“I need to tell you something. I didn’t think I’d need to, but I think it will help us figure out what’s going on.” He stands straighter, keeping his voice low for privacy. It’s already hard trying to pretend everything is normal with the detectives joining us for dinner, Lily’s foolish idea. She was for sure thinking with her vagina on that one.
“The little girl is Willow’s sister.” He reveals, my entire body stilling as I look at him with an expression of horror.
“Does she know you put her sister in the hospital?”
He shakes his head. “She wasn’t in the country at the time, lived with her mother abroad. We never met and her dad never mentioned her once. I only know who she is because I did a dive on the girl's family after.” He trails off, sipping his beer and looking into the dining room where Willow swirls her flute and laughs at something Bran just said. Jay still hasn’t returned from getting wine, as Mavis keeps looking towards the doors into the house.
“Do you think Corbin wanted her to put two and two together when we found your secret?” My brain slowly tries to connect the dots if there are any to even piece together.
“I don’t know. It’s the only reason I can think he’d use that against me. Hope she got mad enough to leak it. This is the first time we've met, but I can tell she probably would try to take me down.” That did make sense, especially after finding her secret leaking personal information and photos of Wren to thepress for money. The way she got under Cardinals skin without knowing who he was, left no doubt in my mind that if she’d found out the truth, she would have gone ahead with something like that. Nothing like a woman scorned.
Sighing, I look over at the curly haired man who hasn’t stopped staring at me the entire time I’ve been away from him. “I think we should tell Wren.” I say, curling my finger to beckon him over before Cardinal can protest. Phin also follows like the little pup he is, and I hope whatever medication he clearly is on to keep him so calm, helps numb the topic of conversation.
“You called, pretty girl.” He wraps his arms around my waist in a protective gesture I kind of like.
“Ok, so we have something to tell you. Please keep it to yourself and don’t kill her.”
He frowns. “Kill who?”
Sighing, I unhook him from my body and dive straight in. “Cardinals secret involves Willow's sister. She doesn’t know who he is, but I think Corbin had planned for her to figure his secret out and connect the dots. It’s nothing bad,” I cringe, not knowing what to do with my hands because I don’t want to lie. It kind of is bad and I shoot Cardy an apologetic smile, but he’s looking down at his feet. “It’s not creepy bad I mean, not like that. I think he wanted her to figure it out and once we left here, leak his secret to the press or something. We found her secret—Wren I’m so sorry. She leaked your private information to the press, and photos for money.”
I watch as his expression turns from confusion into anger, back to confusion before his eyes become dull of all light. His jaw tenses and he physically shakes himself before looking fully composed. I think it’s taking everything in him not to explode right now and none of us could blame him if he did want to confront her. He must have trusted her to some degree and I could see the storm tearing him apart.
“You’re right. I do want to kill her.” He says calmly, which makes the tension in the conservatory rise.
Phin pulls him away from me and into a little hug, pouting whilst rubbing a palm over his friend's chest. “It’s alright Wrenny, nothing like pruning the weeds.”
We all frown at him.
“Pruning weeds? What the fuck does that mean?” Cardinal scowls, sipping more of his beer till he basically has dregs left in the bottom.
“You know, chopping the loose cord or whatever. She’s not a nice girl—here is a very nice girl.” He gestures to me, beaming like his logic makes perfect sense.
To my surprise, Cardinal lets out a low noise in his throat and points his bottle at Phoenix. “You know nothing about her. She’s not a cord or a weed—fucking whatever.” He shakes his palm open between them. “Should you be drinking on whatever medication you’ve been given?”
Phin waves him off. “Probably not, but hey—you only live once.”
I roll my eyes, but I don’t miss the sadness to his smile or the worried look Wren flashes at him. “Is any of that a possible motive? Having our dark secrets revealed makes us all suspects if that’s the case.”
Phin waggles his finger at him. “Unless he’s a very good actor and is playing us!”
Tutting, he pushes his finger out of his face. “I did nothing to your brother. I don’t know you all well, but why would I be helping Drew if I had?”
“Should we all be a little more sensitive—” I get cut off.
“If you didn’t do it, then your secret being revealed doesn’t have legs. No one else would benefit from my brother's death other than your sister. Willow clearly doesn’t know who you are or she’d be telling the whole hotel what you did. Aya could havefound out about the secrets, realised that Corbin had written one for you and in the heat of passionate anger, bopped him on the head and did a runner.” As Phin stands taller, proud of his idea, lots of things happen around me.
“Alright Marple! Bloody hell.” Wren scolds.
“Are you acusing my sister of fucking murder?” Cardinal clenches his jaw, whilst I place my hand firmly between them and shake my head.
“Well someone here did it.” Phin shrugs, before a large palm grabs the front of his shirt.
“My sister did not commit fucking murder!”
Wren tries to move my little frame from the circle but I clasp at the arm attached to my best friend's shirt and pull; removing it. “Right, enough of this! We don’t need to give them more of a reason to talk to us, so let’s go sit down. Phin, can I have a word please.”
Cardinal grabs another beer and stalks off back to the dining room, whilst Wren lingers for a moment like he’s considering staying to have his own conversation with him, but kisses the top of my head and heads inside. Linking our arms together I move him deeper into the conservatory, scanning for any empty glasses he might have left before crossing my arms and facing him.
