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Shadows to Ashes

Page 21

by Tori de Clare


  Her mouth felt arid, waterless. His gaze was disarming, all pale blue and no blinking. His words jabbed at her but she sat taller and found her voice. ‘I could’ve had Dan if you hadn’t done whatever you did.’ She worked to keep an even tone.

  ‘Correct,’ he said quietly.

  Correct? No denial. No excuses or shame. Just, correct? She felt the urge to bolt out of her chair and knock his perfect teeth out with her fist. But she sat very still while her heart continued a battle inside her chest and she worked to steady her breathing.

  ‘How can you stand there and say that?’

  ‘Would you prefer me to lie?’

  ‘Dan was my fiancé. Is my fiancé.’

  ‘So sixteen years should be long enough to pick a dress.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Naomi stood up now and the words spilled out of her. ‘I’d already picked a dress, a simple one because I wanted a simple life. With Dan.’

  ‘So simple that you were in hiding – on the run to get married on a remote island without anyone’s knowledge? So simple you were renting a flat at a secret location in London?’ She glared at him. How the hell did he know about that? ‘Sounds complex to me.’

  ‘None of those things are your business. I don’t need anyone’s permission to get married or rent a house, especially not yours, Vincent.’

  ‘See, I heard another invitation just now.’

  ‘Stop it would you, and try listening to me,’ she yelled.

  ‘You’re getting heated.’

  ‘It’s impossible not to lose it with you.’

  He almost smirked. ‘That’s worth knowing.’

  She walked up to him, closed the distance to nothing. Shouted in his face, ‘Dan was my life and we’d planned a future and you stole it from both of us. And now you have the audacity to tell me that you did it because you don’t know how to do without something that you want?’

  He absorbed the words and was in no rush to answer. ‘That’s fairly accurate, yes.’

  ‘What did you do to Dan?’

  ‘Initially, nothing. I offered him a very nice life in exchange for keeping the path clear, so to speak. Most would have accepted because most people have a price.’

  ‘Dan’s not most people.’

  ‘Evidently.’ Solomon was quiet a moment. ‘So when I discovered you’d escaped to the Maldives, I intervened. It’s simple enough when you know how. I always plan for every eventuality.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nathan’s car had been sent to the scrapyard. I know the guy who owns the place, so I asked him to keep it there and not dispose of it. Had the police done a thorough job, they’d have noticed at the time of the accident that the brakes had been tampered with. They didn’t.’

  ‘So you admit it was your fault I almost died.’

  ‘Harsh, Naomi. I was trying to protect you. Nathan was throwing threats around. He wanted to hurt you to get to me, so I had to disable him. I had no way of knowing he’d drag you to his car and jump a level crossing. I never asked him to kill himself.’

  ‘So you pinned it on Dan and planted evidence.’

  ‘Eventually, yes. When I discovered you’d gone to the Maldives, the police got a call from the scrapyard to ask if they knew about the failed brakes, the blood on the cap. From there, they acted fast. It took them just over twenty-four hours to decide that Dan was the prime suspect, and to find out where he was and contact the police in Male who were very helpful and compliant. They held him.’

  ‘Who told you we’d gone to the Maldives?’

  ‘That’s a question too far.’

  ‘Who told you?’ she yelled.

  He shook his head.

  ‘I know you’ve known Lorie a long time. So your main source of information is dead now. Lorie didn’t know we were going to the Maldives.’

  ‘Don’t assume anything.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t know what kind of a relationship you had with Lorie, but I know that a lot of people associated with you either die or suffer some ill fate or other. Did you have a hand in Lorie’s death? Did you want rid of her too?’

  ‘No and no. And for the record, I’ve never had a relationship with Lorie. Not like that. Her desperation to seduce me always had the opposite effect.’

  ‘Huh!’ Naomi shook her head. ‘A lesson for you, maybe.’

  A tilt of his head. He said nothing.

  Silence, but for Naomi’s rapid breathing. Solomon didn’t blink or move. Tears of exhaustion and frustration pooled in the bottom of her eyes. She pushed the tears back, refused to let them leak.

  She continued, ‘So that’s what you do is it, you destroy lives?’

  ‘Not routinely, no. I’m a businessman so I give people what they want and I make a lot of money.’

  ‘I don’t care about your money. You ruined my life. If you thought anything of me you’d have a conscience about that.’

  ‘Think anything of you? I think everything of you. You’re everywhere I go, right here.’ He pointed to his head. ‘You’re with me in bed. You keep me awake. You come with me to work. You won’t even let me go to the bathroom by myself.’

  ‘It’s called infatuation. This connection you think we have is all in your mind. It isn’t real. It gives you no right to screw up my life or Dan’s life, or anyone else’s for that matter.’

  ‘The only way I can shift things from my head is to make them happen.’

  She looked him up and down. Threw him a look that told him how disgusting he was. ‘I don’t know how you sleep at night.’

  ‘I don’t sleep at night.’

  She paused. ‘Well maybe if you ever did the right thing your mind might rest.’

  ‘Rights and wrongs are subjective. Either way, as I’ve told you before, men like me need to come home to girls like you.’

  ‘Why would a girl like me want anything to do with you? You need to get over your fixation with me and –’

  ‘My brain doesn’t operate like that. I don’t know how to quit, let go, forget, move on. I want something badly, I can’t not act.’

  She was stumped for a moment. She suddenly realised she was far too close to him and couldn’t blame him this time. She took a step back. ‘Like I said, I’m here for Dan, no other reason.’

  ‘Dan means nothing to me.’ Naomi drew breath to object, but he went on, ‘but I anticipated that he had to come into the equation and threesomes aren’t my thing, so I have an offer for you.’

  ‘What offer?’

  Solomon ran his tongue over his lips. ‘One game of chess. You and me. One move a day. You don’t leave this house until the game’s over, upon my terms and conditions.’ His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Simple enough?’

  ‘I can’t . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I haven’t played chess in years.’

  ‘Yes you have, just not on a board.’

  ‘One move a day? Are you insane?’

  ‘Plenty of thinking time for both of us. No room for regrets later. Regrets usually follow hasty decisions.’

  ‘What do you mean I don’t leave the house until the game’s over?’

  ‘Self-explanatory. You stay here until it’s finished. The average game of chess is forty to forty-five moves. So that’s six weeks max.’

  ‘Six weeks?’ she shouted. ‘You really think –’

  ‘I’m offering you a get-out-of-gaol-free card for Dan. Don’t expect it to come cheap. Question is: is he worth it?’

  ‘Dan’s worth anything. Everything.’

  ‘OK. You win the game and I surrender the evidence I have that Dan was stitched up for murdering his brother. Lose and Dan does his sixteen years. Or, you could wait around and see if the appeal lawyers scratch around and come up with any tasty crumbs. Hell of a risk, but entirely your choice.’

  Choice? The word was a joke. Her palms felt clammy; a feeling of nausea crawled around in her stomach. ‘You can stick your blackmail right up your –’

  ‘And you can see yourself out now. The off
er expires seven days from today, 4th May. You should know that it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, meaning, I never offer anything twice and you get one shot at life.’

  ‘I don’t trust you to keep your word.’

  ‘Smart girl.’

  ‘How do I even know you have evidence?’

  ‘You don’t. But use your intellect. Let it guide your decision. You’re feeling alive right now, aren’t you?’ Naomi didn’t answer. ‘I know you are. The tiny vein in your neck is throbbing at ninety-something beats a minute, right here.’ He reached out and touched her neck with his fingers. ‘I’m guessing that yesterday you were barely breathing, and look at you now, on top of your game. Sharp.’ She twisted her head away from him. ‘Risk does that, Naomi. Lets you know you’re alive. We are more similar than you think, you and me. I knew it the first moment we met and you paid up for Nathan. You’ve been seared on my brain ever since. We’re different sides of the same coin.’

  ‘We’re nothing alike.’ She glowered at him now and he held her gaze. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘We want something badly enough, nothing gets in the way. That’s why you’re here now. That’s why you won’t trust the police or the lawyers. That’s why you’ll accept my offer. You and I, we can’t not act. It isn’t in our nature.’

  ‘You’re wrong about me.’

  ‘Which part?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘Seven days from now.’

  ‘The answer’s no. No way!’ She turned and began noisy, rapid steps to the front door. She’d find another way. Her way. She’d tell Kerry about this conversation. She should have recorded it. The door was locked when she got there. She almost kicked it in fury. ‘Open the door.’

  Solomon was right behind her. He unlocked the door and allowed her to pass.

  ‘Te veo pronto.’

  See you soon. So, he knew she’d studied Spanish with a home tutor too. What didn’t he know about her?

  ‘Nunca me veras de nuevo,’ she muttered as she darted through the door, down the path, along the street to her little car waiting under a lamppost. She’d remember nothing of the journey home. Not a traffic light, a pedestrian or a single sliver of the world beyond the windscreen. Worrying really, but she’d only remember her last words to Solomon, on a circuit in her head, all the way home.

  You’ll never see me again.

  26

  ‘What do you mean, Kerry, you can’t do anything?’

  Naomi had retreated to the garage to prevent any chance of someone overhearing her conversation.

  Kerry’s voice trickled into her ear while she leant against Henry’s Jaguar. ‘It’s your word against his. Dan’s been convicted by a jury. The CPS can’t prepare another trial with the only evidence being that someone claims to have set Dan up.’

  ‘Why not? This is a big deal. A confession. He actually looked me right in the eye and told me he’d done it and you’re saying you’re powerless?’

  ‘Look, I shouldn’t even be discussing the case.’

  ‘What case? Case is closed, so you keep telling me.’

  ‘Naomi, listen. The next stage is an appeal. Dan’s lawyer will do his level best to find new evidence –’

  ‘He can start with this. How much more evidence do you need?’

  ‘Hard evidence. The stuff you can read, see, present to a judge and jury. DNA. Witnesses. There’s nothing at all except Dan’s fiancée saying that someone told her that Dan had been set up. It isn’t easy to overturn a conviction. Let’s not forget that Dan’s blood was identified on the car.’

  Naomi shook her head and panted air down the phone. She stood in darkness while daylight edged the huge garage door and Shadow barked from the front lawn.

  ‘I know it’s frustrating,’ Kerry carried on. ‘Honestly, I do, but things take time.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about time. Dan’s doing a lifetime of it and I . . .’ Moments passed. ‘Just forget it.’ Naomi was battling a swelling in her throat. She couldn’t say anymore. Kerry couldn’t know it, but she’d been the final thread. There was nothing now. Nothing but Dan’s lawyer, a person Naomi didn’t like or trust. Then the police always seemed to be too preoccupied to do their jobs. They seemed to prefer to lurk in traffic control cars trying to catch motorists breaking the speed limit by a couple of miles an hour than to hunt down and put away dangerous criminals. Naomi, crammed head to toe with resentment, just wanted to put the phone down and cut Kerry Marshall from her life. Right now the most appealing option was to crawl into bed and bury herself under the duvet.

  ‘I met him, you know.’

  A bolt, from nowhere. Naomi stood up straight, taking her own weight instead of sharing the load with the car, her interest roused. She swallowed the lump away. ‘Met who?’

  ‘Solomon.’

  ‘Solomon? Why? When?’

  ‘This is confidential information and I could be in serious trouble for sharing it. But my concern for you is overriding my professionalism at the moment, rightly or wrongly. You daren’t tell anyone –’

  ‘Yeah, obviously. Cut to it, Kerry. Tell me about Solomon.’

  ‘Well, Lorie Taylor left him a suicide note and I had to deliver it.’ A pause. ‘To his house.’

  ‘You’re kidding. What did it say? What did he say?’

  ‘Slow down, OK? You’re making me nervous.’

  ‘Sorry. Go on.’

  ‘I honestly cannot tell you what it said. That’s a step too far, but we went in the house, saw all those weird paintings in the hall.’

  Naomi put a hand to her forehead. ‘And what were your impressions of him?’

  ‘He was nothing like I expected.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘He’s younger than I thought. Better looking. It’s like he says a lot more than he actually says, if you get what I mean.’

  ‘Explain.’

  Kerry hesitated, like she couldn’t explain. ‘His eyes speak. My partner Jake was there and he doesn’t know that I know about this guy, so I was hoping that Solomon wouldn’t say anything about the car and the accident.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Not in words no, but let me know that he knew exactly who I was and that he was very aware of me. Which kind of freaked me out.’

  ‘Huh! Tell me about it.’

  ‘But there’s something scarily . . . magnetic about him. Like you can’t wait to get out of the house, but then you want to go back to quiz him about all the things he didn’t say. He’s a mystery you feel compelled to solve. But you feel as though it’s best not to go there.’

  A mystery? All Naomi could see in that moment was Solomon standing by the front door, naked, all barriers removed. She’d never admit that she’d seen him this way, so she shook the thought away.

  ‘Magnetic? Don’t forget the guy’s insane.’

  ‘Insane? No, that’s not it. Dangerous? Yes. He’s also very astute. Like he knows what you’re thinking and he’s absorbing every tiny detail about you and storing it somewhere. I’ve never experienced anything like it.’

  ‘Just stay away from him.’

  ‘I was about to say the same thing to you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Naomi shot back at her.

  ‘I do worry about that. You’ve only just been to his house! He told you he had information about Dan’s case because he’s trying to bait you into more contact with him – you do realise that.’

  ‘Of course I realise that, Kerry. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Stupidity isn’t the issue. The issue is your burning need for justice and revenge and he knows that all too well. Please don’t try to take Vincent Solomon on, Naomi. You can’t.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Naomi snapped.

  ‘Don’t shoot me for being concerned. I’m only looking out for you.’

  ‘I know that too,’ Naomi conceded in a quieter tone. ‘I’m sorry, Kerry, I’m just really stressed. And tired.’ She drew a deep breath and let it all out and made a snap decision to share something that was t
roubling her. ‘I went to see Dan’s parents.’ She hadn’t intended to spill this, not ever, but she’d said it now and she felt a little lighter.

  ‘Oh really? And?’

  ‘And his mother smacked me in the face and told me never to go back.’

  ‘Ouch. That must have been a real setback for you.’

  ‘Did you ever meet them, Kerry? Did they know that you and Nathan –’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘Thing is, I don’t blame her. She’s lost her two kids and I was mixed up with both of them. She doesn’t know me at all. From her point of view, I’m the common denominator. She knows nothing about Solomon’s involvement. Probably nothing about Lorie. I should have anticipated her reaction. I’m not thinking straight. I was hell-bent on getting a photo of Dan and . . .’ The lump was back. Kerry was making sympathetic noises on the other end of the phone. Naomi went on, ‘And I write to Dan every day and I haven’t heard from him at all. Solomon’s to blame for all of it.’

  Kerry said, after a pause, ‘You must feel like killing him.’

  ‘You’ve no idea.’

  ‘I know this sounds trite, but one day, all of this will be over.’ Her tone was gentle, reassuring, filled with sympathy.

  ‘Who’s going to end it, Kerry?’

  Kerry didn’t hesitate. ‘Not you. You take care now.’

  Naomi finished the call and stood in the dimness, unwilling to return to the house, mind brimming.

  If you want to corner the king, you have to be in his game. I'll help you.

  She was no closer to knowing who’d delivered that note. Bait, or a genuine offer? Lunatic, or sane person? Enemy, or friend? Stranger, or someone close?

 

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