“Don’t tell me you feel bad for him?” I say, confused by their reaction.
“You killed him?” Owen asks.
Maria gasps, looking at him, shaking her head.
“Yeah.” I lean back and grab a biscuit. “Poetic justice, really, when you think about how much he took from each of us. Karma would always get him, except it wasn’t Karma. It was Kara.”
“Lucy,” Owen whispers before standing, staring right through me.
I force down the soggy biscuit, but it sits heavy in my stomach as unease coils tight in my gut.
“Owen,” Maria says, reaching for his hand.
But he steps away, looking back at me, frowning and shaking his head again.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, a prickle of dread crawling up my spine, heat rushing beneath my skin like a warning.
“I-I need a minute,” Owen says, before clearing his throat and leaving the small, comforting living room, which is anything but comforting in this moment.
“What just happened?” I ask Maria who watches after him.
“What did you read in the file?” Maria asks, turning back to me. “Owen said he had told some bits, but what did that man find?”
“That he was put in prison for murder and later exonerated—wait.” I frown and stare at Maria, then at the empty doorway that Owen walked through. My mind works through the angles.
The front door closes, and I stand as the realisation settles.
“No. No. No. No.” I blink. Stunned as I try to make sense of it all.
Maria joins me standing, trying to reach across to me. “This is all because of me?” Stars dance in my eyes. “He went to prison because of what I did to James?”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
They thought it was Owen.
43
Kara - Present
Hesitsonthehood of the Tesla looking at the sky; the gravel crunching loudly in the surrounding stillness. The coldness of the air seeps under my jacket, making me shiver and goosebumps pepper my skin.
Owen spins something in his hand. The hard drive, spinning between his fingers.
Round, and round, and round.
I climb up onto the bonnet and lean back against the windscreen. We look at the clear night sky, the twinkling of the stars, the planes that are blinking miles above us, flying to some unknown destination. Somewhere better than here.
He leans back with me, and silence descends.
The distant sound of cars and a random siren are the only thing between us.
“Luca Knight saved me,” he finally says, breaking the horrendous silence.
I glance across, completely lost for words.
