He frowns, offended. “We did what we needed to do. Sam just… handled a situation.” Sam gives a little shrug, like he’s a customer service assistant explaining why the item is out of stock.
“She didn’t deserve to die,” I say.
“Oh, come on, Tom, let’s not pretend that she was Mother Teresa,” Pete rolls his eyes. “She didn’t give a fuck about her brother for years. Chris told me what their relationship was really like. She was selfish and manipulative. She was only interested in Chris whenit served her purpose. She just wanted an alibi to get her off that arson charge.”
My stomach turns. This is no defence. But also, I’m losing the fight to challenge back. “Whyme?”
Pete leans back into the sofa like he’s about to deliver a TED Talk. “Because you’re perfect, Tom. Warm, lovely, funny. But also lonely, desperate to be loved—”
“I wasn’t—”
“And very, very rich.”
My throat closes. “What?”
“I mean that massive house for just you and your cat in Clifton is a bit of a giveaway. But I knew all about your inheritance before we first met.”
“What? How?”
He almost smiles. “Guy told me.”
The name hits me like a knife. “Guy? What—?”
Pete tilts his head gently, patronising. “You didn’t think our meeting was just luck, did you? Yeah, Guy told us all about it. Sam met him first, actually. Grindr. Had a little thing going for a while.”
Sam nods. “We used to meet on Tuesdays. I think your night was Thursdays, wasn’t it?”
My eyes widen. “What?” I whisper.
“We’d meet up, we’d chat. You know what Guy was like, loved to open up. He mentioned your inheritance one night,” he continues, casual as weather. “Just in passing. Said he was dating some guy who’d come into millions. We realised very quickly what we could do with it.”
“But he was also talking about leaving his wife for you,” Pete adds. “And we couldn’t have you having a happy ending with him.”
A sound leaves me — part sob, part disbelief. “You — you killed him. You killed Guy?”
Sam exhales, bored with my grief. “We removed an obstacle. We’re good at that. We just needed you feeling a bit… vulnerable.”
Pete gestures around us, calm, logical. “Tom, look at the pattern. James. Emma. Guy. All people getting in the way of what we’re trying to build. James was working with some lawyer friend to help him escape. They’d have their secret meetings, about the hidden accounts, funnelling my money, the new identity—”
“Phil…” I whisper.
“Yes, Phil! How did you know?”
I don’t respond. I don’t need to tell them about me following James. Or how Phil is my best friend’s husband.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now anyway,” Pete waves his hand like he’s waving away a fly. “He’s also been sorted now.”
My heart skips a beat. “How? What did you do?”
Sam laughs. “Let’s just say I had to wipe a Phil-shaped faceprint off the windscreen of my car.”
No. Not Phil too.
Sam wipes an invisible dust speck off his sleeve. “I took care of it this afternoon. Car, pavement — impact does most of the work. Should look like a basic hit-and-run if no one looks too hard.”
My vision blurs. “Phil is dead?”
Pete sighs like I’m ruining the mood. “He was a liability. But still — better clean than complicated.”
