“I lost my appetite,” I say.
“Ah, but you look great. You’ve almost got the figure you wanted.”
I deflect the jab. My outer shell is so strong these days, almost nothing gets through. “I don’t have long, so whatever it is you’re here for, get on with it. I’m expecting someone.”
She looks at me and smiles again, and it makes me want to climb over the table and push my thumbs into her eyeballs, feel them bulging and popping underneath the pressure like grapes. Maybe I would if I thought the guards wouldn’t have time to stop me.
“I feel bad,” she says, but I know her too well to believe it. “I owe you a few explanations—”
I put my head back and laugh. It’s an awful sound. “I think I’ve got you figured out.”
“Do you? Indulge me.”
I understand how this is another game to her, and yet I can’t stop myself from entering the arena, ready to play. “You did all of this for money. Exactly like Hugh did to Natalie.”
She has a dangerous sparkle in her eye, one I’ve never seen before, but which turns her into a beautiful, dangerous feline creature, and she’s ready to pounce. “Did he? Are you sure?”
“It wasn’t him, it was you,” I say with a distinct lack of surprise—not much shocks me anymore. “You set the fire. You were the one who went for an alleged cigarette. Hugh covered for you.” When Victoria doesn’t answer, I say, “But why? Did you plan it together? You wanted her insurance money, too?”
“Oh, please,” she says, and I realize I’ve actually offended her. “Hugh wasn’t clever enough for that, and it wasn’t even a million. No. I wanted him, right from the start, except he only had eyes for her.” She pauses, taps her fingers on the table. “But my mother always told me some people are easier to maneuver out of the way than others.”
My brain whirs and clicks, fits more pieces together. “Madeleine killed Stan’s girlfriend, the one who died in the car accident that almost killed him, too. She did, didn’t she?”
“Perhaps,” Victoria says, sounding bored. “I never asked her. What I do know is Mom grew up around cars, and that woman was supposed to drive home alone, not with my father.”
“Rotten apples fall close to rotten trees. You didn’t have to turn out like your mother, you know. You could’ve taken a different path—”
“You mean the way you didn’t?” She laughs and shakes her head.
“What do you mean? I’m nothing like my mother.”
“Aren’t you?” she says, amused. “According to my mom, Sylvia Hardwicke is—” she counts on her fingers “—calculating, cold and manipulative. Just not shrewd enough. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
While I don’t blanch at her saying my mother’s name out loud, I’m unable to stop grabbing the scraps she dangles in front of me. “Madeleine knew about Stan’s affair?”
She breathes in deep. “She had her suspicions.”
“She told you?”
“My mother would never admit to any kind of weakness, not even to me,” Victoria says. “I’ve only ever seen her lose control once, at a Christmas party. I was fourteen. She’d had too much to drink, and when I helped her to bed, she told me I was far prettier than my sister.” She shakes her head. “I thought she meant Angeline until she whispered, ‘Sylvia Hardwicke and her ugly little Eleanor.’ She cursed you both to hell and back that night, but never mentioned anything again. I never forgot. And you were easy enough to find.”
“Why didn’t you ask her or Stan about me,” I say, “if you knew all along?”
“Remember what I told you about Angeline?”
“You didn’t leave the stairgate open by accident,” I answer. “I worked it out already.”
“Well done,” she says, staring at me so hard it makes me want to vomit. Her callous admission of responsibility in her baby sister’s death shouldn’t come as a surprise but it slams into my chest like a dozen sledgehammers all the same. When she smiles, I know I’m sitting opposite the embodiment of malice. A sociopath. And she’s my sister. How couldn’t I have seen it? How could I have been so blind?
She leans in and whispers, “I didn’t want you around, either.”
I try my hardest not to react, not to show any kind of emotion. “Except I showed up.”
“At exactly the right time, thank you for that.” She sits back with a sigh, and it’s a long, contented sound, as if she’s stretched out, sipping a margarita on a sunny beach somewhere. The thought almost kills me because it will be years and years before I see the ocean again.
“You made me believe Hugh was hurting you, that he was having an affair—”
“You saw what you wanted to see, in part anyway, and you were so desperate to help, so anxious for my approval—”
“I wasn’t—”
She laughs. “And you impressed me, you really did, first jumping to conclusions and finding my clues in his office so quickly. And seeing Bell Hops’s financial statements, talking to Charlotte, well, that was all you. But you know my favorite part?” She waits, and when I don’t answer, she continues, anyway. “You shooting Hugh like that. I thought I’d have to finish him off and blame it on you, but my goodness, did you ever exceed my expectations.”
I can’t stop myself from wincing. I killed a man. An innocent man. That’s something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life, and part of me knows I deserve to be in here, no matter what she did. “But you hurt your father,” I say. “The news about him having another daughter coming out—”
“Actually, you wouldn’t believe how my business has taken off,” she says. “How many contracts he’s thrown my way to make it up to me. He’s so proud of me. I wonder if you could ever say the same about Bruce.”
A gasp escapes my lips as her words cut into me, slashing deep, right to the bone. I can’t bring myself to think about Dad in front of her, what he’d make of me now, were he still alive. Would he believe her, too? The thought makes me want to scream. “How long had you been planning this? Since the day we met?”
She smiles. “Don’t flatter yourself. Things hadn’t been good between Hugh and me for quite some time, way before you showed up. I’m afraid he wasn’t what I’d expected, in the end. He’d spent all his money, and went after mine. He thought I wouldn’t notice. Like I said, he really wasn’t that smart.”
I shake my head. “You know, most people get a divorce.”
“Ah, yes.” She actually winks at me. “But it’s not nearly as lucrative. Besides, he would’ve fought me on everything, dragged the whole process out. And, for the record, it was supposed to be Genie, not you. It would’ve served her right for flirting with him the way she did. But then you bumped into me outside Dad’s office, and when I saw you after the spin class and at Le Médaillon, I knew you were following me, so I set the first trap.”
“The ring,” I say, and she smirks.
“You stole from me,” she says, her eyes colder still. “You had every chance to give it back, to tell me who you were, but you didn’t. You tried to make a fool out of me.”
“You manipulated all of us. Hugh, me, Lewis. I know you set him up at the bar with that woman who kissed him—”
“Crazy what some people will do for ten bucks.”
“Even Charlotte. You made her fall on purpose when you went roller-skating—”
“But we had a lovely spa day because of it, you and me, didn’t we? And don’t forget to add the web designer at Bell Hops to your list. I thought it was particularly genius, putting him in touch with one of my friends, getting him out of the way in preparation for you to take his place. It took no time at all.”
“You’re a monster—”
“That’s a matter of perception.”
“—and you’ll get your dues. Someday, I promise, you will pay for what you’ve done.”
She touches her lips
with a fingertip before saying, “Let me tell you a secret, Eleanor. We’re all monsters. Every single one of us is evil on the inside. To varying degrees, maybe, but evil nonetheless. The difference is some of us choose to accept it.”
“You’re insane.”
“Am I? All you need to do is look around. This whole—” she adds quotation marks “—‘good triumphs bad’ shit is nothing but an illusion, a complete fantasy. It’s what people tell themselves, and each other, to hide from the truth because admitting the world is a despicable place, full of greed and hatred, is too terrifying for most. They can’t cope.” She shakes her head, and when she speaks again, she sounds wistful. “But when you accept the fact, when you give in to it...it’s liberating beyond anything you could ever imagine.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why did you come here? Why tell me all this? I’ve already worked out you’re a fucking psycho. What the hell do you want?”
She doesn’t flinch at my words. It’s as if she already knows, has a deep understanding of who and what she is and is proud of it. Leaning in, her eyes harden some more. “I want you to know exactly what I’m capable of. Lewis and I never—”
“Lewis and you?” Whatever blood is left in my face drains away, leaving me light-headed, making the room spin.
“We never want to hear from you again, Eleanor. No visits, no letters, no phone calls... It’s just the three of us now.” She shakes her head and pulls out her left hand from under the table, points to the brand-new sparkling solitaire on her ring finger.
“No,” I say, realizing she’s not just come here to taunt me, but to let me know she owns me, now and for years to come, possibly forever. I can’t let her do this. “No. You aren’t... You didn’t—”
“I was grieving,” she says with a perfectly innocent look as she puts a hand to her throat and bats her eyelashes. “He felt responsible. Told me if only he’d known how desperate you were, he might have been able to stop you. He’s such a sweetheart.”
“No—”
“Isn’t he manly and protective?” she continues. “The savior complex is a real turn-on, didn’t you find? And he’s a fabulous father. The ring might not be as big as the one you took from me, but Lewis makes up for that in so many other ways.”
I want to lunge over the table, wrestle her to the ground and bash the back of her head against the floor until I hear it crack like an egg and it splits apart in my hands, but I can’t. I have to control the fury inside me. Losing it would only lead to spending more time away from you, Gemma, and I can’t let that happen. It’s not something else I’ll let her take from me.
“Why are you doing this to him?” I whisper, tears pricking the backs of my eyes, and I blink them away. I will not cry. I will not. Not in front of her. “He’s a good man. An honest man.”
“Oh, Eleanor,” Victoria says. “You love him, don’t you? Are you hoping he’ll change his mind about you? It’s never going to happen, I’ll make sure of it. It wouldn’t be good for the baby. Little Gemma needs a stable environment.”
The sound of her uttering your name makes me sit up straight. “Don’t talk about my—”
“She saved you,” she says, silencing me. “If you hadn’t told me you were pregnant, I would have killed you and Hugh.” She leans back in her seat. “And when you think about it, it’s perfect. I can’t have children. You’re in here. Who better to raise darling Gemma than your own flesh and blood?”
“I won’t let you take her—”
“Oh, but I already have, sweetheart. I already have.”
“Why?” I whisper. “You’re incapable of loving anybody but yourself.”
Victoria smiles. “I don’t let anyone tell me what I can or can’t have. Not even my own body. Having a child will be my little experiment. See if I can bring out the worst in her.”
I let out a whimper, a small, pathetic sound of defeat. “I won’t let you do this.”
“Lewis’s mother and stepfather adore her,” Victoria says, ignoring me as she cocks her head to one side. “You should see Jackson’s ranch, it’s incredible. The only thing worrying me is that it’s a real tinderbox, with all that wood. I can only imagine what might happen if there was a fire and someone was trapped inside...”
I want to say something, but all my words have shriveled up, dry as ashes. It isn’t until Victoria gets up to leave that my voice returns. “Why did you agree to the manslaughter charge instead of murder?” How I hate that she holds this power over me, that she still has answers to my questions, and I detest myself for being incapable of letting her walk away with them.
She sighs deeply, sounding content. “You never know who’ll end up on the jury. What if one of them had convinced the others somehow you really were innocent?” She smiles. “This way we ensured a conviction. Which reminds me. Ms. Allerton sends her regards.”
“Ms. Allerton? My attorney?”
“Yes, isn’t she great? Alison and our father go way back.”
The final pieces slot into place, the heavy lid of a sarcophagus sealing my fate as she buries me alive. “She took my case because you asked her to,” I whisper.
“Eighteen years.” Victoria gives me a sad look as she shakes her head. “Rumor has it the assistant attorney general offered twelve.”
It’s the last thing Victoria says before she leaves, her sweet floral perfume trailing after her, hanging in the air like a noose. I watch her go, now understanding what I’m up against, and all I can think is eighteen years.
As the door closes behind her, it rips the hinges off another, the one in my heart marked Evil. The one she said was there, which I now know is true. And from where I’m sitting on this cold hard seat in this despicable place, my sentence seems barely long enough to plan my revenge.
Just over seventeen years before I can come for you, Gemma. Before I can save you.
I just hope it won’t be too late.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The best part of being an author is the people, and writing the acknowledgments in their honor is an absolute treat. It’s the fourth time I’ve had the pleasure of doing so, and I’m incredibly lucky to have a long list of individuals to whom my gratitude extends.
First of all to you, the reader. Whether you’re a librarian, reviewer, blogger, book club member, work at a bookstore or are “just” an avid reader: thank you for spending time with my characters. It’s a privilege that you chose this story and I hope you found it time well spent. Special shout-outs to the incredible social media and #bookstagram communities I’ve had the pleasure of discovering. Kate, Sonica, Suzy, Tonni—among many—your joy and enthusiasm keep me going when I want to hit Ctrl+A, Delete.
To Carolyn Forde, agent and person extraordinaire—thank you for all your expertise and advice. I’m thrilled to be safely tucked under your wing and can’t wait to see what we do next.
Huge thanks to Michelle Meade for falling in love with the initial concept of this novel, and to Emily Ohanjanians for taking over as my super talented, gracious editor. Your savvy input moved the story to another level, and I’ve absolutely loved every minute of us working together.
To the wonderful Harlequin, HarperCollins Canada and MIRA teams, including Cory Beatty, Peter Borcsok, Nicole Brebner, Audrey Bresar, Randy Chan, Heather Connor, Carol Dunsmore, Lia Ferrone, Emer Flounders, Heather Foy, Olivia Gissing, Miranda Indrigo, Amy Jones, Sean Kapitain, Linette Kim, Karen Ma, Ashley MacDonald, Leo MacDonald, Lauren Morocco, Melissa Nowakowski, Irina Pintea and colleagues: you’re my heroes. Thank you for everything!
Thank you, HarperAudio, BeeAudio and the incredible performers who turn my work into audiobooks and make them accessible to disabled individuals, too. I’m forever grateful. Hope to hear you on the next one, Alex. To Brad and Britney at AudioShelf—thank you for your fun-filled support. Love you two!
I’m continually humbled
by the generosity of those who take the time to answer my weird (and downright evil) questions with good humor. Special thanks to Bruce Coffin for making Victoria more despicable than I’d planned, and to Sam Blaney for the medical advice. Kudos to Harlan Gingold, Erik from Jones, Rich & Barnes Funeral Home, and Dina from Maine Medical Center for not hanging up when I said, “I have a few strange questions but I’m an author, honest.”
Waving at the brilliant Sarah Lewis and Jo Gatford from WritersHQ.co.uk (Plotstormers rules!) and my local writing group, Donna, Lyanne, Mary and Shauna.
To my GTA clan: Sam Bailey, Karma Brown, Amy Dixon, Molly Fader, Jennifer Hillier, Lydia Laceby, Jennifer Robson, Marissa Stapley and K.A. Tucker, who continue showing me how it’s done with skill, flair and finesse. Farther-away hugs to Wendy Heard—thanks for having my back.
In a very short time I’ve met so many authors I’m honored to call my friends. It makes for a huge list, and I’m terrified I’ll leave someone out, but here goes: Amy, Alex, Elizabeth, Emily, Gilly, Heather G, Heather Gk., J.T., Jill, Julia, Kaira, Karen, Kate, Kerry, Kimberly, Laura, Mary, Mindy, Pam, Penni, Rebecca, Robyn, Roz, Samantha, Shannon, Vicki, Wendy W and all the others I’ve met since writing this—you are brilliant, fierce authors and inspire me every single day. Thank you for your advice and encouragement, and for always being there. The writing community truly is like no other I’ve experienced.
To Mum and Dad, Joely & Co.: lots’o’love and thanks for believing in me from the start. To my in-laws, Gilbert and Jeanette and my extended families, much love also. Thank you for reading my books and spreading the word. Thank you to Becki for always telling me, “Yes, you can.”
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