‘It was an accident.’
Sarah stood up, shoved him hard in the chest and went down on her knees again. She took her sister in her arms and rocked her. ‘How can I believe you? You’ve lied to me since I arrived here. I saw how you treated her, and I let you! How could I have been so heartless?’
‘I didn’t hear you saying anything when we were fucking,’ Richard said. ‘You didn’t think of your sister then.’
His words chilled her. She gasped as she looked down at Louisa again, looking for any signs of life.
‘We have to call for an ambulance,’ she said. ‘They might be able to get her breathing again.’ She pushed images of an unresponsive Poppy from her mind. ‘They might be able to save her!’
‘She’s dead, Sarah.’
‘Then we’ll go to the police.’
‘And say what?’
‘That we found her here and she must have tripped and hurt herself.’
‘There are already bruises appearing around her neck. They’ll know what I did.’
Richard knelt down but Sarah still held on to Louisa.
‘We need to get rid of the body,’ he said.
Sarah turned to him sharply. ‘We can’t.’
‘If I go to prison, you’ll have to leave White Oaks and Daisy will be taken into care.’
‘I haven’t done anything wrong! It was you whohurt…who killed my sister! I can look after Daisy. She’s my family. The authorities would let her stay with a blood relative, especially after what you did.’
‘No, we’re burying her. In the woods.’
Sarah held on to her sister’s body. ‘We can’t.’
‘We can. And we have to.’ Richard got up. ‘I’ll go and fetch shovels.’
‘No!’
Richard backhanded her.
She sat in shock, numb to the pain that was to come. But as he walked towards the studio, she took a few deep breaths. How could he have done that to Louisa? She’d known he’d hit out at her sister every now and then, but she never imagined he would go that far. If she had, she would have got her away from him earlier, with Daisy. She would have gone too.
Richard was a psychopath. She doubted he’d meant this to happen. His temper had merely got the better of him. But that made it worse. For the first time, Sarah understood how much danger she could be in. And even if she hadn’t wanted Louisa to be with Richard anymore, she never meant for anything like this to happen.
She couldn’t bury Louisa and pretend nothing had happened.
Richard was back in minutes, wheeling a barrow.
‘We can’t do this,’ Sarah tried again.
‘We have to.’
‘But whatever we do tonight will have consequences.There’s no going back. If one of us says anything to the police, the other will be charged with aiding and abetting. It’s a jail sentence for us both.’
‘Can you see any other way around this?’ Richard snapped.
‘People will miss her!’
‘Really? Who?’ Richard sneered at her. ‘I chose you and her because no one cared about you. No one will come looking for Louisa, nor you for that matter. Louisa has no friends, no one except for you. And you didn’t really care about her, did you?’
