I stop at the top, watching Darcy disappear down the narrow steps. Max prods me in the back and I’m forced downwards, our footsteps loud on the wooden treads. At the bottom, lies a vast white cube of a room. I glance around the immaculate space. It’s clean down here, but there’s still a musty smell of damp. Of decay.
At one end runs a floor-to-ceiling wine rack stuffed full of bottles. Next to the rack is a wooden table and six dining chairs. At the opposite end of the room, running along the top of the wall a thin strip of window is the only view of the outside world - a partial view of the floodlit driveway. Darcy presses another switch on the wall and, with a faint whirring sound, a Venetian blind drops down from the ceiling to cover the glass.
She nods to her brother, and he manoeuvres me forward while she sets out one of the heavy wooden dining chairs beneath the strip of window. I land heavily on my backside, banging my coccyx, my pulse racing, fingers burning as the circulation returns to my hands. Max pulls my arms behind the back of the chair and ties them with something that digs into my skin. When he’s done, he comes around the front and takes a couple of black zip ties from his pocket. He crouches down and secures one of my ankles to the chair leg, and does the same with the other, the plastic biting through my jeans.
‘What are you going to do?’ I stare across at Darcy who now sits, legs crossed, on another of the dining chairs. My voice quavers, betraying my fear. If only I were stronger, braver. Max straightens up and stands by my side.
‘Let’s not worry about that right now,’ Darcy replies.
‘No, really,’ I say, my tone sharpening. ‘Let’s worry about it right now. You can’t keep me down here, tied up forever.’
‘You’re right about that,’ she says.
I swallow.
‘Go and move her car,’ Darcy says to Max. ‘Put it out of sight in one of the garages for now.’
‘Are the keys―’
‘How should I know,’ Darcy snaps. She turns to me. ‘Car keys?’
With dismay, I remember my keys are on the hall table next to my bag and phone. I’m well and truly fucked.
‘Don’t make me hurt you,’ she says.
‘On the hall table,’ I mutter.
Max nods and leaves.
‘What’s going on, Darcy?’ I ask. ‘Why do you want to destroy my life? Did you kill Mike? Did you set me up?’ I hear a car engine outside and my heart lifts only to sink again as I realise it’s probably just Max moving my Golf out of sight.
She stands and walks over to me. Instinctively I cringe back in my chair, my gaze flitting from her unsmiling face to the knife in her hand.
‘If you hadn’t come along, they’d have picked me,’ she says bitterly.
‘What are you talking about? What do you mean?’
‘I mean . . .’ She leans in close to me, her eyes flashing, glinting. ‘You stole the life I was meant to have. Because of you, I lost my chance.’
I have absolutely no idea what she’s on about. I need to know what it is she thinks I’ve done. Maybe she’s confusing me with someone else. Maybe I can talk her round. ‘Darcy, if I’ve done anything to upset you, I’m sorry. But doing this . . . keeping me here, a prisoner in your house isn’t going to solve anything. It will only make things worse. Can’t we talk about whatever it is that’s troubling you?’ I’m trying to sound sincere. To get her to be reasonable.
The front door slams and heavy footsteps cross the hallway above us. Seconds later, he reappears down the stairs. Damn. Max is back. I was hoping Darcy and I could have had the chance to talk alone for a moment longer.
‘You see,’ she says, ignoring Max who is now back by my side. ‘You don’t even know what you’ve done! That’s how little my life has affected you. But I’ve been cursed by you my whole life.’
‘So tell me,’ I cry. ‘Tell me what I’m supposed to have done.’
Max stands by my shoulder and Darcy sits back down on her chair, running her forefinger along the blade of the knife which lies on the table next to her. I try not to imagine it sticking out of my body.
‘Do you remember your brief stay in Ashlands Residential Care Home, back when you were a kid?’ she asks.
Her question wrong-foots me, setting my heart racing again. Why is she asking me about that? I do remember it. I was ten years old, and it was one of the most unsettling times of my life. I’ve tried to fold it away and keep it locked in my mind. It was such a brief period, and nothing really bad happened. The staff were nice enough. I remember them as kind and welcoming, motherly even. But I had just been removed from my family home, from my birth parents – a mother who was mentally unstable, and a father with anger issues. My whole stay at the care home was surreal, like it wasn’t even happening to me.
‘How do you know about that?’ I ask. ‘And what’s it got to do with you? With what’s happening now.’
‘Did you know,’ she said, ‘from the age of eleven, I was fostered by six different families. Six. None of them loved me. None of them wanted me, and I hadn’t wanted to go with any of them because they hadn’t been the right ones.’ Darcy has stopped looking at me. She’s staring ahead at the white wall, but I can tell she’s seeing somewhere else. A different time and place.
‘So,’ I say, ‘we have something in common. We were both in the care system.’
‘Pftt,’ she says, snapping her head around to face me. ‘You were in care for all of two minutes. I got to spend most of my childhood there. You don’t know what that’s really like.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I really am sorry you had a crappy childhood. But so did I. Until I was adopted, my life was like walking on a tightrope over hot coals.’
‘Oh, poor you,’ she mocks. ‘But this isn’t about whose childhood was the worst. This is about you. And how you stole my childhood from me. How you stole my family.’
‘What?’ I have no idea what she means. For a start, she’s American . . . How could I have stolen her family?
‘Back then, at Ashlands,’ she says, ‘do you remember the girl in the room next to you?’
‘I don’t really remember much. Like you said, I wasn’t there long. Not more than a couple of weeks.’
‘Yes,’ Darcy says. ‘You were there for twelve whole days before you were adopted. Twelve days, whoopee doo. I was in and out of Ashlands for years.’
‘You were there?’ I gasp. ‘At Ashlands? At the same time as me? Why didn’t you say something before? Did I do something to upset you back then? Is that what this is about? I can’t remember anyone from America being there.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, don’t you get it? I’m not really American. My name’s Nicole Woodward and I’m from Bristol, okay.’
I’m sure my jaw has never dropped this low before. ‘Your name isn’t Darcy? You’re not from America?’
‘That’s what I just said, isn’t it. Keep up. And that’s my brother, Callum. He was there for a while, too, until he got fostered long-term . . . without me.’ She glares across at him and he flinches.
I’m still reeling from her revelation, trying to process the fact that she’s not who I thought she was. That we met when we were kids – even if I don’t have any memory of her from back then. ‘That still doesn’t explain why you have me here now,’ I say. ‘Why you’ve gone out of your way to destroy my life.’
‘Cal and I had been at Ashlands for a few months,’ she says, still talking in her fake American accent, ‘and there was a family that came to visit. This really nice couple with a daughter. They talked to me and Cal for ages. They were interested in us. Really interested. I was actually excited for the first time in my life. They should have been the ones. They should have been our new family. Then they left and I never saw them again. And I found out later that they’d adopted you – Miss Perfect. If you hadn’t come along, I would be living your life. They would’ve been my family. Mine and Cal’s.’ Her face is white and strained, her fists clenched against her thighs.
She actually blames me f
or this. She thinks that as a ten-year-old child I wilfully stole the parents she designated for herself. I mean, yes, I can see how at that age, you would be devastated, but now as an adult surely she can see it was nobody’s fault. Maybe the care home should have taken some of the blame for raising her hopes, but no one else is to blame. Certainly not me.
‘So,’ she continues, ‘I made it my life’s mission to take it all back. To get back the family that should have been mine all along.’
I shake my head in disbelief. ‘You’re an adult now. An adult with a pretty enviable life. Surely you’re past that point in your life.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘When I set out to do something. I always have to finish it. Otherwise, what’s the point of anything?’
I give a shiver at her words, taking a guess at what she means by “finish it”. I desperately need to keep her talking, so I can figure out how to get out of here.
‘What does Callum have to say about all this?’ I ask. ‘Does he think the same way as you?’ I look up at her brother. ‘Do you, Callum? Do you think it’s right to punish me for something I had no control over?’
He shifts from one foot to the other, glancing across at his sister, and then back down at me. ‘Nic said you ruined everything for us. She’s my sister. I look out for her. You hurt Nic, I’ll hurt you. She looks out for me, too.’
I realise that Callum isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Nicole must have been using and manipulating him for years.
‘I finally tracked you down to Poole a couple of years ago,’ she continues, shifting her attention back to me. ‘And so I persuaded Mike to leave London and move here. Told him it would be better for Tyler to grow up by the sea, or some such crap. I found out your sister’s kid was in the Kindergarten at Cerne Manor. My plan was to get to you through her. Then, imagine my delight when you enrolled Joe at the same school. In the very same class as Tyler. What luck!’
I’m still reeling from what she’s telling me. To have spent the whole of her adult life trying to find me so she could ruin my life is insane.
‘Your life was so perfect,’ I say. ‘Surely you already had everything. You had Mike and Tyler, your beautiful house, your business.’
‘I never loved Mike,’ she says without emotion. ‘He was a means to an end. I needed his money to track you down, to take everything from you.’
‘And Tyler?’ I ask, my skin crawling in revulsion at her revelations. I have to get out of here. Shit, how am I going to get out of here?
‘Tyler is everything to me. He’s the only good thing in my life. I’ve been doing this for him as well as me.’
‘What about his dad? You killed Mike. You killed Tyler’s father. How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out what you did?’
‘He will never find out. Never – do you understand me?’
‘How does ruining my life get you what you want?’ I ask. ‘Sure, it might make you feel good, if that’s how you get off, but apart from that―’
‘It’s simple,’ Darcy says.
I wait for her to elaborate.
‘You stole mine and Callum’s childhood,’ she says. ‘You stole our family, so we’ll take them back. I may not be able to reclaim my childhood, but I will have your parents.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I say, my heart in my throat. But the question is redundant. I know exactly what she’s talking about.
Chapter Thirty Two
‘I have it all worked out,’ Darcy says. ‘Everything is prepared.’ She glances across at her brother, a look of irritation on her face. ‘God, Cal, can you sit down or something, it’s really distracting having you standing there like some kind of zombie statue.’
‘I was making sure she doesn’t escape, Nic.’
‘She’s in a basement, zip-tied to a chair, I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere right this minute. And how many times do I need to tell you to call me Darcy. I haven’t been Nic for years.’
Callum shuffles across the room to sit on another of the chairs. Darcy’s shoulders relax as he sits.
‘You should know,’ Nicole says to me, ‘in case you were wondering, you are going to die.’
I bite my lip, too shocked to reply. I already guessed she was never going to let me go, but to hear her say the words . . .
‘I’ve been doing quite a bit of planning,’ she says, leaning forward, warming to her subject. ‘The police still haven’t found the murder weapon from Mike’s death.’ She pauses. ‘That’s because I have it.’
‘I knew it was you,’ I say.
‘Of course you did. Clever you.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Anyway, you still haven’t heard the genius part of it yet . . . the knife used to kill Mike was taken from part of a knife-block set in your kitchen, and it’s covered in your fingerprints. When the police eventually discover the weapon in a shoe box in your closet – I’ll put it there later – they’ll have found their killer. Too bad you won’t end up in prison – you’ll already be dead.’
I listen to her words as though from a long way away. It’s as if she’s talking about someone else. Instead, I focus on the pain in my body. Pain is good – it means I’m still alive. I’ve almost lost circulation in my hands from where the zip ties are cutting into my wrists. My arms feel as though they’re being pulled out of their sockets, my bad knee is on fire and my heart is racing so fast I’m sure my chest is about to explode.
‘So,’ she continues, ‘You, Louisa, are now going to write a remorseful note about how jealous you were of my life, and how you wanted to make me suffer, so you tried to have an affair with my husband, and when he wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot bargepole, you were so angry, you killed him. Obviously, you can’t live with the guilt, blah, blah, blah.’
‘That’s ludicrous,’ I say.
‘Really?’ she says. ‘I thought it was pretty believable. Especially as half the moms in Ty’s class saw how much you upset me the other day.’ She sticks her bottom lip out, faking sadness. ‘They all witnessed you taunting me about going to visit Mike. They were outraged on my behalf at how mean you were. Hell, you even made me cry. Anyway, once you’ve written the note, you’re going to drive your car off the quarry in the dead of night, and die.’
My palms begin to sweat and my head swims as I hear the details of what she’s got planned for me.
‘I suppose I could have simply set you up for Mike’s murder without killing you, and left it at that,’ she muses, ‘but that would’ve been too much of a risk. You’d still be alive; you would have tried to talk your way out of it. Jared might have ended up believing your innocence. Your parents might have stood by you. This way, you’ll be a self-confessed murderer and the knife will be found with your prints. Incontrovertible evidence. You’ll be remembered as a deranged suicide and I’ll be the grieving widow.’
‘You’re mad,’ I whisper. ‘It’s an insane plan, and the police will see right through it.’
‘They won’t. I’ll be handing the killer to them on a plate,’ she says. ‘They’ll close the case, and that will be that.’
I shake my head. The terrifying thing is, she’s probably right. I need to find a flaw. Something that will convince her to change her mind. Problem is, my brain has come unspooled and I’m having a hard time breathing.
‘I’ll comfort Jared after the loss of his wife,’ she continues. ‘And he’ll comfort me after the loss of my husband. It’s perfect. He’ll feel guilty that it was his wife who killed Mike. He’ll probably feel partly responsible, like he should’ve done more to stop you. I’ll let myself be soothed by him, and I’ll tempt him with my body and my wealth. Eventually, we’ll fall for each other. I can help him out with Joe―’
‘Joe hates you,’ I say. ‘He says you scare him. My son may be young, but he’s a very good judge of character.’
‘He’ll get over it,’ she says coldly. ‘He’ll grow to love me like a mommy. Jared and I will bring up our two boys together. They’ll be stepbrothers―’
&nb
sp; ‘You know Tyler bullies him,’ I interrupt again. ‘Joe will be miserable. You can’t do this to him.’
‘He’s young, his memory of you will fade soon enough. Most importantly, your parents will get to know me and grow to love me. I’ll become a daughter to them. I still have Mike’s money. We can all go on luxurious family holidays together. It will be perfect, like it was always supposed to be.’
‘You’re deluded,’ I say. ‘You’re actually mad. You can’t write the script to your life. You can’t say, if I do this and this, then all these things will definitely happen. Life doesn’t work that way. I’d have thought you of all people would have realised that by now.’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t blame you for trying to pick holes in my plan. After all, you won’t be around to see it all happen. You’ll be long gone.’ She twists her hair around one side of her neck and then lets it go, running her fingers through the silken strands. ‘You stole those years from me, Louisa, but now I’m going to take them back. It’s only fair.’
‘My parents will see right through you,’ I hiss. ‘And you’re forgetting my sister, Beth. She will never in a million years believe I killed myself, just like she knows I had nothing to do with Mike’s murder.’
‘I’ll win her over. After all, soon she’ll be my sister. I want my family to get along.’
I give a bitter laugh.
‘And anyway,’ she continues, ‘if Beth doesn’t play nicely, there are ways I can make her change her mind.’
‘What are you going to do?’ I say. ‘Kill her? Kill them all off one-by-one when they don’t conform to your twisted game of happy families? That’ll work out well – eventually, you’ll be back on your own again.’
‘You’re being melodramatic, Louisa.’
That’s rich.
She rises to her feet. ‘I’ve had enough of all this talking. It’s time for you to write this goodbye note to your family.’ She nods to her brother. ‘Callum, cut her hands free.’
The Best Friend Page 20
