Almost Lost

by Blake Pierce

  “He shouted that he’d call social services and say I’d been abusing the children, and that they would find bruises when they examined them. I couldn’t believe he’d hurt his own children just to make sure there was evidence. And he threatened to report me for working illegally. He told me he would force me to stay no matter what it took because he needed you to loan his business some money and everything had to go smoothly for that to happen.”

  Trish let out a sharp, angry breath.

  “Unacceptable. You’re being so brave to speak up about this,” she said.

  Encouraged, Cassie continued.

  “Mostly, I think, he couldn’t bear that I’d called him a liar and he was going to make me suffer for it in any way he could. Suddenly, it was all about his ego. Like nothing he’d said or done to me had made a difference. I saw the monster inside him for what it was. I was furious and terrified. I felt trapped. I realized what a manipulative son of a bitch he was. I hated him for what he’d done. Hated him!”

  Her voice rose to a shout and suddenly, the anger boiling inside her had to have a vent. She couldn’t keep it in anymore. What he’d said and done. How he’d stripped away all her self-esteem and destroyed her, just because he could.

  “What a lying bastard! How dare he use me this way? How dare he manipulate, and lie, and mislead. What gave him the right to try and ruin my life? I thought this was my chance at happiness, that we had a life together. And we didn’t. It was all a goddamned lie.”

  Cassie heard a crack.

  The stem of her wineglass dropped to the floor and smashed.

  She’d been gripping it so hard she’d snapped the fragile stem in two. Hastily, Cassie grabbed with both hands at the fragile bowl.

  Trish leaned over and dexterously removed the empty bowl from her grasp.

  “Are your hands OK?”

  Cassie looked down. Her hands were shaking, and a dark bead of blood was welling from a cut on her right palm.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just a scratch.”

  “Good. Please carry on.”

  “I went inside. I don’t remember much after that. I went to bed, I think. I had a nightmare, and when I woke up I was outside, near the bluff. I haven’t told anyone that—that I sleepwalked during a terrible dream. I sometimes do that when I’m very stressed, and I also have gaps in my memory. Anyway I was cold and scared and I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten out there. I went back inside and that was when I saw him.”

  She blinked hard, remembering those lifeless, staring eyes. How Ryan had been slumped in the chair with that dreadful deep red stain spread over the front of his smart blue shirt.

  “I checked his pulse,” she said softly. “Then I called you. And that’s what happened, Trish. That’s everything there is to say.”

  Cassie thought she’d faint if she stood up. She forced herself to breathe deeply, to gather her thoughts. Her version was shared now—as honest as she could make it, and more than she’d expected. Now they could move on to the logical part of the discussion, and share their thoughts about who could have administered the poison, and when.

  To Cassie’s surprise, she saw that Trish had stood up and was rummaging in the inside pocket of her jacket.

  She wore a smile of pure triumph as she drew something out.

  Cassie stared. It was a smart, state-of-the-art Dictaphone recorder.

  Trish looked down and carefully pressed the Stop button and as she did so, Cassie realized, in horror, that this evening hadn’t been about sharing or collaborating at all. It had never been intended for that.

  It had been a trap, carefully laid and artfully concealed.

  She’d walked straight into it.

  Cassie felt paralyzed with fear. She knew she should grab that tape recorder and fling it out over the balcony—but her reactions were far too slow. She’d only gotten as far as the thought by the time Trish placed the recorder back in her pocket and sat down again on the opposite side of the table.

  “What a thorough confession,” Trish said in a tone of quiet satisfaction. “I don’t think anyone will doubt for a moment now that you killed my husband.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  “Trish, I didn’t kill Ryan. You know I didn’t. Don’t you?”

  Cassie’s voice trembled audibly.

  “Why are you doing this to me? Do you hate me that much, that you want to frame me for something I’m innocent of?”

  Trish stared back at her with a slight smile, and Cassie was shocked by her composed calmness. She was ice cold, showing not a trace of empathy or emotion, and Cassie wished she’d been quicker to realize who the true psychopath in the Ellis household was.

  “I didn’t think the police would do an effective enough job. That’s why I bailed you out. Because I knew I could.”

  She tapped her coat pocket.

  “That information was very detailed, and should hold up in a court of law. Especially the mention of the memory loss, a very helpful addition. Along with my testimony, which will fill the gaps in your story, it should be more than enough to get you convicted.”

  Cassie stared at her in horror. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t utter anything in her own defense. She was completely blindsided by what Trish had just done.

  “By the way,” Trish continued, “as you know, the money in this home is mine. So the diamond necklace belongs to me. I’m sure it will play a part in the evidence. As you said, diamonds are forever—supposedly.”

  “Why?” Cassie got out in a breathy, terrified voice, but Trish continued.

  “Now, let me explain what’s going to happen next.”

  Next? Cassie blinked hard. There was a next? She braced herself for what it would be, because she hadn’t thought there could be a bigger nightmare than she was in now.

  “I will be out most of tomorrow, making the funeral arrangements and getting my nails done. The children are still off school and are going to visit their aunt again in the morning, but I will need you to look after them in the afternoon. Then when I come back, you will pack your things and go.”

  “What?” Cassie’s voice was high and shrill. Her mind reeled at what Trish was ordering her to do.

  “Trish, I can’t leave. My bail conditions don’t allow it. I have to stay in the house. Or go out with an adult. That’s what the police told me. I mean, I signed for it and everything.”

  She stared at Trish pleadingly, but Trish returned her gaze, icily composed.

  “That’s your problem, not mine. You will leave soon as I get back. No negotiation, no second chances. If you refuse to go, I’ll turn the tape over to the police. So you have the choice. You’re with me, or you’re against me.”

  She smiled at Cassie, and Cassie knew she’d never seen such an evil expression on the face of any human being.

  She saw exactly what was happening here. Trish would hand the tape in regardless. And those recorded words, together with the fact Cassie had broken her bail conditions and fled the home, would hammer the final nails into the coffin of her guilt.

  Trish stood up and collected the wine bottle and the glasses.

  She glanced down at the shards by Cassie’s feet.

  “Sweep that up before you lock up for the night, will you?” she said. “And leave that necklace outside my bedroom door.”

  She turned and walked inside.

  Cassie felt a stinging pain in her palm and realized it was wet with blood.

  She’d thought it was just a scratch, but a fragment of glass had speared her skin.

  Carefully she drew the bloodied shard out, aware that the sobbing of her own breath was the only sound on the quiet verandah.

  She made her faltering way to the kitchen, feeling as if she was on automatic pilot as she rinsed the blood off her hand in the sink. Her mind felt bludgeoned by what had just happened and she felt sick with self-blame, because if she’d been thinking more clearly, she could have avoided it.

  Blindly, she had trusted Trish, and now she
would pay the price for the rest of her life.

  Cassie swept up the glittering slivers of glass and tipped them into the kitchen bin and as they fell, she started to sob. Her legs gave out from under her and she sprawled onto the floor, unable to move, horrified at the calculated evil Trish had shown, and how she’d used Cassie’s desperation to achieve her own ends.

  She didn’t know how long she’d spent in a puddle of tears on the floor before she heard a footfall behind her.

  Clumsily she turned.

  It was Dylan.

  He looked down at her and his face registered mild surprise.

  “You OK? I thought I heard something,” he whispered.

  Cassie struggled to her feet. She was very clearly not OK and there would be no fooling Dylan. Her face felt swollen from crying and her eyes were puffy. The cut on her palm had bled and dried again, leaving a rusty residue. She was sure her face was sheet-white.

  “You want some tea?” he asked awkwardly, and that made her start crying all over again.

  “I think you should have some tea,” he said.

  Dylan put the kettle on and for a while the sound of it boiling was the only noise in the room.

  “Sweet tea for shock,” he said. “We learned it in class. You look shocked.”

  He added two teaspoons of sugar to the cup.

  “Is my bitch of a mother harassing you?” he asked in a low voice, sitting down at the table opposite her.

  Cassie stared at him, appalled by his choice of words, and also the conversational way he’d said them.

  What could she say back to this strange, sociopathic, twelve-year-old boy who had been at the top of her suspects list until tonight?

  She gave the tiniest nod.

  Dylan grimaced.

  “Dad was cool. He had his issues, but he was a cool guy. I’m sorry he died. Mum is something different.”

  Cassie’s stomach twisted with fear.

  “You think so?” she whispered.

  Asking the question felt like a betrayal, but at the same time, Cassie was comforted that somebody close to Trish could say such a thing.

  “She’s mad in the head,” Dylan confided.

  “Why do you say that?” Cassie could hardly breathe as she whispered the question.

  “Well, look at Benjamin Bunny.”

  Cassie blinked. She hadn’t expected Dylan to bring up that topic. She didn’t want to think about it. He’d admitted to killing his own pet. What did his mother have to do with that?

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “I adopted him. Friends were moving, Benjy had nowhere else to go. Nobody wants rabbits, they’re not popular pets anymore. I researched it. All he was going to do was stay in a cage in my room. He’d be no harm to anyone. But she freaked out.”

  In a high whisper, he mimicked her.

  “What have you done, Dylan? You know I’m allergic to fur. I won’t have a furry animal living in this house. I’m the main breadwinner, I pay the bills. This is my home and my rules and I say the rabbit goes.”

  “And then?” Cassie asked, fascinated and appalled by the story.

  “Before she left on her recent trip, she told me that if Benjamin was home when she got back, she’d poison him. She would have done it, too.”

  “No!” Cassie breathed, as the implications of what Dylan was saying hit home.

  Dylan nodded.

  “I thought of letting him go free, but tame rabbits can’t survive in the wild, especially older ones. I looked it up.”

  His face hardened.

  “So I broke his neck. I found out how to do it online. It was painless and he died immediately. He didn’t know a thing. It was better that way.”

  Cassie stared at him, gutted by what he’d just shared with her.

  Her hands had steadied enough for her to drink some of the sweet, milky tea and Dylan nodded in approval.

  “I’m so sorry about Benjamin,” she said.

  Dylan shrugged.

  “I had to choose,” he said unemotionally. “But that’s what she’s like. Unreasonable. And it’s all about her, her, her. If you go against her, she torments you. She wouldn’t let Maddie do acting. She banned her from doing the school play and said she couldn’t take part unless she was top of the class in math.”

  Dylan laughed scornfully.

  “Maddie would never be even halfway to the top. Then she told Maddie she couldn’t be the drama club captain or even in the club. She wants a daughter who excels academically. That’s Maddie’s role and she’ll force her into it. That’s how she is.”

  “Oh, no,” Cassie breathed. This revelation explained so much about Madison’s behavior. That wasn’t mothering, that was forcing your own demented agenda onto your children.

  Cassie had a new image of Trish now, a darker one.

  She was a woman who wouldn’t see reason or brook any argument.

  And she wasn’t normal. In fact, she was the furthest thing from it.

  “Thank you for coming to find me,” she told Dylan. “You’ve helped me a lot. We should go to bed now. It’s getting very late.”

  “OK.” Dylan stood up, stretched, and yawned.

  “See you in the morning.”

  He turned and walked quietly back down the hall.

  Cassie turned off the light and made sure the outside door was locked. She took the diamond necklace from her suitcase and placed it outside Trish’s door. Let her have it. With all the lies and misery surrounding it she didn’t want it.

  Then she headed to bed, but once there, her panic returned.

  Dylan’s sympathy had been comforting, but it couldn’t help her out of her predicament. The taped confession had sealed her fate. She marveled at Trish’s cunning in obtaining it from her before forcing her to flee the house.

  The police would track her down in no time. There was no way she would be able to hide, and without a passport, she couldn’t leave.

  The best idea might be to go straight to the police station and turn herself in. Perhaps the sympathetic constable would be there—but she remembered, again, the hard, uncompromising face of Detective Parker, and the way he’d looked at her as if she was already a criminal.

  She remembered the hardness of the bed in the jail cell, with its scratchy blue blanket, and the chemical stink of the metal toilet, and the harsh fluorescent light of the cell that had burned itself into her vision.

  That was where she’d be again, and who knew for how long?

  She had no money for a defense and guessed she would be allocated an overworked public defendant. Meanwhile, Trish would be mustering her resources to ensure that her version was believed.

  Cassie wondered what she would do if she was a judge.

  Whose testimony would carry more weight—that of the wealthy, highly qualified career woman who was a pillar of local society? Or that of the traveler who was working illegally, had confessed her desire to kill Ryan Ellis, and despite her cocktail of anxiety meds, suffered from nightmares, sleepwalking, and memory loss.

  It was a no-brainer.

  The situation was hopeless.

  As Cassie tossed and turned on her bed, trying her best to banish her thoughts for long enough to get some rest, one fact became crystal clear to her.

  Trish Ellis had killed her husband.

  It was the only way her actions this evening could be explained, and Dylan had confirmed that this was who she was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Cassie was driving out of the village, heading down a dark and empty road. Rain spattered on the windscreen, and the wipers sluiced it away.

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” she said, as fear uncoiled inside her. “My bail conditions don’t allow it. I’m out of the village and I’m all alone.”

  “You’re not alone.”

  Cassie looked at the person sitting in the passenger seat. She hadn’t known anyone was there, but when she turned her head, she saw her sister, Jacqui.

  Jacqui was dressed as
if she was going to a fancy dinner. Her hair was curled, held back by a crystal-studded pin, and her dress and jacket looked smart and new.

  “I came into some money,” she said. “I can help you.”

  “How?” Cassie asked, because she knew it was impossible. Jacqui couldn’t possibly have a steady job, and in any case, money couldn’t buy her way out of this predicament. She was in deep trouble, and it was getting worse with every mile that passed.

  “We need to turn back,” Cassie said.

  “No. Stop.”

  They got out of the car and walked to the edge of the cliff. Far away, across the ocean, she saw twinkling lights. If she could get there, she would be free, but it seemed so far away.

  “Have some wine.”

  Jacqui passed her a glass of red wine and Cassie lifted it to her lips, but as she was about to drink, she realized that the wine was poisoned. There was a greenish tinge on the surface of the deep red liquid and she could see it was starting to eat away at the glass, leaving it pitted and discolored.

  “No!” she screamed. “We can’t!”

  But Jacqui had already drained her glass, and she lurched toward Cassie.

  “You can,” she hissed. “You must!”

  Her face was changing, hardening, growing pale, and Cassie realized she’d been wrong. It wasn’t her sister at all. She was trapped now, and with her back to the cliff, there was nowhere she could go.

  The person stumbling toward her with a gray, bloated face and outstretched arms was Ryan Ellis.

  *

  Cassie sat up in bed, breathing rapidly. She was drenched in sweat. More nightmares. Laced with poison, they all started with her breaking her bail conditions and ended with the vision of Ryan’s corpse.

  She had barely slept. Checking the time, she saw it was seven in the morning. Finally, she could get up, but she dreaded what the day would bring.

  When she went to the children’s rooms she found that Dylan, for once, was still drowsy and she guessed their late-night conversation had tired him out.

  Madison was huddled in bed, in floods of tears.

  “I miss my dad,” she said over and over. She clung to the duvet and it took all of Cassie’s patience and persuasion to get her up and dressed.