Watching them carefully, I retrieve the tablets I’ve already extracted from the blister packet and plop one into each of their mugs. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not haloperidol,’ I assure Kara, whose expression is alarmed, to say the least. ‘Just the mild sedative I gave you before. It will help calm your nerves.
‘So, Jemma,’ I turn to her, ‘are you going to tell your friend how deceitful you’ve been, that you fucked my husband behind my back while lying to my face? That you encouraged his relationship withher,’ I nod towards Kara, ‘even knowing what a manipulative bastard he is?’
‘He’snot.’ Jemma defends him, astonishingly. ‘He’s none of the things you say he is. When my mum died, he was really kind to me. We didn’t intend for?—’
‘Ha.’ I laugh derisively. ‘I doubt very much your husband will think he’skind, that your kids will when their father walks out.’
‘Please don’t tell him,’ she begs tearfully. ‘It happenedonce. One time, I swear. There was never any affair. I’ll do anything you say, but please don’t tell Andrew.’
‘I gathered you would.’ I look her over contemptuously. In a way, though, I feel sorry for her. She’s so pathetically weak. Was it really just a one-night stand? I doubt that. Jack was constantly ringing her. Holding the threat that it would come to light over her in order to extract information from her? ‘Tell Kara howkindyou are, why don’t you? How youkindlyrelayed everythingshe told you to me. Just like you would have relayed everything I told you – inconfidence– to Jack.’
Jemma’s gaze shoots to Kara, her eyes filled with trepidation.
‘That’s not true,’ Kara whispers, clearly shaken. ‘Is it?’
‘I’msorry,’ Jemma cries, tears plopping wetly down her cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to, I swear. She threatened to tell Andrew, and I… Please don’t say anything to him.’ She looks at Kara imploringly. ‘If he finds out, it will destroy him. I love him, Kara. I made one mistake. Just one, and I am so,sosorry.’
Kara is obviously struggling to process what she’s hearing. ‘You’ve gone along with this because you were being blackmailed?’ she asks, staring at Jemma, confounded. ‘You actually supplied Natalia with information about me?’
Jemma nods wretchedly. ‘I should have been stronger. I’m not. I… I didn’t know what todo.I don’t want to lose Andrew. My home, my family. Surely you above all people can understand that.’
I sigh and eye the ceiling, then pull out Kara’s phone. Let’s see how much Jack cares for her, shall we? I’m about to send him a text when a little voice nags in my head.What if he doesn’t come back?If I tell him I’m holding hostage the woman he thought was worth killing for until he tells the truth, there’s a possibility he will alert the police instead.
‘Enough with the tears,’ I growl, growing irritated as I try to think what to do. Eyeing Jemma distastefully, I take out her phone too. The right message from her is sure to bring him charging back. ‘And hurry up and drink your tea,’ I add. ‘It will make you feel better. Well, better than you would being awake anyway.’
SIXTY-TWO
Jack doesn’t respond to my text, but I can see that he’s read it. He’s wary. He’ll be aware by now that Kara’s poor broken body is not in the vicinity of the wreckage. Wondering about the cryptic implication of my message. He will come, though. His overriding concern will be for Evie.
Satisfied as I imagine his escalating panic, his fear that every aspect of his deceitful, murderous personality is about to be exposed, I turn my attention to the dilemma of how to convince my rivals of his dubious affections that they need to take me seriously.
Glancing around the room, my eyes fall on the wood-burning stove. A box of matches sits on the mantel beam above. My mind goes to what Jack had told Kara about his family, no doubt to gain her sympathy. Keeping one eye on my captives, I stroll towards the beam and pick the matches up. Then ponder a moment.
‘It must be a terrible way to go, burning in a house fire,’ I say, sighing expansively as I stroll back. ‘Excruciatingly painful, I imagine.’
‘You’re not serious.’ Kara looks at me in abject horror as I open the box and draw a match from it.
‘Oh, but I am.’ Striking the match, I hold it aloft, watch it burn for a second, then purse my lips and blow it out. ‘Deadly serious. You’d better hope that Jack really is ascaringas you imagine he is. All he needs to do is tell the truth, and then all of this will be over. For you, anyway. Jack has to pay. My guess is he will know that. Do you think he’s gallant enough to ride to your rescue, Kara? Really?’ I eye her questioningly.
Her expression is somewhere between disdain and disgust. I find that upsetting, because although I’m no paragon of virtue, she can hardly claim to be one either.
‘I sense I’m being judged.’ I raise my eyebrows, unimpressed. ‘What would you do, Kara, if it was you he tried to murder? If he tried to take your child away from you?’ Then, ‘Oh, I forgot. Hewastrying to, wasn’t he? And you ran. I couldn’t do that. Not without my daughter.’
She scans my eyes for a long, searching moment. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asks, as if she hasn’t heard a single word I’ve said.
‘I justtoldyou,’ I snap, my patience wearing paper-thin. ‘Because I want mydaughterback.’
‘And you thinkthisis the way to do it?’ She stares at me, incredulous. ‘Threatening to kill me? To kill Jemma?’
Jemma flinches at that, yet more tears spilling from her eyes. ‘Drink your tea,’ I tell her wearily. I’m growing tired. I want this to be over as much as they doubtless do, but I won’t walk away without Evie.
‘Threatening to kill her father, drugging her grandmother?’ Kara goes on, her eyes narrowed with incomprehension. ‘EvielovesLina. Do you think for one minute that she will have any feelings for you other than hatred when she finds out what you’ve done?’
‘She won’t find out,’ I assure her, with more confidence than I feel. She might, but I hold on to my conviction that deepdown Evie knows the truth about what happened on that dark day when my life was supposed to have ended. That she and I both loved a man who wasn’t worthy of our love. A man who perhaps doesn’t consider himself worthy of love and therefore mercilessly manipulates people in order to keep them.
Realising I’m almost feeling sorry for him, even now, I pull myself up sharp. This is exactly what I did before, feeling sorry and guilty foreverything.No more. ‘I will do whatever it takes to make sure Jack gets what he deserves,’ I assure Kara, making sure to hold her gaze. I can’t have her thinking she’s found my Achilles heel. ‘And then I will simply disappear again, taking my daughter with me. No one knows I’m here with you. So you see, no one will point the finger at me. It will just have been an unfortunate accident. Your house is stunningly beautiful, but you have to admit, being made mostly of wood, it’s a real fire hazard.’
‘Oh God.’ Jemma gasps out a ragged sob.
