But that wasn’t the headline.
With trembling fingers, I scrolled and read.
Mila Marchant is a coward.
It was a brutal piece, centred on the relative of one of the women who’d died on theEden. The lady, Bella, had travelled to the UK in pursuit of answers.
They won’t let me bury my cousin. No answers have come from the Marchants, and their princess, Mila Marchant, has refused to meet with me. Her solicitor told me to take my request to her grandmother. That coward. Passing me off to an elderly lady. My cousin’s name was Tia, Mila Marchant, and she was twenty-three years old. Face me and face whatyou’vedone.
A quarter of an hour on, and half of the skeleton girls were in my apartment, only Cassie and Everly not present. Tyler left with a worried expression but a final loving kiss. He’d be leaving tonight to go out on a people raid. I’d only made one request.
Not Denise. Not yet.
He didn’t ask me to explain why.
Lovelyn scowled at her phone. “There’s nothing on the new arrests. I know it’s early, but I thought Lyle would be yelling this from the rooftops. The police have had huge criticisms over inaction and no results. Why aren’t they celebrating the arrest of real villains?”
“Could you ask him?” Genevieve said.
Lovelyn gave a dramatic shudder. “I’ll try my father first.”
She stabbed a number and took her phone to the window, staring out at the grey city.
On the sofa, Mila curled in on herself, holding one of my pink pillows as if it were a shield.
“I’m so sorry. It’s so unfair,” I said.
She shook her head in disbelief. “The solicitors didn’t even tell me about the request. They said I’d asked not to be contacted, and for all demands to be sent to our grandmother, so they were just following orders. How could they not see this was different?”
“Would you want to talk to this woman?”
“Absolutely. She’s owed it, and I can’t imagine how she’s feeling. But it’ll be a media spectacle. I don’t know how to stop that.”
She scrubbed her face with her hands, frustration plain.
My heart hurt and hurt some more.
“Tomorrow is the vote. The solicitors advised that without Sullivan appearing, it can’t go ahead. I can’t do anything to change any part of this.”
Her phone rang, and she snatched it from under the cushion with a grimace that suggested she might throw it. Instead, she checked the screen, rolled her eyes, and tossed it back down. “Wallace.”
I curled my lip. “I never liked him. He gives off damp handshake energy.”
“He’s the worst. Lazy, slobbish, loves spending money he never earned. Did you spend much time with him?”
“He didn’t often come home. Our grandparents despaired over him in my earshot. He was always calling up to ask for top-up money because he wanted to go to some new and exclusive resort with amazing friends he was sure would offer him business opportunities.”
Mila scoffed. “A job? He’s never had one.”
Lovelyn muttered an end to her call and returned to us, her expression still just as dark. “My father said the same answer as when I questioned him on the bodies being announced. ‘It’s political.’ What does that even mean?”
Mila’s gaze turned speculative. “They’ll name inconvenient names. Which means someone’s leaning on the police to slow any updates on that case, or even stop them. Who has that power?”
“Arran does,” Lovelyn said. “I don’t mean it would be him, of course, but he pays off people like my father, so others must be able to.”
I made a face. “I hate answers that start with ‘anyone rich enough’.”
Mila rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “It’s right, though. Basically anyone with enough cash. Like the top business owners in the city might. It feels like all we need is one tangible piece of evidence and a network will be exposed.”
