‘Please don’t hurt me,’ Daniela said. She hated herself for begging but couldn’t stop. If Stephanie chose to fire the taser into the close confines of the car, there wasn’t anything Daniela could do. She drew up her knees to her chest like that would protect her. ‘Please, Steph.’
‘Stay here,’ Stephanie said. ‘You make any move to get out—’
‘I won’t. I won’t do anything.’
Stephanie slammed the door then backed away towards the blue estate car. Daniela stayed pressed against the seat. Her chest ached. Outside, the river thundered and the rain drummed fingernails on the roof. She watched Stephanie click on her torch and sweep the light through the windows of the blue car.
Whatever Stephanie saw inside made her pause. She leaned close to the windows. Daniela held her breath. Then Stephanie circled round the car, her torch beam picking out bits of the hedgerow. Directly behind the car was a gap in the branches that led through to the wood beyond.
Stephanie hesitated in front of the branches, as if she might have seen something. The moment hung before she pushed through the gap and disappeared.
Daniela stayed in her seat for several heartbeats. She expected Stephanie to return straight away. But she didn’t. The road remained empty, the ripples on the water quickly swallowed, until it was like Stephanie had never been there.
Go.
Without consciously making a decision to move, Daniela climbed over the seats again and opened the driver’s door. The roar of the river filled her ears. The floodwater was a heavy grip around her wellies. Rain flattened her hair and ran down her face. She grasped the doorframe to steady herself.
No sign of Stephanie.
Daniela breathed. This was her only chance, she knew. She could head north, into the trees, vanish. If she moved fast enough Stephanie would never catch her.
She only hesitated because a new, chill fear had seeped into her stomach. Someone had shot Henry, then driven his car here and abandoned it. Where had they gone? Across the bridge on foot? That seemed unlikely. But where else? Why would they stop here?
How far would they have gone in the few minutes since they’d arrived?
And that was what froze her in place. The possibility that the killer was here, in the woods, maybe close enough to hear everything she’d said. Maybe close enough to see her.
Did the killer leave the shotgun in the cabin? Or did they keep it?
Daniela had just let her sister walk into the woods where an armed killer might be hiding.
Run. Get out of here.
Daniela swallowed. She stepped away from the car and shut the door. The water pushed against her legs like the river was anxious to take her.
You’re no use to her anyway. Just go.
Daniela waded awkwardly along the flooded road until she reached the blue car, and went through the gap in the hedgerow beyond.
44
A narrow track wound its way into the woods. Daniela could only see its route by the scraggly bushes on either side. The ground itself was underwater. But within a few paces, the earth rose so Daniela was stepping through just a few inches of water.
She immediately saw what’d caught Stephanie’s eye. A streamer of torn blue plastic that had snagged on a low branch and twisted like a banner in the wind.
Daniela shuffled along the path with her bound hands held blindly in front of her. She paused to tip some of the water out of her wellies but her feet still squished. The fleecy jacket was a hindrance now it was sodden. The wind dug chill blades into her body. Her teeth chattered. She couldn’t even wrap her arms around her chest because of the goddamn cuffs.
‘Steph?’ she whispered. ‘Steph?’
Like all the woods around Stonecrop, this one was achingly familiar, but in the darkness, the trees were rendered alien and threatening. An inch of water lined the ground, puddled deeper in places. Buds of garlic plants, just beginning to sprout, delineated the path.
Daniela kept her eyes on the ground to avoid tripping. Don’t fall, she told herself. Don’t fall.
The path took her through a clearing then split, one branch going east towards Stonecrop, the other dropping down to the riverbank. Daniela didn’t know where Stephanie had gone. Over the noise of the rain and the river she could hear nothing. She shivered.
Check the river, then go back to the car. You’re no use to anyone out here.
Daniela shuffled to the edge of the trees. The grassy bank that led down to the water was much shorter than she remembered, much of it having been swallowed by the river. Three hundred yards upriver was the bridge, just visible in the gloom. Directly across from her was the Hackett road, sloping up, away from the flood, to safety, as unreachable as the moon. Downriver, to her right, were the remains of the old fishing platform where they’d held a funeral fourteen years ago. Its last soggy timbers were all but submerged. On the grass next to it was the rowboat. That morning it had been upside down, but someone had very recently hauled it right-side up.
There was something in the bottom of the boat. At first Daniela thought it was just accumulated rainwater. She went closer, careful of her footing on the wet grass. The boat contained a certain amount of water, true, but also a number of packages, each the size of a house brick, each bound tight in blue plastic wrap.
With the thunder of the river and the rain, and her thoughts in turmoil, Daniela shouldn’t have heard the slight noise behind her. But she did.
She turned.
The man stood at the edge of the trees, one shadow among many, framed by slanting rain. Leo McKearney, now Doctor Leo McKearney. Formerly the shy young boy who’d shared the school bus with Daniela and Auryn, who’d always sung Daniela’s name, and from whom she’d stolen her first kiss.
He looked different now. The redness of his eyes and the hard line of his mouth were new. Also new was the shotgun he carried.
‘Leo—’ Daniela moved towards him, stopped.
Leo stepped out of the trees. Light glinted off the wet barrel of the shotgun. He held the weapon comfortably against his shoulder, aimed at Daniela, like he’d been handling guns all his life.
‘Why did you do it?’ Leo asked.
Daniela couldn’t tear her gaze away from the shotgun. It was the same shotgun from the holiday cabins at Winterbridge Farm; double-barrelled, twelve-gauge, holding two shells – which was one more than Leo needed at this range – unless he hadn’t reloaded it after – after—
Daniela fought to raise her gaze. ‘What happened to your dad?’ she asked.
Leo took two steps down the slippery bank. The natural urge was to back away, but Daniela was suddenly, totally aware of the river behind her, the torrent of water mere feet behind. She had nowhere to go.
Leo was with Stephanie when I made the phone call. Daniela should’ve guessed. He heard me saying where Henry was. Leo had been trying to find his dad earlier that day, according to Margaret. It must’ve been pretty urgent, for Leo to steal Stephanie’s car and race out to the cabins.
And then what? Daniela tried to picture the confrontation in the cabin. An argument, accusations, Henry losing his temper and snatching up the shotgun. Leo struggling with him … Was that what’d happened? An accident? No matter what Henry had done, she couldn’t imagine Leo hurting his dad, not ever. And it must’ve been fast, because Daniela had only been on the phone for minutes …
Those thoughts skidded through her mind, there and gone, impossible to analyse. All she could focus on was Leo and the shotgun.
Where’s Stephanie?
The thought punched Daniela in the heart. Stephanie had been in front of her. What if she’d blundered right into Leo? What if—?
‘Why did you do it?’ Leo asked again, with a crack in his voice.
There was so much he could’ve been referring to. Daniela held up her shackled hands in futile protection. ‘I didn’t do anything. What’re you talking about?’
‘Auryn.’
‘Oh, God. I didn’t do anything.’ Why would no one bel
ieve her? ‘I swear I didn’t kill her, Leo.’
‘I know that.’
Daniela blinked. ‘You—?’
‘But it’s still your fault she died.’ Leo held the shotgun steady. ‘She never got over what you did.’
Daniela couldn’t focus. ‘Your dad killed Auryn,’ she said, ‘right?’
Leo shook his head. Angry tears stood in his eyes.
‘C’mon.’ Daniela edged towards him, hands outstretched. ‘Your dad held a grudge over the money he thought we owed him.’
‘You did owe him. Your dad siphoned funds from the antiques shop for years. He made Auryn hide it.’
The resentment in his voice shouldn’t have surprised Daniela. ‘Okay, but how did Henry react when he found out Auryn had that cash lying around the house?’
‘You don’t understand,’ Leo said. ‘When your family cheated Dad, you cheated us too – me and Mum. The money should’ve been ours. If we’d had it, everything would’ve been different. Me and Auryn could’ve stayed together. We could’ve kept our child.’
The rain was heavier now, flattening Daniela’s hair, creating pockmarked puddles in the mud. It amplified the roar of the river. Daniela’s hands shook. She couldn’t breathe. ‘Leo, what happened to Auryn?’
Leo let out a strained laugh. ‘She didn’t listen. I wanted what was best for us. When the floods came, I convinced her to move in with me for a few days … I wanted a chance. A proper chance. I knew she’d been talking to my dad and I wanted to know why.’
‘You killed her,’ Daniela said. Even as she spoke, she couldn’t believe it. Not Leo. Never Leo.
‘It was an accident,’ Leo spat.
Auryn hadn’t been hiding from Henry at the old house. She was hiding from Leo. ‘She told everyone she was going back to London just so you wouldn’t go looking for her.’
Leo’s fingers tightened, and for an instant Daniela was certain she’d made her last stupid mistake.
‘I saw the lights on in the old house,’ Leo said, his voice brittle. ‘When I got inside, I found Auryn. She was drunk. Must’ve been drinking steadily since she left my house. She’d got hold of a kitchen knife and kept saying she wanted to die.’
Daniela went cold.
‘She said she deserved it,’ Leo said with tears in his eyes. ‘That it was her fate, because of what she’d done.’ His voice cracked. ‘Because of what she did to my dad, seven years ago.’
Shit. Daniela hung her head. Auryn, why did you have to tell him?
‘She told me everything,’ Leo said. ‘She begged me to forgive her.’
‘It wasn’t her fault.’ Even now, the words came instinctively. ‘It was me who—’
‘I know it was your fault. She never would’ve done it without you. She always followed your lead. And then you let her carry that guilt all those years and she couldn’t even talk to me about it. Me. I was supposed to be with her forever. But you destroyed that.’
‘I—’
‘I never meant to hurt her. I got the knife off her but she still wouldn’t shut up. I didn’t mean for anything to happen.’ He took a wavering breath. ‘You know the worst thing? She begged me to forgive her, to phone for an ambulance … but I couldn’t. How could I help her, after what she did?’
Daniela stared. ‘You—?’
‘I knew I’d hurt her when I … when I lashed out, but I thought she’d be fine.’ Leo’s lips twisted. ‘She was too drunk to even stand. I left her sitting there in the water. Alive. I left her alive.’
But the water had still been rising. ‘You let her drown?’ Without thinking, Daniela took a step towards him.
The shotgun barrel had started to dip, but Leo raised it again, although his hands shook. Rain ran down his face. His jacket and hair shone with water.
A movement behind him caught Daniela’s attention. A shadow edged out past the treeline onto the grassy bank. In the meagre light, Daniela could just see the outline of the person, and a lighter blur held out in front – the fluorescent markers along the side and top of a taser.
Stephanie.
Daniela stopped. Her jaw worked. ‘You left Auryn to drown,’ she said, louder. ‘And you let Stephanie think I’d done it.’
‘Stephanie came to that conclusion all by herself,’ Leo said. ‘I never said anything.’
‘You didn’t correct her either.’ Daniela’s chest hitched. ‘Why didn’t you say something? Stephanie wants to lock me away.’
‘And what a big shame that would be.’ Leo gestured with the shotgun. ‘Step back.’
‘What?’
‘Go on. Two or three steps should do it.’
Daniela risked a glance behind her. Two or three steps would take her right to the edge of the river.
Leo intended to kill her and let the river sweep her body away. It wouldn’t matter if his aim was bad – the water would do most of the work.
I was always going to end up here.
For as many years as she could remember, she’d had nightmares about the river; dreams where she was drowning, flailing, pulled down by weighted feet and bound hands. The idea paralysed Daniela.
Her eyes flicked to Stephanie, motionless in the shadows behind Leo. What the hell are you waiting for?
But if Stephanie hit Leo with the taser, there was every chance Leo’s finger would spasm around the trigger. Maybe that was why Stephanie hung back.
Or maybe she wanted to see what Leo would do.
Daniela dropped her gaze. She found herself staring at the plastic-wrapped packages in the boat. Half a million. It didn’t look like so much. Not enough to kill three people over. Did Leo have any plan beyond loading it all into the rowboat and letting the river drag him off down past Briarsfield?
‘What about your dad?’ Daniela asked. ‘Why’d you shoot him?’
A tremor ran through Leo’s whole body. ‘Auryn gave him the money. Almost everything she had. But not for me. Not because of anything I said, even though I’d spent years trying to convince her it was the right thing to do.’ His mouth went thin again. ‘My dad told Auryn a bunch of lies. Filled her head with them, to guilt her into giving him the money. He showed her a letter – I don’t know where it came from or how he got it but she said it was from your mother, from years ago—’ Leo took a breath to steady his voice. ‘He told Auryn she was my sister. He was her dad too.’
In the moment that followed, Daniela looked straight at Stephanie. Stephanie’s face was hard as stone, but there was no surprise in her eyes.
‘Leo,’ Daniela started.
Leo shook his head. The shotgun shook too. ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,’ he said. ‘He made Auryn believe it. He wanted to make sure she’d never take me back. Then he went into hiding. He intended to run off with the money, never mind that half of it should’ve been Mum’s. I promised myself I’d find him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Daniela said, unsure who the apology was for. ‘Please.’
Leo gestured again for her to step back, but Daniela had no intention of moving. The roar of the river was like thunder. She’d rather die here on the bank than beneath the water.
‘Leo,’ Stephanie said; a police officer’s bark that made Leo wheel around. ‘Drop—’
Leo swung the shotgun and fired at Stephanie.
Daniela lunged at Leo, tackling him to the ground, but the noise was echoing from the trees, and she knew she’d moved too slow, too late, because in the frozen muzzle flash she’d seen Stephanie thrown back by the blast.
Daniela scrambled up and over Leo, catching him in the face with a careless elbow. Stephanie was trying to sit up. Her jacket and the stab vest had taken some of the impact but not enough. Dark fluid welled up in a palm-sized hole on the upper left side of her chest, and from smaller pellet holes in her neck and shoulder.
Daniela tried to grab her, to keep her upright. She forgot her hands were still restrained. She could do no more than hold the front of Stephanie’s vest. Stephanie looked at her with a slight frown, as if sh
e couldn’t work out what’d happened. Already her eyes were glazed. Her left hand was pulled up against her chest with the taser clutched tight.
‘Steph—’
Behind her, Leo was struggling to his knees. He lifted the shotgun.
Daniela grabbed the taser from Stephanie’s unresisting fingers, spun and fired at Leo.
There was no time to aim. In the bad light she could barely see anyway. But Leo wasn’t expecting the attack and made no effort to get out of the way.
The metal prongs hit him in the flank and upper leg. He cried out and his body went rigid. Sparks and flashes arched from the barbs. It was sheer luck his finger wasn’t on the trigger.
Leo collapsed like a ragdoll as the charge dissipated. He tumbled down the grassy bank until he came to rest with his lower half in the river. The water grabbed his feet and tried to drag him away.
On shaking legs, Daniela started towards him.
‘Dani,’ Stephanie said. She’d pushed herself up on one elbow. Her breathing was laboured; her eyes unfocused. She looked so pale Daniela was startled she was still conscious.
Leo slid another few inches down the wet grass. Any further and the river would take him.
Daniela stumbled towards the water. The shotgun had fallen on the bank. Daniela threw the weapon behind her, out of reach, in case Leo was faking. She grabbed Leo’s shoulder. Her fingers slipped on the wet fabric of his jacket.
Leo gasped. He was conscious, but only barely, his body half-paralysed by the effects of the taser. The river swirled around his legs and dragged him further down the bank.
Daniela heaved but her grip was insecure. She tried to hook her shackled hands under Leo’s arm. His body was a dead weight. Daniela’s feet slipped on the grass.
‘C’mon,’ Daniela gasped. ‘C’mon!’
A surge of water closed around Leo’s waist like a fist and pulled him off the bank. Daniela fought back, digging in her heels, straining all her weight to keep hold of Leo. But her fingers weren’t strong enough. The current lifted Leo into the river. His unseeing eyes blinked. His arms moved, slow, weak, as if he were coming back to himself but not nearly fast enough. Daniela slipped down the bank, leaned out over the water, and made a grab for him. She missed.
The Flood Page 26
