by Ruby Loren
Like in a horror movie, I heard Aimee’s footsteps approaching.
“Once you’re gone, we’re going to be together. He’s always liked me, you know,” she said, almost conversationally.
“I’ve never been after Ben!” I protested. “I love my fiancé!”
The footsteps paused and a foolish spark of hope grew inside me.
“But he likes you,” Aimee said and I felt it extinguish. I thought about protesting but… Ben had hardly been subtle about it, had he? He’d practically propositioned me last night and I had a good idea of who might have been watching from the shadows.
The knife slashed under the table and I pressed back, straining to get out of reach. My hand brushed something hard and I looked down and realised that, for some reason, a plastic chopping board had been dropped and forgotten. I seized it, glad of some kind of shield.
I had a moment of pure terror when Aimee crouched down and I witnessed the look of obsessive madness on her face. Then she lunged for me with complete abandon. I instinctively brought my chopping board up to defend myself. There was a nasty scraping sound and I experienced brief relief before Aimee’s entire body weight ploughed into me. I hit the back wall and felt my shoulder crunch against the brickwork. I could add that to my list of bruises, if I got out of here in one piece.
I kicked out, feeling my feet connect with something. An opening appeared and I pushed off from the wall, rolling forwards and scrabbling my way out from beneath the table, imagining the feel of the knife sinking into one of my trailing legs. I pulled them up beneath me and rolled a little further, before casting a glance backwards to find out how much trouble I was in.
Aimee was still lying under the table.
As I watched, she turned a little and moaned. I suddenly realised that the knife was sticking out from her left side. The board had deflected the knife, but Aimee had thrown everything into her lunge. It must have turned back towards her and then her own body weight had left her impaled.
The door to the food store burst open and the police rushed in.
When they took in the barely moving girl under the table and the blood staining the hand she had clasped over the place where the knife was sticking out, they turned on me.
“She attacked me!” I said but it was clear they didn’t believe it.
Katya strode into the room and barked some orders out in Spanish. She may have claimed to just be working as a token English cop on the force, but the other officers immediately changed their demeanour. I shot Katya a grateful look and then my face probably did strange things as I tried to work out how grateful I should look to a strange police officer who I wasn't supposed to know.
Katya rolled her eyes to let me know how badly I was failing. “I guess I’ll call the ambulance,” she said, shaking her head at the officers who had gone to handcuff the injured woman. They’d realised how seriously she was injured and were now arguing. Then, she dragged me a little way away from them.
“Did she do it?” Katya asked, curious.
“Not exactly,” I said and explained that Aimee hadn’t technically killed anyone - although it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Katya swore. “Back to square one.”
“She’s still a twice attempted murderer,” I pointed out, feeling a bit miffed. “Three times, if you can get her to confess to pushing me in the aquarium.”
Katya looked at me. “You’re still alive. The pressure to catch the killer of someone famous is off the charts. I can’t get out of here until the case has been wrapped up. I’m the police liaison for the British media covering it. It’s like a living nightmare.”
“You really want to get back to working for them?”
Katya looked thoughtful. “I do. I know I say it’s bad but… it’s who I am. I think it’s what I’m supposed to be doing. You know?”
“I do know,” I agreed, thinking of my own line of work. “Just… no more spying on me.”
“No guarantees.” Katya threw me a sideways smile and then moved off to conduct official business when the ambulance arrived.
I watched her go and wondered if our paths were destined to keep crossing.
14
Old Friends, New Enemies
Once the adrenaline of nearly being stabbed had worn off, I discovered that my shoulder was seriously painful. There was no way I was getting in the ambulance with Aimee, but I was grateful when Katya took me to the hospital in her car. My whole arm ached and I was getting sharp stabbing pains in the shoulder joint itself.
It took the doctor all of ten seconds to diagnose it as dislocated and then warn me this was going to hurt, before giving me some gas and air, asking me to stand up, and pushing it back into place. By the time Auryn arrived, I was sitting in a spare hospital bed feeling immensely sorry for myself.
“I only just heard what happened,” he said, looking angry.
“Sorry,” I said meekly, figuring I should have texted… even though my arm still felt like it was on fire.
“I’m just upset that I wasn’t there. You should never have had to face her on your own. They should have tried harder to find some evidence. Instead, I feel like you were used as bait!” Auryn sat down on the bed, his head hung low.
I patted his back with my working arm. “I’ll survive. Not so sure about Aimee. She’s the one who got stabbed.”
“You stabbed her?”
“No! She landed on the knife,” I said and then felt all sulky when he stopped looking confused and nodded. “I can be tough, too,” I muttered under my breath. Auryn responded by patting my head. “I hate you,” I told him, but he’d made me smile.
He moved closer until he was able to hug my good side. We sat like that, happy in each others’ company, until the door opened and the nurse walked in with some pretty heavy duty painkillers on a tray.
“It’s not often we get a stabbing! Mostly, it’s drunk people who’ve hurt themselves. At the worst, they’ve decided to have a fight and someone’s got glassed. Nice to have something interesting.”
“Glad to oblige,” I said, less politely than I might have done had I been in less pain.
The nurse smiled and offered me the pill tray. “Knock yourself out.” I privately hoped she meant literally.
The door opened as soon as she’d left and Ben Ravenwood walked in clutching a huge bouquet of brightly coloured flowers. He turned a bit pink when he saw Auryn. “I’m so sorry. I feel like this is all my fault.”
“It’s not. You didn’t try to stab me,” I said, graciously skimming over his expression of feelings for me, which might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of Aimee’s decision to go after me with a knife.
“Is Billie okay?” I asked, suddenly realising I hadn’t seen her since she’d fled the food prep building.
Auryn patted my hand. “She’s fine. She ran to the police and then Nile. That’s how I found out what had happened.”
A strange silence fell in the room. Ben and Auryn were watching each other warily. I discovered I was holding my breath.
“Look after her,” Ben said after a moment. He passed me the bouquet and then walked out of the room.
Auryn looked from me to Ben and back. “Wait… what?”
I smiled and shook my head at him. “I’m all yours,” I said, and then my head felt all fuzzy as the painkillers took hold and I realised that they were really, really strong… and that was really, really good.
The last thing I clearly remembered for a little while was the door of the room opening and Katya popping her head around the frame. “Just to let you know, she’s confessed to everything.”
When the pain surfaced again it was a little bit better. The fire in my arm had become a dull ache, and I could think a bit more clearly again. I had returned to writing my review of the park, and was surprising myself with how far along I’d got, when I happened to pull out my phone and discovered I had missed calls and a voicemail. I dialled the voicemail and the message played.
“Hello, I hope I’m talking to Madigan Amos. It’s Gina Alonso. I was wondering if you could call me about Aimee? I’ve been informed that you were involved in an altercation with her, and I was hoping you could call back to fill us in.” There was a hesitation and then she added: “Did she really kill Leona? Patrick and Travis need to have something to say to the press. The sooner we can get this business sorted, the better. Call me back.”
I frowned at my phone. Gina could use some work on her interpersonal skills. I was definitely going to take my sweet time when it came to calling her back. I also wasn’t willing to accept that her reason for wanting to know the lowdown on what had gone on was purely so they had something to say to the press. She wanted the gossip.
I shook my head and focused on my laptop again. I’d been let out of hospital an hour after I’d taken the painkillers. Auryn had asked me what I wanted to do. I’d told him to just return me to the park and leave me in the office. Our time was fast running out in Mallorca and I knew we both didn’t want to leave a job half done - no matter what happened.
Later that day, Tiff called and gave me an update on Lucky. Apparently, he’d managed to figure out how to open her gerbils’ cage and had nearly eaten Cheese and Beans. I’d definitely got the impression from her tone of voice that the sooner I came home, the better. I privately agreed with her.
Next, my phone rang and I answered to find Patrick the director on the phone, asking if I knew what had gone on with Aimee and also if I was at the park still. I’d sensed that he might be trying to rope me into a press opportunity, so I’d been deliberately vague. I’d only just got rid of one publicist… I didn’t want to land myself another publicity pusher.
Almost immediately after that, my phone rang again.
“Well, aren’t I popular today?” I said before looking down and seeing that it was Katya calling.
“Got any bright ideas who did it?” she asked when I answered. Her tone was sarcastic, but I thought she was actually being serious.
“Not really. What about Darius?” I still kind of wanted it to be Tiff’s now ex-boyfriend. He definitely wasn’t my favourite person.
“No… he has a pretty airtight alibi. After spending some time with Leona the night before, he actually stayed the night with another woman, and then he spent the morning filming reconstructions right up to a couple of minutes before he must have made a beeline to her caravan and found Leona dead. He didn’t have time to drug her and drown her prior to going in there, and we know that he went in after Aimee had done her thing.” She sighed. “My money is on Ben Ravenwood.”
“But why?” I argued. “What possible motive could he have?”
“They were in a relationship. She might have broken it off and he might have taken it badly. Or perhaps…” She took a deep breath and I somehow knew she was about to present the theory she actually believed. “…perhaps he knew about the disease she had and how bad it had got. Perhaps she asked him to end it for her.”
I bit my tongue, realising it was plausible. I’d been ready to argue against any notion that Ben had committed murder out of malice, but out of compassion and pity… that I could understand. “I don’t know…” I said, still not wanting to believe it. “He just seemed so surprised when we found out that she had sickle cell disease. He’s not an actor.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not a good liar.”
“I know… I just…” I stopped talking, realising I was defending a man I didn’t know all that well. I trusted my instincts, but were they reliable when it came to a motive that was different from cut and dry murder? I wasn’t sure. “But there’s no evidence,” I finished, lamely.
“Well, we have a warrant to search his caravan and hotel room - although he’ll have had ample time to clear that up by now.”
“So you might find nothing, even if he did do it?”
“It’s highly probable. If it were a lower profile case, a lovers’ pact is something I’d want him to get away with. But everyone's watching us. Leaving Leona Richards’ murder unsolved will be a black mark that the Mallorca police force may never be able to shake off.”
I raised an eyebrow. Katya must have sensed my scepticism because she continued.
“And I could end up stuck here for longer or be given a rubbish assignment by the company for failing. They expect a lot from us, you know. I want to get back as soon as possible. There might be good news at last…”
“Oh?” I asked, not exactly expecting an answer.
“Let’s just say, we may be closing in on an old friend of yours.”
My mind immediately jumped to my old literary agent, Jordan. If you were willing to overlook the fact that my whole publishing deal had been a sham and that I’d been manipulated every step of the way, he’d actually been a fairly decent agent. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t currently be a surprisingly successful comic book creator. It probably wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for MI5, either… but it was Jordan who had got me the fake publishing deal with the fake company, who had then printed my books and got them in front of a far wider audience than I’d ever dreamed of… or actually wanted.
“I hope everything works out for you,” I said, trying to keep the grudge out of my voice.
We said goodbye to one another. I was left with a half-finished review and a whole lot of uncertainty.
I decided to distract myself from tragic possibilities by pouring all of my energy into work. It also helped distract from the shoulder pain, which was starting to scream again.
To my surprise, it worked. I didn’t notice the day slipping by, and it was well past closing time when I heard someone walk into the office. I looked up from my laptop and froze.
Doreen Lopez looked back at me from across the room.
15
The Smile of a Dolphin
I don’t want any trouble,” she said, immediately throwing her hands in the air as if I was an armed gangster. “I just left something here. I will get it and go.” Her eyes were pleading.
“You didn’t kill Leona Richards, did you?” I asked, but it was halfhearted at best.
“No! I didn’t kill anyone. I know it says I did in that book, but I didn’t. It was all a horrible accident.”
I nodded like I understood, privately thinking that a lot of murderers would do their best to explain their crimes that way. “Why did you take a job here? You were a spy for the activists, weren’t you?”
Now Doreen looked a lot more uncomfortable. She may not be Leona’s killer, but she’d certainly been up to no good. “I just want to save animals.”
“You’ve been doing this kind of thing since the seventies. Surely you know it’s more complicated than that by now?”
She shot me a guilty look. “We just wanted to make a point. I’ve worked here long enough to know that not everything at The Big Blue is bad. Everyone I’ve met doesn’t want to exploit the animals they care for, but that doesn’t mean that their bosses feel the same way! Just look at that great white. I know it was released, and from what I’ve heard it hasn’t yet died, but if I’d stuck around here I guarantee I’d have been sitting in on a board meeting of furious shareholders demanding to know where the money earner disappeared to.” She rolled her eyes. “They’re the ones I want to stop. They’re the ones who never change.”
“The police are looking for you now.”
She nodded. “I know. I just want to get one thing and then I’ll go. You’ll never see me again, I promise.”
I took a long hard look at her. “I’m not sure what to believe.” Whilst I could get behind Doreen’s sentiment, I didn’t like her methods. However, I also felt pretty sure that she hadn’t murdered Leona. When she’d caught me with the book Leona had been reading, she’d run, not fought. If she’d been a coldblooded killer who’d murdered Leona and then pretended to know nothing, I very much doubted she’d have reacted so obviously.
When I was silent, Doreen shot me a grateful look, and then darted over to a desk in the far c
orner of the room.
I spun in my seat when someone knocked on the office door. I heard the sound of something - someone - hitting the floor behind me. I stood up, hoping to cover it. Turning a blind eye to Doreen’s escape was one thing, but having a witness was another.
“How are you?” Patrick asked, walking in with concern on his face.
I moved to shrug and regretted it. “I’m fine. I’m just glad they caught Aimee.”
The producer nodded. “Justice is finally served. Poor Leona. At least she burned out bright.” His hand drummed on the wood of the desk a couple of times before he looked off to the side. I hoped Doreen had hidden well. “Hey, was there a file brought back in here by Travis? I leant a book to Leona and I think it must have been in there because it wasn’t in her caravan when I went to look.”
“Oh, sure!” I said, standing up. “What was the book?”
Patrick pulled a pained face. “It was one on diseases of the world. I thought she was doing research for a documentary, or something. She must have been checking her symptoms. When you travel as much as we do…” He left the rest unsaid. I knew from my own research that sickle cell wasn’t caught, it was hereditary. However, I also knew it probably would feature in a book on diseases of the world, due to its prevalence in certain geographical areas.
“She’d have found out one way or another,” I reassured him with a small smile. “I’ll get the file down for you.”
I returned a second later with the file and opened it up. I moved the eco-warrior photographic account that had spooked Doreen and revealed a little book I hadn’t noticed before. Patrick reached out and took it.
To my surprise, he shook it upside down. When nothing fell out, he frowned.
“Were you looking for something?” I asked.
“It must still be in the file,” he said, reaching out for it.