Morrie rubbed his bicep. “Because I did kill her.”
“Shhhh.” My gaze flicked back to the officer, but he waved his arm about like a conductor, completely oblivious to Morrie’s confession. “Don’t say things like that. Didn’t you listen when they cautioned you?”
“Relax, gorgeous. He can’t hear a word over his Vivaldi. I’m more a fan of the Russian composers myself. No sense of melody whatsoever, but they embraced chaos—”
“Stop talking for a second so I can think.” I sucked in a deep breath. My hand sought the comfort of Morrie’s long fingers. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Jo’s our friend. She’ll go over that body fifty times,a hundred times, until she finds the evidence to exonerate you. Is your phone in your pocket? I bet you’ve got some fancy lawyer friend down in London on speed dial. We’ll call him and…”
My words trailed off as I noticed Morrie wasn’t listening to me. His gaze was glued to his window, where houses and rolling fields whizzed past at top speed. The corner of his mouth tugged upward, but I couldn’t tell if it was a smirk or a grimace.
That’s odd. We should have reached the police station by now.It was only a few blocks across the village of Argleton. Instead, the oaks of Kings Copse Wood loomed over us as the squad car snaked out of the village, past quaint farm buildings and towering hedgerows, toward the wild peaks of the Barsetshire Fells.
“Morrie…” I poked him in the ribcage. “Why aren’t we going to the police station?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
“Hey!” I banged on the cage separating us from the uniformed officer. “Where are you taking us? What’s going on?”
In response, the officer turned the music up louder. I yelled and shook the cage. Morrie joined in, but neither of us could elicit even a nod of acknowledgment from the officer.
Fear clutched at my stomach.This doesn’t make any sense. Hayes would have told us if we were being taken somewhere else. What’s going on?
“What should we do?” I asked Morrie.
“I don’t have my phone on me,” Morrie patted his pockets. “I left it beside the bed. I do have a Montblanc pen I might be able to fashion into some sort of weapon—”
“It may come to that.” I pulled my own phone from my pocket and dialed Quoth. When I raised it to my head, a weird hissing noise assaulted my eardrum, followed by a series of beeps. “What’s that? Quoth? Can you hear me?”
Morrie took the phone from me and tried another call. “It’s not connecting. The cop’s got some sort of jamming device in front. We’re not getting through to anyone.”
I stared at the picture of a litter of guide dog puppies on my phone’s lock screen. My vision blurred until the puppies became a blob. “Okay, I’m officially scared now.”
Morrie reached over and tried the door and window. Both were locked. He glanced back to me, but didn’t say a thing, which only made my chest constrict more. Morrie always had a smartarse comment for every situation.
He laced his fingers in mine and squeezed. That squeeze told me more than words ever could – the indomitable James Moriarty was just as scared as I was.
We drove for what seemed like hours through increasingly barren dales. Limestone outcrops jutted through tufts of heather bent double in the wind. We wound through narrow roads up into what passed for mountains in the UK (an ‘arduous hill’ in any country with actual wilderness). We passed a small village named Barset Reach – just a collection of stone cottages, a pub, and a petrol station – and turned off the road onto a forest track.
Trees bent over the road, swiping at the sides and roof of the car – the fingers of a forest witch threatening to drag us away to a gingerbread house. Darkness swept my vision as the trees obscured the light, and my temples flared with a migraine as my eyes strained to make out shapes and shadows.
We came to a fork in the road. As the car swung right, Morrie leaned over and read out the sign. “It says, WILD OATS WILDERNESS SURVIVAL SCHOOL,’ but it’s pointing left.” He frowned. “I recognize that name.”
“Why are you frowning like that? Did you go there on a company team-building day and they make you eat cockroaches?”
“That’s where Kate Danvers’ body was found.”
Shite. So why has the cop brought us back to the crime scene without telling Hayes?I squeezed Morrie’s hand as the sharp stab of my migraine pierced my skull. Fluorescent green and orange lights danced in front of my eyes. Nothing like sheer terror to make vision loss worse.
We drove away from Wild Oats, away from the last sign of civilization, and bumped our way along a deteriorating path until we came to a clearing in the trees. The officer shut off the car and picked up his gun from the seat. The doors made a clicking noise as he released the lock.
“Get out of the car,” he growled, tugging his peaked cap low over his face to hide his eyes in shadow.
My fingers trembled so hard it took me three tries to push the handle to open the door. Morrie was already around the side of the car, tugging me into his arms. He steadied me with his possessive grip, and I noticed he angled himself so he was between me and the constable, who I was now certain was not a real officer of the law. “I am a rich man. Whoever is paying you to do this, I’ll double it. If you let Mina go, we can talk terms.”
“Typical.” The officer’s voice dripped with derision. “You assume I am as corruptible as you. Girl, hand me your phone.”
I thought about pretending I didn’t have my phone with me, but I couldn’t stop staring at the barrel of that gun. I drew my phone out of my pocket and held it out. The officer leaned forward to grab it from me. His fingers brushed mine and, for a moment, a sickly heat crackled on my skin. I itched to slap him, to scratch his eyes out,anythingother than standing here like a useless fool.
The officer tossed my phone into a puddle, where it fizzed and sparked. The screen went blank as the puppies disappeared under the brackish water.
