Bella’s face begins to crumple.
“Please, let me take her. She’s scared.” I reach for Bella.
Venetia whisks her to her side, tucking her under her arm, and waves me away.
“Ah, ah. No. You’ll get her back in due course, if that’s what you choose.”
“I do, that’s what I choose, please!”
“You haven’t heard the other option yet.”
What other option could there possibly be?Of course I want Bella back.
Greta pulls herself to a kneeling position, rubbing her head. She looks over at me, then at Venetia, her face creasing in confusion.
“This is Venetia,” I say, as calmly as I can. “Her sister, Aimee, was one of two people murdered last week in Cherrywood.”
Venetia shakes her head. “Interesting use of the passive tense there, Susan. As if it had nothing to do with you.” She turns to Greta. “I’ll explain. Your sister here sent a message to hundreds of people last week, with a reference to Warren Geary and the PR girl from Bar Four. That PR girl was my sister Aimee. And Aimee’s husband, Rory, was not a nice man. He didn’t like Aimee going out or having friends and wasn’t mad on her having a job either, but tolerated it for the extra cash it brought in. Then he saw that message and it tipped him over the edge.”
Oh god, no.
Venetia leans against the counter, still holding Bella at her side. With her other hand, she picks up the tire iron and slides one end of it into the back pocket of her jeans. Then she pulls a knife from the knife block.
“Rory came home that night, and do you know what he did? He beat my sister to death.”
Blood roars in my ears.This can’t be happening.
Greta stares at Venetia. “That’s a horrific thing to happen.” Calming. Soothing. “For your poor sister, and for you. But it was Rory who killed Aimee, not Susan. Susan couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“That’s not going to bring my sister back, is it? Excuses and not-my-faults?”
Greta touches the back of her head and winces. “I understand, but whatever about Susan, it’s definitely not Bella’s fault.”
Venetia looks at Bella, then at me. “That’s why I’m giving you the choice.” She pauses. “You can choose your baby or your sister.”
“What?”
“I lost my sister. Now you pay with yours. Unless you don’t want to, in which case, you get to save your sister and we sacrifice the baby instead.” She holds the tip of the knife against Bella’s neck. Bella is crying now.
“Please don’t do this. I’m so sorry about your sister—”
“Say her name.”
“I’m so sorry about Aimee.” I take a tiny step forward. “But you must know that I couldn’t have predicted this. I never meant it. I’m not the first person in the world to send a message to the wrong group. We’ve all done it.”
Venetia shakes her head. “See, you’re doing it again. Making excuses. Deflecting blame.”
Deflecting blame. I think about my theory—that it wasn’t Aimee with Warren, but Venetia. Is that part of this? Putting the entire blame on me to deflect her own guilt, her own part in this mess?
“I know it wasn’t Aimee,” I say softly. I take another tiny, tiny step forward. “With Warren.”
Her eyes narrow. She wasn’t expecting this.
“You’re still doing it, still trying to blame other people,” she says, recovering quickly. “It doesn’t matter whether or not Aimee was really with Warren Geary, what matters is she’s dead, and that’s down to you. So now we’re going to even things up.”
She moves the tip of the knife so it indents the skin on Bella’s neck. I jump forward and, this time, she swipes the knife against Bella’s arm and draws blood. Bella lets out a loud, shocked cry.
“Susan, stop, stay back! She’ll hurt her again!” Greta croaks. She has hauled herself on to a kitchen chair.
