been abducted, and tell everyone what happened.’ She shakes her head. ‘But my timing was out. Not helped by the loss of power. What can I say? I made a mess of things.
‘When I came up the stairs in the mask, Ruth was already in the bathroom. She would have seen Elise wasn’t there.’
‘So you killed her.’ Nausea rises. This woman is a monster.
‘Yes. I killed her. I had no choice. If Ruth had told everyone Elise wasn’t on the estate, the search for her would go wider. Neil would find out what I’d done.’
I’m aware if she stops talking, she will kill me, so continue with more questions, ‘But why Maddie? Why her?’
‘Maddie worked it all out, so I had to kill her too.’ She pushes the knife into my flesh, pierces my skin once more, and I cry out, pain and fear building. ‘She wasn’t on the porch smoking when I went out to confront her that day, but I saw her about to disappear into the wooded area near Vine Hill.
‘I caught up with her. She told me she was meeting Finn, and I knew by the look on her face, she was afraid of me.
‘I told her I’d seen her take the Monopoly token from my cottage, asked her why, and she cried, and tried to hurry away, saying Elise wouldn’t want to be the top hat. That she’d want to be the dog. She’d worked it out, you see.’ She moves her head from side to side, staring into my eyes, a small smile on her face.
Blood trickles down my neck, the second nick in my skin so painful.
‘It wasn’t in the plan to kill either of them. In fact, I didn’t want any of you to die – not even Elise. I’m not a murderer.’
A thought seeps into my head, like a black river drowning my hopes. ‘Did you kill Lark and Jackson?’
‘No.’ She presses the knife against my neck once more. ‘Why would you even think that?’ She lays her hand against my chest. ‘My, my, your heart is beating like a drum, Amelia.’
The back door opens. ‘Amelia?’ It’s Dad, stepping in and bringing with him a waft of fish and chips.
Rosamund looks down at me, and places her finger against my lips. ‘Shh,’ she whispers.
‘Amelia,’ Dad calls again. ‘Your chips are here, don’t let them get cold.’ Blissfully unaware I’m in the corner held at knifepoint he opens a cupboard, singing to himself as he pulls out a jar of pickles. ‘Amelia!’
He finally turns, and the jar slips from his fingers, crashing to the floor, glass shattering.
‘Dear God,’ he cries, limping across the kitchen, but he stops when Rosamund pushes the knife deeper into my flesh, so close to cutting through the skin again. ‘Christ, Rosamund, what the hell?’
I’m silent, the pulses in my head thumping. Knowing the trickles of blood on my throat is nothing to what Rosamund is capable of.
‘Let her go,’ Dad cries. He edges forward, blinking furiously, and Rosamund rises to her full height and before he can step away, she lunges at him, plunging the knife into his stomach, then pulling it free. He falls to the floor, yelling in agony.
I let out a scream. ‘Dad,’ I cry, trying to get up.
But Rosamund is quick. She has the knife back at my throat in an instant.
‘You do know this means you both have to die,’ she says.
‘Why?’ Dad whimpers, his body crumpled in pain.
I want to hit out – she’s going to kill me anyway – but I can’t move. I’m frozen in fear.
Chapter 48
Present Day
Amelia
Rosamund closes her eyes for a brief moment, sucks in a sigh, and moves the knife away from me. I stay still. With one stroke she could slit my throat.
From her crouching position, she thumps down on the floor and, knees bent, she sits next to the half-open kitchen door, the knife dangling in one hand.
‘It was your mum’s letter to Neil that changed everything,’ she says, her voice calmer. ‘I knew it was from Caroline when I saw it lying on the doormat eighteen months ago, the swirling, elaborate handwriting so familiar. It was addressed to Neil and I knew that whatever she had to say wouldn’t be good. But, when I opened it and read her words, those of a dying woman out for revenge, I couldn’t believe how cruel she could be. Her spiteful decision to tell Neil that she saw Jackson and me in the wood the night Lark and Jackson disappeared, when she had only weeks to live, was wicked. I thanked God when she died.’ She lifts the knife and presses her finger against the blade. She doesn’t wince as it pierces her skin, or when a bubble of blood rises to the surfaces and drips to the floor.
There’s so much I want to say, but I can’t find the courage.
‘If Neil had read that letter he would never have forgiven me. He’d forgiven me too many times before.’ She leans forward and rubs her bloody finger across my cheek like war paint. ‘If your mother hadn’t sent that letter none of this would have happened, Amelia – it’s her fault so many died.’
‘So Neil didn’t read it. You found it before he could?’
She nods. ‘That’s right.’
Dad lets out a groan, and I look over. He’s holding his stomach, his eyes closed.
‘Please call an ambulance.’ Tears roll down my face. ‘He’s losing so much blood. Please, Rosamund. He’s bleeding out. He’s going to die.’
She laughs, long and hard. Hysterical, crazy laughter, that reminds me of a mechanical clown I once saw on a pleasure beach as a child, that gave me nightmares for weeks.
‘Oh, Amelia.’ She holds her chest, her laugh petering away, her face transforming to a look of disgust. ‘Do you really think I’m going to pick up the phone and save his life?’ She strokes my cheek once more with her bloody finger. ‘You both have to die. Don’t you see? You know too much.’
She’s so absorbed in her own fantasy; she doesn’t seem to hear the click of the front door opening. Thomas?
‘When Neil holds his baby son, everything will be as it should be,’ Rosamund continues, stroking her fake baby bump as though she still believes she’s carrying a child. ‘It’s Neil I love. It’s Neil I’ve always loved. Jackson and I would never have lasted. None of the other men meant anything.’
Rosamund has her back to the kitchen door seemingly unaware it’s edging open an inch at a time. Thomas?
With a jolt, she presses the knife against my throat once more. ‘I need to finish you off now,’ she says. ‘You and then your precious father.’
‘She’s got a knife,’ I yell, and Rosamund swings round, but before she can speak, the door slams hard against her head, with the sheer force of something behind it. She slumps forwards, her head cracking against the corner of the kitchen unit, her eyes rolling.
I gulp back tears and confusion as I look up into my brother’s dark eyes, as he moves into the room in his wheelchair. ‘Thank God,’ I say, breathless. ‘Call 999. Dad needs an ambulance. Fast.’
Chapter 49
Present Day
Amelia
Someone knocking on a door some distance away wakes me from a fitful sleep. My neck is sore and bandaged. My head throbs in pain. Two nurses, talking in whispers as they hurry through the Intensive Care Unit waiting room, pay me no attention as I shuffle up in the fake leather chair.
I squint at the sun’s rays shining through the high windows, dust particles raining down on the long, narrow room. I grab my bag, and rummage for a couple of painkillers.
Thomas is asleep in his chair, his mouth open, making a rumbling sound like a train.
We’ve been at the hospital since the ambulance brought Dad here at midnight. Earlier we’d taken it in turns to collect coffee, and chocolate and bags of crisps from the machines, trying to keep awake, just in case they brought news about Dad, but eventually our tiredness took over.
‘Any news?’ Thomas rubs sleep from his eyes, his voice croaky.
I shake my head. ‘Not yet.’
He brushes his fingers over his dry lips.
‘Do you want some water?’ I rise and make my way to the water cooler, and fill two cups.
I hand Thomas one, as he jerks a sideways thumb towards the door. ‘Should we ring the bell, do you think? Ask how Dad is?’
‘They said they would let us know.’ I swallow down the two tablets. ‘I know it’s hard being patient, but they are doing everything they can.’
It’s 9.30 a.m. when we finally hear.
‘Your dad’s out of danger,’ the doctor says as he approaches, and we let go of the tears we’ve been holding on to, and hug each other. ‘He’s going to be OK. He’s sleeping now. Go home. Get some rest. You should be able to see him by early evening.’
Chapter 50
Present Day
Amelia
It’s been three weeks since Rosamund’s horrendous attack, and although Dad is home from hospital, he is far from well.
Now, it feels as though the whole experience happened to someone else, not me, as though I witnessed it from an outside viewpoint looking in, as though I was never there at all. Maybe it’s my brain’s way of trying to deal with it.
We say goodbye to Elise today, and I’m standing at the back of the crematorium, a sea of pink outfits – at Neil’s request – in front of me, and so many more people spilling out of the door behind me. She was a popular girl.
Neil calls it a celebration of Elise’s life, not a funeral – and I get that. However fleeting her time here, it should be celebrated. Though in equal measures I admit to struggling. How can you celebrate the murder of a teenage girl?
I read how Rosamund led the police to where she buried poor Elise in a field near her home. It hadn’t taken the police long to find her. Or discover the bloodied jacket Rosamund wore when she killed Maddie, which she’d hidden in a hollowed tree trunk near Kyla’s bench. They’d also found remains of the jacket she wore when she killed Ruth, on the fire that Dad had made outside the cottage at Drummondale House. She’d been arrested for the young girl’s murder, and those of Ruth and Maddie, plus the attempted murder of Finn. The guilt that it was me who stabbed Finn still hangs heavy. In fact, it all feels surreal. A nightmare I can’t wake up from.
Neil rises, approaches the lectern, and puts down a sheet of paper with shaking hands. He’s lost weight, his face ashen. He clears his throat, and begins, ‘There’s got to be somewhere else.’ A beat. ‘I keep telling myself that. That somewhere, someday, I’ll see you again, and we’ll laugh and talk, and you can tell me about your day, and I will hold you in my arms, and tell you everything will be OK.’ His voice cracks, and he takes a deep breath. ‘Elise … Elise was my everything.’
He crumples, breaks down in tears – pushes his head into his hands. There’s movement in the front row, and an older man with a shock of white hair rises, stands beside him, and takes Neil’s arm.
Neil lifts his head from his hands, and goes on, ‘Elise was a bright, intelligent young woman setting out on life, who was taken long before she should have been. They say the departed wouldn’t want us to be sad, that they are at peace, but I know my Elise, and I’m pretty sure she’ll be bloody fuming
that she’s up there too soon.’ He raises watery eyes to the congregation, as a low ripple of laughter drifts around the room.
We all struggle through heart-wrenching poems, a hymn, and words from the celebrant telling us about Elise’s short life. This is too much.
After the service, we are led out to the sound of Avril Lavigne singing ‘Keep Holding On’, and I look about me, witnessing so many tears. This tragedy will stay with me forever.
*
Outside, Neil stands some distance from the crematorium, surrounded by friends and family. Scattered across the grass are pools of weeping youngsters hugging each other. And some distance away in the car park DI Beynon, and DS McKay are getting into their car.
I go to leave, feeling as if I’m intruding on the family’s grief.
‘Amelia!’
I turn to see Julia, huddled into her pink padded jacket, her plait poking from a pink beret. Finn is walking beside her. He’s taken the whole pink thing seriously, wearing a cerise jumper, and pale pink trousers. I should have made more effort, perhaps – but it felt right wearing Mum’s pink scarf around my neck.
‘How’s your dad?’ Finn asks, once we’ve agreed, not for the first time, how tragic Elise’s death is.
‘Improving,’ I say. ‘And you? How are you?’
‘Getting there, slowly.’
‘I think I owe you an apology, Amelia,’ Julia says, reaching out and touching my arm.
‘For what?’ But I know. I know exactly what she’ll say.
‘I shouldn’t have accused you of stabbing Finn. Finn’s told me it wasn’t you, and now we know it was Rosamund, so … well, I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?’
Her words echo in my ears. ‘It’s fine,’ I say, looking up at Finn, knowing he lied for me, knowing I’ll never be truly guilt-free. ‘We’ve all been through so much.’
‘Are you going back to the house?’ Finn asks.
I shake my head – the thought of going to the house where Rosamund killed her stepdaughter gives me chills. ‘I should get back.’
I Lie in Wait: A gripping new psychological crime thriller perfect for fans of Ruth Ware! Page 22
